the point of leaving. Harvey gave me to understand that he was staying the night here at “The Little General”. Unfortunately, I persuaded the poor devil to change his mind and stay the night with me. We came down here to get his luggage and—’
‘What time would that be?’ interrupted the sergeant.
‘Oh, about eleven-fifteen, I should say. Certainly no later.’
‘Go on,’ commanded Sergeant Morrison, preparing to make a note of the details.
‘Well,’ continued Temple, ‘I waited outside for him in my car. After about five minutes or so, Mr. Daley came running out. He was very excited and obviously upset. He told me that Harvey had shot himself.’
The sergeant finished scribbling the sentence down, drew a heavy line across the page, then turned back to the innkeeper.
‘Now let’s hear your side of the story, Daley,’ he asked.
Horace was determined to stand on his dignity. ‘Mr. Daley, if you don’t mind,’ he said, by way of prefix. ‘Well, I was standin’ behind the bar doin’ me crossword puzzle when this fellow comes in and says ’e’s changed ’is mind about staying ’ere the night. ’E pops upstairs and brings down ’is suitcase. Then ’e asks me if I could change ’im a quid. I says “yes!” and goes into the back parlour to get the money. When I gets back, I sees ’im just like ’e is now. Coo, it wasn’t ’alf a nasty shock, I can tell you!’
Sergeant Morrison knew very little shorthand, but he could write quickly and with fair legibility, and rarely had to ask anybody to repeat something they had said.
He finished writing what Daley had just told him, before asking: ‘Had you seen him before?’
‘Yes, of course I had,’ replied the innkeeper impatiently. ‘I was ’ere when ’e first arrived.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘Oh, I dunno. About five perhaps.’
‘Was there anyone in here tonight, when he returned for his luggage?’
Perhaps the question was a little obvious, at any rate it certainly seemed to annoy the little Cockney.
‘Yes, dozens o’ people,’ he retorted, with a wealth of broad sarcasm in his voice. ‘About fifteen platinum blondes and a couple o’ film stars. We had our gala night, Sergeant. You must join in the fun some time.’
The cheeks of Sergeant Morrison gradually suffused to a delicate hue of pink. From pink they changed as gradually to carmine and then, more rapidly, to a perilously deep purple.
For a moment a serious explosion seemed imminent. Then the danger passed.
‘Don’t try an’ be funny!’ was all he could growl at the innkeeper. ‘And answer the questions!’ he suddenly snapped out.
‘Anyone ’ere at a quarter past eleven,’ the little Cockney replied unperturbed. ‘Coo! Why, the perishin’ place is dead after ’alf-past eight.’
‘Is there anyone else staying here at the moment?’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ answered Temple. ‘This lady, Miss Parchment.’
Miss Parchment had been sitting quietly on the chair Paul Temple had offered her some time before. She had not moved. Nor had she spoken. But with her bright blue eyes she had been following everything very intently. There could have been little that she had missed. Nobody had noticed her in the excitement of the moment, and it was with a start of quite real surprise that Sergeant Morrison became aware of her existence.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, taking in the fact that here was possibly a source of much-needed information, and corroboration. ‘Well, Madam, can—er—you throw any light on this matter?’
‘I’m afraid not, Sergeant,’ replied Miss Parchment calmly. ‘I was in my room reading when Mr. Daley arrived with the news that this gentleman had shot himself and that a Mr. Temple wished to see me. Naturally, I was dreadfully upset about the matter and so of course—’
This was more than Horace Daley could stand. ‘You didn’t look very upset to me,’ he interrupted.
‘I have learnt to control my emotions,’ answered Miss Parchment sweetly.
For once, the innkeeper had nothing to say in return. Miss Parchment, when she chose, could silence him very effectively with a few polite words, whereas all Sergeant Morrison’s abuse, and for that matter anybody else’s, only served to stimulate him the more.
Nothing seemed to ruffle Miss Parchment. Even the present tragedy had affected her less than some queer discovery she might have made about one of the old English inns that interested her so much. She had been sitting there in her chair, regarding the scene with a completely dispassionate interest. Now and then a slight smile flickered across her face. Then it vanished again. She clearly had a delicate, almost evanescent sense of humour. Cruder sallies left her unmoved. As unmoved as did the corpse on the bar parlour floor in front of her. The harsher realities of life, and death, appeared to have no part in her scheme of things. From the police point of view, she made an admirable witness in that she was so calm and collected, an advantage even if she had little of any value to tell him.
‘Well, Miss Parchment, how long have you been staying here?’
‘I arrived yesterday afternoon, Sergeant,’ she replied. ‘I’m on a walking tour of the Vale of Evesham. I’m interested in old English inns,’ she explained with a smile. ‘Very old English inns.’
‘Yes—er—yes, just so,’ replied the sergeant, not too intelligently. He felt perplexed and, for some strange reason, Miss Parchment embarrassed him.
‘Could I have your full name and permanent address?’ he asked gruffly, trying to make his voice as formal and official as possible, but with little success.
‘Amelia Victoria Parchment,’ said Miss Parchment, as the sergeant commenced to write, ‘47B, Brook Street, London, W.1.’ With a word of thanks, that was more a sigh of gratitude that this part was all over, he turned back to Horace Daley. There was still the point to be cleared up of how the murderer, if any, could have made good his escape.
Temple had been sitting in his car immediately outside the inn during the actual tragedy, and he was certain that nobody had left or entered from the front of the inn. And the back was apparently impossible. Was it, after all then, a question of suicide?
‘Now, Mr. Daley,’ the sergeant said, this time with slightly more respect in his voice, ‘could anyone have come in here whilst you were in the back parlour?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘They could ’ave come from either upstairs or from the street.’
‘What about from the back,’ the sergeant persisted; ‘there’s an open courtyard, isn’t there?’
‘Yes, but there’s no way o’ gettin’ into the inn except through the back parlour, an’ I was in there all the time.’
Sergeant Morrison grunted heavily. The mystery was too much for him.
At that moment the door behind the bar counter opened, and
