Slack looked slightly baffled.
‘Elderly women bore me dreadfully,’ said Mrs Lestrange. ‘And Miss Hartnell is particularly boring. She must have rung at least half a dozen times before she went away.’
She smiled sweetly at Inspector Slack.
The Inspector shifted his ground.
‘Then if anyone were to say they’d seen you out and about then –’
‘Oh! but they didn’t, did they?’ She was quick to sense his weak point. ‘No one saw me out, because I was in, you see.’
‘Quite so, madam.’
The Inspector hitched his chair a little nearer.
‘Now I understand, Mrs Lestrange, that you paid a visit to Colonel Protheroe at Old Hall the night before his death.’
Mrs Lestrange said calmly: ‘That is so.’
‘Can you indicate to me the nature of that interview?’
‘It concerned a private matter, Inspector.’
‘I’m afraid I must ask you tell me the nature of that private matter.’
‘I shall not tell you anything of the kind. I will only assure you that nothing which was said at that interview could possibly have any bearing upon the crime.’
‘I don’t think you are the best judge of that.’
‘At any rate, you will have to take my word for it, Inspector.’
‘In fact, I have to take your word about everything.’
‘It does seem rather like it,’ she agreed, still with the same smiling calm.
Inspector Slack grew very red.
‘This is a serious matter, Mrs Lestrange. I want the truth –’ He banged his fist down on a table. ‘And I mean to get it.’
Mrs Lestrange said nothing at all.
‘Don’t you see, madam, that you’re putting yourself in a very fishy position?’
Still Mrs Lestrange said nothing.
‘You’ll be required to give evidence at the inquest.’
‘Yes.’
Just the monosyllable. Unemphatic, uninterested. The Inspector altered his tactics.
‘You were acquainted with Colonel Protheroe?’
‘Yes, I was acquainted with him.’
‘Well acquainted?’
There was a pause before she said:
‘I had not seen him for several years.’
‘You were acquainted with Mrs Protheroe?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll excuse me, but it was a very unusual time to make a call.’
‘Not from my point of view.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I wanted to see Colonel Protheroe alone. I did not want to see Mrs Protheroe or Miss Protheroe. I considered this the best way of accomplishing my object.’
‘Why didn’t you want to see Mrs or Miss Protheroe?’
‘That, Inspector, is my business.’
‘Then you refuse to say more?’
‘Absolutely.’
Inspector Slack rose.
‘You’ll be putting yourself in a nasty position, madam, if you’re not careful. All this looks bad – it looks very bad.’
She laughed. I could have told Inspector Slack that this was not the kind of woman who is easily frightened.
‘Well,’ he said, extricating himself with dignity, ‘don’t say I haven’t warned you, that’s all. Good afternoon, madam, and mind you we’re going to get at the truth.’
He departed. Mrs Lestrange rose and held out her hand.
‘I am going to send you away – yes, it is better so. You see, it is too late for advice now. I have chosen my part.’
She repeated in a rather forlorn voice:
‘I have chosen my part.’
As I went out I ran into Haydock on the doorstep. He glanced sharply after Slack, who was just passing through the gate, and demanded: ‘Has he been questioning her?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s been civil, I hope?’
Civility, to my mind, is an art which Inspector Slack has never learnt, but I presumed that according to his own lights, civil he had been, and anyway, I didn’t want to upset Haydock any further. He was looking worried and upset as it was. So I said he had been quite civil.
Haydock nodded and passed on into the house, and I went on down the village street, where I soon caught up the inspector. I fancy that he was walking slowly on purpose. Much as he dislikes me, he is not the man to let dislike stand in the way of acquiring any useful information.
‘Do you know anything about the lady?’ he asked me point blank.
I said I knew nothing whatever.
‘She’s never said anything about why she came here to live?’
‘No.’
‘Yet you go and see her?’
‘It is one of my duties to call on my parishioners,’ I replied, evading to remark that I had been sent for.
‘H’m, I suppose it is.’ He was silent for a minute or two and then, unable to resist discussing his recent failure, he went on: ‘Fishy business, it looks to me.’
‘You think so?’
‘If you ask me, I say “blackmail.” Seems funny, when you think of what Colonel Protheroe was always supposed to be. But there, you never can tell. He wouldn’t be the first churchwarden who’d led a double life.’
Faint remembrances of Miss Marple’s remarks on the same subject floated through my mind.
‘You really think that’s likely?’
‘Well,
