introduced himself. He could exercise almost a spell when he wished, and with a few sentences and a smile, he had put Miss Parchment at her ease and won her sympathy.
The novelist pulled out one of the less uncomfortable- looking of the chairs for her and turned it away from the body. She thanked him with a friendly smile and sat down.
‘What time was it when you went to your room, Miss Parchment?’ asked Paul Temple, after a time.
‘Now let me see,’ she replied. ‘It would be about—er—ten o’clock. I sat for a short while – reading. I prefer to read in bed as a rule, but the book I’m reading at the moment is so very interesting that—’
‘Yes, I’m sure it is.’ Temple headed her skilfully off what might too easily have developed into a long digression. Time was short, and Temple had a number of questions to ask before the police arrived.
‘I trust you’ve sent for the police, Mr. Temple?’ the old lady asked. ‘I do feel—’
‘Yes. The sergeant is on his way here now.’
‘What a dreadful shock it must have been for you. Personally, I can never understand the mentality of anyone who commits suicide. It always seems to me that—’
Temple looked up at her in quiet surprise. ‘What makes you so certain that this is suicide?’ he said softly.
‘What makes me so certain?’ she repeated. ‘But surely it must be suicide! Unless, of course, Mr. Daley shot him!’
Mr. Daley had been standing nearby as though mounting guard over the body. He had not taken any part in the conversation, but his head had moved from Paul Temple to Miss Parchment and back again with rapid, sparrow-like, movements. Now his eyes seemed to pop out of his head in sudden surprise.
‘’Ere! None of them insinuations!’ he started, and crossed toward Miss Parchment as if nearness would lend emphasis to his words. ‘I couldn’t kill anyone, see. Not even if I wanted to. Can’t stand the sight of blood. Makes me proper queer-like.’ Then, as though exhausted by this sudden effort, he stepped back and sat down on a bench about two yards from Temple.
‘But there doesn’t seem to be much blood, Mr. Daley.’
‘There’s enough to give me the jitters!’ he exclaimed, almost savagely. He walked up to the window and peered out into the darkness. A thought seemed to occur to him and he half-turned.
‘And if it comes to that, why wasn’t you in bed when I knocks on your door?’
‘Because, my dear Mr. Daley,’ replied Miss Parchment calmly, ‘I was reading.’
‘Like to bet it was a murder story!’ The innkeeper’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.
‘You’ll lose your bet, Mr. Daley,’ she replied sweetly, ‘It was a book on old English inns. I’m very interested in old English inns.’
Temple decided to interrupt them. There was still much that he might be able to ascertain before the police arrived. He turned to Miss Parchment to ask how long she had intended staying at the inn.
‘I hadn’t quite made up my mind,’ she replied. ‘Most probably till the end of the week.’
The innkeeper promptly took her up again. ‘You didn’t say that when you signed the register! You said it was only for one night!’
Miss Parchment was not disconcerted. She seemed to find pleasure in treating the irrepressible little Cockney with quiet dignity and endowing him with certain powers of understanding and reasoning.
Almost patronizingly, she replied: ‘It was my original intention to stay merely for the one night, but I found this inn so very, very interesting.’
Daley looked at her with astonishment. This was a new phase in a person’s character and completely beyond his comprehension.
‘Interesting?’ he asked. ‘What the ’ell’s interesting about it?’
It was Miss Parchment’s turn to appear astonished.
‘Why, so many things, my dear Mr. Daley!’ she explained patiently. ‘Do you realize the actual inn itself is over five hundred years old? Think of it. Five hundred years!’
But the innkeeper was no antiquarian. ‘Well, I’ve been ’ere the last six months,’ he grumbled, ‘and that’s long enough for me. The blinking place is dead after ’alf-past eight.’
Miss Parchment turned towards Paul Temple who was, oddly enough, thoughtfully considering her statement. ‘Five hundred years,’ he said. ‘By Timothy, that’s certainly a long time. But I was under the impression it was built about 1800?’
‘Oh, no,’ replied Miss Parchment. ‘Oh, dear, no! It goes back much farther than that.’
‘Then why should it be called “The Little General”?’ asked Temple. ‘Surely the—’
But Miss Parchment was now thoroughly at home on what appeared to be her favourite topic, and she interrupted the novelist to explain.
‘It was renamed “The Little General” about 1805,’ she said. ‘Before that it had a much more interesting name.’
Daley was looking up at her in wonderment. ‘You seem to know a dickens of a lot about this place.’
‘It’s all in the book I’m reading, Mr. Daley,’ said Miss Parchment patiently. ‘It’s all in the book.’
Horace Daley had for some little while been paying as much attention to the body as he had to Miss Parchment. Horace Daley had a peculiar aversion to dead bodies. And he told them so. He thought it was high time the police came to remove it. Then another idea occurred to him.
‘Can’t—can’t we cover him up or something till the sergeant arrives? ’E looks ’orrible just laid there staring up at the ceiling.’
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ agreed Temple.
‘I’ll get a sheet from the linen cupboard,’ said Daley. ‘Won’t be a minute.’
They heard him going upstairs and presently moving about in one of the bedrooms.
For perhaps two minutes they sat in silence.
‘Was he a very great friend of yours, Mr. Temple?’ asked Miss Parchment suddenly.
‘Not exactly what one would call a great friend. He was more a sort of business acquaintance.’
‘I see.’ Miss Parchment hesitated. ‘You know, when I first saw him, I had a vague sort of suspicion that I’d seen him before. Of course, one meets so—’
Temple interrupted her. ‘His name’s Harvey. Superintendent Harvey, of Scotland Yard.’
Miss Parchment looked up.
‘Scotland Yard!’ she said softly. ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’
There was another
