the door and said her master was not up yet.
“Will you kindly tell him that Inspector Rudge wants to see him at once. Say I’m sorry to disturb him, but it’s most important.”
“I’ll tell him, sir. Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, no. I’ll wait here.”
“Hullo, I say, are you a policeman?”
He turned. Two boys had come across the lawn, aged, respectively, about sixteen and fourteen, dressed in flannel trousers and shirts open at the neck, and carrying bathing towels. They were regarding him eagerly.
“Yes,” he said, “I am.”
“Good egg!” exclaimed the elder, “just what we want, isn’t he, Alec? Look here; some blighter has taken our boat—cut the painter. Perhaps you’ve heard about it, though? Is that what you’ve come about?”
The Inspector smiled grimly.
“Yes—that’s what I’ve come about, young gentlemen,” he replied, dryly, “but you needn’t worry about your boat. It’s been found.”
“Hooray!” exclaimed the other boy. “Got the beggar who took it?”
“Not yet,” said Rudge, with another grim little smile, “that may not be so easy. Have you got another boat handy?” he asked.
“Only our old punt—she’s in the boat-house.”
“Well, do you two young gentlemen think you could manage to put my detective-sergeant here across the water in her? He wants to pay a call at Rundel Croft.”
“Rather!” Peter Mount looked with boyish admiration at the sergeant. “Is there going to be a man-hunt? Cheerio! We’ll help you. But you don’t suspect old Admiral Penistone of sneaking our boat, do you? He crossed back in his own last night. He’d been dining here, you know.”
“Oh, had he!” said the Inspector. “No, we don’t suspect him. Now—will you do what I asked?”
“Come on,” said Alec to Sergeant Appleton, “the tide’s running pretty strong, but we’ll put you across all right.”
They went down to the boat-house with the sergeant.
“Good morning, Inspector. Good morning, Doctor Grice—ah—it’s you, Ware, I see. What’s the meaning of this early morning deputation?”
The Vicar had come out of the house; a man of about fifty, of medium height, sturdily built, with clear-cut features and hair a little grey. He asked the question of the Inspector, who replied:
“I’ll explain directly, Mr. Mount. Is this your hat?”
The Vicar took it and looked at it.
“Yes; certainly it is.”
“Then would you mind telling me if you remember when you had it last?”
“That is quite simple. To be absolutely accurate, at twenty minutes past ten last evening.”
“And where?”
“You are very mysterious, Inspector. But I’ll tell you. My neighbour who lives opposite was dining with us last evening, with his niece. They left just about ten. I went down to the river to see them off, and put my hat on. After the Admiral had crossed the stream in his boat with his niece I sat down in that little summer-house and smoked a pipe. I took off my hat and laid it on the seat beside me—and, absent-mindedly, I forgot to put it on again when I returned to the house. It was then that I set my watch by the clock in the hall—twenty minutes past ten. But will you tell me why you ask me this—and what you have all come about?”
“I will, sir. This hat was found in your boat early this morning. Your boat was drifting with the tide up-stream. And in her was the dead body of your opposite neighbour, Admiral Penistone—murdered, Mr. Mount.”
CHAPTER II
By G. D. H. and M. Cole
BREAKING THE NEWS
“MURDERED! Good God!” the Vicar said—and it was well known, the Inspector reflected, that the Vicar of Lingham had a ridiculously exaggerated respect for the Third Commandment. He had stepped back a pace at the shock of the news, and some of the colour was fading from his cheeks. “But—murdered. … How—what do you mean, Inspector?”
“I mean,” said Rudge, “that Admiral Penistone was stabbed to the heart some time before midnight last night—and his body placed in your boat.”
“But what—why … ? How could he have been?”
“And your hat,” the Inspector remorselessly amplified, “was lying in the boat beside him. So you see,” he added, “that the first thing I had to do was to make enquiries at your house.”
The Vicar turned on his heel abruptly. “Come into my study,” he said. “We can talk better there—I don’t suppose you want my sons, at present?” The Inspector shook his head, and followed him into a quiet, brown room with wide sash windows, the very model of what a clerical study, owned by a none too tidy cleric, should be. As he led the way in, the Vicar stumbled over something, and with a little gasp caught hold of the table for support. “You—you must excuse me,” he muttered, as he motioned the Inspector to a chair and sank into one himself. “This is—a very great shock. Now, will you tell me what I can do for you?”
Rudge scanned him a minute before replying. Undoubtedly he had received a very great shock. He was pale; his hands were none too steady; and his breath was coming and going quickly. Whether the cause was merely the sudden impact of violent death on a sheltered clerical life, or whether there was some graver reason, the Inspector did not know enough to decide. At any rate, there was no sense in causing further alarm at the moment. So when he spoke it was in a gentle reassuring tone.
“What I want to find out immediately, Mr. Mount, is exactly what happened last night, as far as you know it. Admiral Penistone, you say, came over to dine with his niece—what is the lady’s name, by the way?”
“Fitzgerald—Miss Elma Fitzgerald. She is his sister’s daughter, I understand.”
“About what age?”
“Oh—I should say a year or two over thirty.”
“Thank you. They arrived—when?”
“Just before seven-thirty. In their boat.”
“And left?”
“Slightly after ten. I can’t fix it to the minute, I’m afraid; but they were just taking their leave when the church clock struck, and Admiral Penistone said, ‘Hurry up, I want to get back before midnight’—or something of that sort; and within a very few minutes they were gone.”
“And you saw them off?”
“Yes. I went down to the landing-stage with them, and Peter—that’s my eldest son—helped them to start. It’s sometimes a little awkward getting off, if the current
