"Er —" I began.
Inspector Slack turned a slow suspicious stare upon me, and I felt hot all over. Dennis is exceedingly tiresome. He ought to realise that a policeman seldom has a sense of humour.
"Don't be absurd, Dennis," I said irritably.
The innocent child opened his eyes in a stare of surprise.
"I say, it's only a joke," he said. "Uncle Len just said that any one who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world a service."
"Ah!" said Inspector Slack, "that explains something the maid said."
Servants very seldom have any sense of humour either. I cursed Dennis heartily in my mind for bringing the matter up. That and the clock together will make the inspector suspicious of me for life.
"Come on, Clement," said Colonel Melchett.
"Where are you going? Can I come, too?" asked Dennis.
"No, you can't," I snapped.
We left him looking after us with a hurt expression. We went up to the neat front door of Mrs. Price Ridley's house and the inspector knocked and rang in what I can only describe as an official manner. A pretty parlourmaid answered the bell.
"Mrs. Price Ridley in?" inquired Melchett.
"No, sir." The maid paused and added: "She's just gone down to the police station."
This was a totally unexpected development. As we retraced our steps Melchett caught me by the arm and murmured:
"If she's gone to confess to the crime, too, I really shall go off my head."
Chapter XIII
I hardly thought it likely that Mrs. Price Ridley had anything so dramatic in view, but I did wonder what had taken her to the police station. Had she really got evidence of importance, or that she thought of importance, to offer? At any rate, we should soon know.
We found Mrs. Price Ridley talking at a high rate of speed to a somewhat bewildered_looking police constable. That she was extremely indignant I knew from the way the bow in her hat was trembling. Mrs. Price Ridley wears what, I believe, are known as "Hats for Matrons" — they make a speciality of them in our adjacent town of Much Benham. They perch easily on a superstructure of hair and are somewhat overweighted with large bows of ribbon. Griselda is always threatening to get a matron's hat.
Mrs. Price Ridley paused in her flow of words upon our entrance.
"Mrs. Price Ridley?" inquired Colonel Melchett, lifting his hat.
"Let me introduce Colonel Melchett to you, Mrs. Price Ridley," I said. "Colonel Melchett is our Chief Constable."
Mrs. Price Ridley looked at me coldly, but produced the semblance of a gracious smile for the colonel.
"We've just been round to your house, Mrs. Price Ridley," explained the colonel, "and heard you had come down here."
Mrs. Price Ridley thawed altogether.
"Ah!" she said, "I'm glad some notice is being taken of the occurrence. Disgraceful, I call it. Simply disgraceful."
There is no doubt that murder is disgraceful, but it is not the word I should use to describe it myself. It surprised Melchett too, I could see.
"Have you any light to throw upon the matter?" he asked.
"That's your business. It's the business of the police. What do we pay rates and taxes for, I should like to know?"
One wonders how many times that query is uttered in a year!
"We're doing our best, Mrs. Price Ridley," said the Chief Constable.
"But the man here hadn't even heard of it till I told him about it!" cried the lady.
We all looked at the constable.
"Lady been rung up on the telephone," he said. "Annoyed. Matter of obscene language, I understand."
"Oh! I see." The colonel's brow cleared. "We've been talking at cross purposes. You came down here to make a complaint, did you?"
Melchett is a wise man. He knows that when it is a question of an irate middle_aged lady, there is only one thing to be done — to listen to her. When she has said all that she wants to say, there is a chance that she will listen to you.
Mrs. Price Ridley surged into speech.
"Such disgraceful occurrences ought to be prevented. They ought not to occur. To be rung up in one's own house and insulted — yes, insulted. I'm not accustomed to such things happening. Ever since the war there has been a loosening of moral fibre. Nobody minds what they say, and as to the clothes they wear —"
"Quite," said Colonel Melchett hastily. "What happened exactly?"
Mrs. Price Ridley took breath and started again.
"I was rung up —"
"When?"
"Yesterday afternoon — evening to be exact. About half_past six. I went to the telephone, suspecting nothing. Immediately I was foully attacked, threatened —"
"What actually was said?"
Mrs. Price Ridley got slightly pink.
"That I decline to state."
"Obscene language," murmured the constable in a ruminative bass.
"Was bad language used?" asked Colonel Melchett
"It depends on what you call bad language."
"Could you understand it?" I asked.
"Of course I could understand it."
"Then it couldn't have been bad language," I said.
Mrs. Price Ridley looked at me suspiciously.
"A refined lady," I explained, "is naturally unacquainted with bad language."
"It wasn't that kind of thing," said Mrs. Price Ridley. "At first, I must admit, I was quite taken in. I thought it was a genuine message. Then the — er — person became abusive."
"Abusive?"
"Most abusive. I was quite alarmed."
"Used threatening language, eh?"
"Yes. I am not accustomed to being threatened."
"What did they threaten you with? Bodily damage?"
"Not exactly."
"I'm afraid, Mrs. Price Ridley, you must be more explicit. In what way were you threatened?"
This Mrs. Price Ridley seemed singularly reluctant to answer.
"I can't remember exactly. It was all so upsetting. But right at the end — when I was really very upset, this — this — wretch laughed."
"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?"
"It was a degenerate voice," said Mrs. Price Ridley, with dignity. "I can only describe it as a kind of perverted voice. Now gruff, now squeaky. Really a very peculiar voice."
"Probably a practical joke," said the colonel soothingly.
"A most wicked thing to do, if so. I might have had a heart attack."
"We'll look into it," said the colonel; "eh, inspector? Trace the telephone call. You can't tell me more definitely exactly what was said, Mrs. Price Ridley?"
A struggle began in Mrs. Price Ridley's ample black bosom. The desire for reticence fought against a desire for vengeance. Vengeance triumphed.
"This, of course, will go no further," she began.
"Of course not."
"This creature began by saying — I can hardly bring myself to repeat it —"
" Yes, yes," said Melchett encouragingly.
"'You are a wicked scandal_mongering old woman!' Me, Colonel Melchett — a scandal_mongering old woman. 'But this time you've gone too far. Scotland Yard are after you for libel.'"
"Naturally, you were alarmed," said Melchett, biting his moustache to conceal a smile.
"'Unless you hold your tongue in future, it will be the worse for you — in more ways than one.' I can't describe to you the menacing way that was said. I gasped, 'Who are you?' faintly — like that, and the voice answered, 'The Avenger.' I gave a little shriek. It sounded so awful, and then — the person laughed. Laughed! Distinctly. And that was all. I heard them hang up the receiver. Of course I asked the exchange what number had been ringing me up, but they said they didn't know. You know what exchanges are. Thoroughly rude and unsympathetic."
"Quite," I said.
"I felt quite faint," continued Mrs. Price Ridley. "All on edge and so nervous that when I heard a shot in the woods, I do declare I jumped almost out of my skin. That will show you."
"A shot in the woods?" said Inspector Slack alertly.
"In my excited state, it simply sounded to me like a cannon going off. 'Oh!' I said, and sank down on the sofa in a state of prostration. Clara had to bring me a glass of damson gin."
"Shocking," said Melchett. "Shocking. All very trying for you. And the shot sounded very loud, you say? As though it were near at hand?"
"That was simply the state of my nerves."
"Of course. Of course. And what time was all this? To help us in tracing the telephone call, you know."
"About half_past six."
"You can't give it us more exactly than that?"
"Well, you see, the little clock on my mantelpiece had just chimed the half_hour, and I said, 'Surely that clock is fast.' (It does gain, that clock.) And I compared it with the watch I was wearing and that only said ten minutes past, but then I put it to my ear and found it had stopped. So I thought: 'Well, if that clock is fast, I shall hear the church tower in a moment or two.' And then, of course, the telephone bell rang, and I forgot all about it." She paused breathless.
"Well, that near enough," said Colonel Melchett. "We'll have it looked into for you, Mrs. Price Ridley."
"Just think of it as a silly joke, and don't worry, Mrs. Price Ridley," I said.
She looked at me coldly. Evidently the incident of the pound note still rankled.
"Very strange things have been happening in this village lately," she said, addressing herself to Melchett. "Very strange things indeed. Colonel Protheroe was going to look into them, and what happened to him, poor man? Perhaps I shall be the next?"
And on that she took her departure, shaking her head with a kind of ominous melancholy. Melchett muttered under his breath: "No such luck." Then his face grew grave, and he looked inquiringly at Inspector Slack.
That worthy nodded his head slowly.
"This about settles it, sir. That's three people who heard the shot. We've got to find out now who fired it. This business of Mr. Redding's has delayed us. But we've got several starting points. Thinking Mr. Redding was guilty, I didn't bother to look into them. But that's all changed now. And now one of the first things to do is to look up that telephone call."
"Mrs. Price Ridley's?"
The inspector grinned.
"No — though I suppose we'd better make a note of that or else we shall have the old girl bothering in here again. No, I meant that fake call that got the vicar out of the way."
"Yes," said Melchett, "that's important."
"And the next thing is to find out what every one was doing that evening between six and seven. Every one at Old Hall, I mean, and pretty well every one in the village as well."
I gave a sigh.
"What wonderful energy you have, Inspector Slack."
"I believe in hard work. We'll begin by just noting down your own movements, Mr. Clement.''
"Willingly. The telephone call came through about half_past five."
"A man's voice, or a woman's?"
"A woman's. At least it sounded like a woman's. But of course I took it for granted it was Mrs. Abbott speaking."
"You didn't recognise it as being Mrs. Abbott's?"
"No, I can't say I did. I didn't notice the voice particularly or think about it."
"And you started right away? Walked? Haven't you got a bicycle?"
"No."
"I see. So it took you — how long?"
"It's very nearly two miles, whichever way you go."
"Through Old Hall woods is the shortest way, isn't it?"
"Actually, yes. But it's not particularly good going. I went and came back by the footpath across the fields."
"The one that comes out opposite the Vicarage gate?"
"Yes."
"And Mrs. Clement?"
"My wife was in London. She arrived back by the 6.50 train."
"Right. The maid I've seen. That finishes with the Vicarage. I'll be off to Old Hall next. And then I want an interview with Mrs. Lestrange. Queer, her going to see Protheroe the night before he was killed. A lot of queer things about this case."
I agreed.
Glancing at the clock, I realised that it was nearly lunch time, I invited Melchett to partake of pot luck with us, but he excused himself on the plea of having to go to the Blue Boar. The Blue Boar gives you a first_rate meal of the joint and two_vegetable type. I thought his choice was a wise one. After her interview with the police, Mary would probably be feeling more temperamental than usual.
Chapter XIV
On my way home, I ran into Miss Hartnell and she detained me at least ten minutes, declaiming in her deep bass voice against the improvidence and ungratefulness of the lower classes. The crux of the matter seemed to be that The Poor did not want Miss Hartnell in their houses. My sympathies were entirely on their side. I am debarred by my social standing from expressing my prejudices in the forceful manner they do.
I soothed her as best I could and made my escape.
Haydock overtook me in his car at the corner of the Vicarage road. ''I've just taken Mrs. Protheroe home," he called.
He waited for me at the gate of his house.
"Come in a minute," he said. I complied.
"This is an extraordinary business," he said, as he threw his hat on a chair and opened the door into his surgery.
He sank down on a shabby leather chair and stared across the room. He looked harried and perplexed.
I told him that we had succeeded in fixing the time of the shot. He listened with an almost abstracted air.
"That lets Anne Protheroe out," he said. "Well, well, I'm glad it's neither of those two. I like 'em both."
I believed him, and yet it occurred to me to wonder why, since, as he said, he liked them both, their freedom from complicity seemed to have had the result of plunging him in gloom. This morning he had looked a man with a weight lifted from his mind, now he looked thoroughly rattled and upset.
