telling you I’m sorry about Redding. He always struck me as a decent young chap. Perhaps they’ll think out some kind of defence for him. After-effects of war, shell shock, or something. Especially if no very adequate motive turns up. I must be off. Like to come along?’
I said I would like to very much, and we went out together.
Haydock’s house is next door to mine. His servant said the doctor had just come in and showed us into the dining-room, where Haydock was sitting down to a steaming plate of eggs and bacon. He greeted me with an amiable nod.
‘Sorry I had to go out. Confinement case. I’ve been up most of the night, over your business. I’ve got the bullet for you.’
He shoved a little box along the table. Melchett examined it.
‘Point two five?’
Haydock nodded.
‘I’ll keep the technical details for the inquest,’ he said. ‘All you want to know is that death was practically instantaneous. Silly young fool, what did he want to do it for? Amazing, by the way, that nobody heard the shot.’
‘Yes,’ said Melchett, ‘that surprises me.’
‘The kitchen window gives on the other side of the house,’ I said. ‘With the study door, the pantry door, and the kitchen door all shut, I doubt if you would hear anything, and there was no one but the maid in the house.’
‘H’m,’ said Melchett. ‘It’s odd, all the same. I wonder the old lady – what’s her name – Marple, didn’t hear it. The study window was open.’
‘Perhaps she did,’ said Haydock.
‘I don’t think she did,’ said I. ‘She was over at the Vicarage just now and she didn’t mention anything of the kind which I’m certain she would have done if there had been anything to tell.’
‘May have heard it and paid no attention to it – thought it was a car back-firing.’
It struck me that Haydock was looking much more jovial and good-humoured this morning. He seemed like a man who was decorously trying to subdue unusually good spirits.
‘Or what about a silencer?’ he added. ‘That’s quite likely. Nobody would hear anything then.’
Melchett shook his head.
‘Slack didn’t find anything of the kind, and he asked Redding, and Redding didn’t seem to know what he was talking about at first and then denied point blank using anything of the kind. And I suppose one can take his word for it.’
‘Yes, indeed, poor devil.’
‘Damned young fool,’ said Colonel Melchett. ‘Sorry, Clement. But he really is! Somehow one can’t get used to thinking of him as a murderer.’
‘Any motive?’ asked Haydock, taking a final draught of coffee and pushing back his chair.
‘He says they quarrelled and he lost his temper and shot him.’
‘Hoping for manslaughter, eh?’ The doctor shook his head. ‘That story doesn’t hold water. He stole up behind him as he was writing and shot him through the head. Precious little “quarrel” about that.’
‘Anyway, there wouldn’t have been time for a quarrel,’ I said, remembering Miss Marple’s words. ‘To creep up, shoot him, alter the clock hands back to 6.20, and leave again would have taken him all his time. I shall never forget his face when I met him outside the gate, or the way he said, “You want to see Protheroe – oh, you’ll see him all right!” That in itself ought to have made me suspicious of what had just taken place a few minutes before.’
Haydock stared at me.
‘What do you mean – what had just taken place? When do you think Redding shot him?’
‘A few minutes before I got to the house.’
The doctor shook his head.
‘Impossible. Plumb impossible. He’d been dead much longer than that.’
‘But, my dear man,’ cried Colonel Melchett, ‘you said yourself that half an hour was only an approximate estimate.’
‘Half an hour, thirty-five minutes, twenty-five minutes, twenty minutes – possibly, but less, no. Why, the body would have been warm when I got to it.’
We stared at each other. Haydock’s face had changed. It had gone suddenly grey and old. I wondered at the change in him.
‘But, look here, Haydock.’ The Colonel found his voice. ‘If Redding admits shooting him at a quarter to seven –’
Haydock sprang to his feet.
‘I tell you it’s impossible,’ he roared. ‘If Redding says he killed Protheroe at a quarter to seven, then Redding lies. Hang it all, I tell you I’m a doctor, and I know. The blood had begun to congeal.’
‘If Redding is lying,’ began Melchett. He stopped, shook his head.
‘We’d better go down to the police station and see him,’ he said.
We were rather silent on our way down to the police station. Haydock drew behind a little and murmured to me:
‘You know I don’t like the look of this. I don’t like it. There’s something here we don’t understand.’
He looked thoroughly worried and upset.
Inspector Slack was at the police station and presently we found ourselves face to face with Lawrence Redding.
He looked pale and strained but quite composed – marvellously so, I thought, considering the circumstances. Melchett snorted and hummed, obviously nervous.
‘Look here, Redding,’ he said, ‘I understand you made a statement to Inspector Slack here. You state you went to the Vicarage at approximately a quarter to seven, found Protheroe there, quarrelled with him, shot him, and came away. I’m not reading it over to you, but that’s the gist of it.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to ask a few questions. You’ve already been told that you needn’t answer them unless you choose. Your solicitor –’
Lawrence interrupted.
‘I’ve nothing to hide. I killed Protheroe.’
‘Ah! well –’ Melchett snorted. ‘How did you happen to have a pistol with you?’
Lawrence hesitated. ‘It was in my pocket.’
‘You took it with you to the Vicarage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I
