Sloan dropped his pen onto his notebook. “There’s no end to the things we don’t know. What we want, Crosby, is someone who went into the Library that evening.”
“Or someone who saw the murderer carrying the body to the armoury,” said Crosby helpfully.
Sloan looked at him for a minute and slowly picked up his pen again. “We’ve got that, haven’t we, Constable?”
“Have we, sir?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Crosby stared. “No, sir.”
“Someone saw somebody in the Great Hall, don’t you remember?”
“No, sir.”
“Just before dinner, Crosby, on Friday”—with mounting excitement. “After the dressing bell had gone. While everyone in the House could reasonably be expected to be dressing for dinner in their own rooms.”
Light began to dawn on Crosby’s face. “You don’t mean…”
“I do. Lady Alice Cremond saw…”
“Judge Cremond…”
“Exactly.”
“But he’s a ghost.”
Sloan sighed. “Do you believe in ghosts, Constable?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither do I. I’m prepared to bet that what the old lady saw—without her lorgnette, mind you—was not a sixteenth-century ghost at all, but a twentieth-century murderer carrying the body of a small man.”
It was Police Constable Albert Bloggs who disturbed them.
Dillow brought him to the gun room.
“He said you were here, sir,” said Bloggs, jerking a thumb at Dillow’s departing back. “I didn’t know whether to come straight here or to ring through to the station.”
“What about, Bloggs?” asked Sloan warily.
“That young chap, Murton, sir, who I was watching…”
“Go on.”
“He’s gone and given me the slip.”
15
« ^ »
Find him,” commanded Superintendent Leeyes briefly over the telephone.
“Yes, sir,” said Sloan.
“And quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where did he go missing?”
“Here,” said Sloan miserably.
“What!” exploded Leeyes. “You mean he’s on the loose somewhere in that ruddy great house and you don’t know where?”
“Yes, sir. Bloggs tailed him after lunch from his cottage in the village up here to the House, and then Murton went round the back somewhere and Bloggs lost him.”
“Bloggs lost him,” repeated Leeyes nastily. “Just like that. A child of ten could probably have kept him in sight. It’s very nearly Midsummer’s Day, Sloan, it’s not even dusk let alone dark and he lost him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I suppose Bloggs went round to the front door and rang the bell.”
“More or less,” admitted Sloan unhappily. He didn’t really see what else Bloggs could have done but that.
“And what has Murton come up to the house for, Sloan? Have you thought about that?”
“Yes, sir.” Sloan had in fact been thinking about very little else since Bloggs had arrived at the gun room. “I don’t know, sir, but I’m worried.”
“So am I,” said Superintendent Leeyes from the detached comfort of his own office in Berebury Police Station. “Very.”
The Countess of Ornum poured a second cup of coffee for Mr. Adrian Cossington. It was practically cold and he hadn’t asked for it anyway, but he didn’t complain. Luncheon had been over for some time and a general move away from the drawing-room was in the air.
“I’d like you to take a look at the herd, Cossington,” said the Earl. “A good year, I think after all. You sometimes get it after a bad winter.”
“Certainly, my lord. I shall look forward to that.” The very last thing the City solicitor wanted to do was to plod across the Park after the Earl hoping to catch a glimpse of the fleeting shy creatures. Legally speaking—and Mr. Cossington rarely spoke or thought otherwise—deer were not particularly interesting to him. Being
“Just the thing after a meal, a good walk in the Park,” observed the Earl.
“Very pleasant, my lord.” Cossington was still automatically considering the legal aspects of deer. The only remedy against having your own deer killed was to prevent trespass in pursuit of them or to punish the trespasser.
The Earl rose. “When you’ve finished your coffee, then, Cossington.”
The solicitor hastily swallowed the trepid fluid. Ordinarily he liked a certain amount of sang froid in his clients, but the aristocracy were inclined to carry things a little too far.
“Are you coming, too, Henry?” asked his father.
“Er… no. ’Fraid not. Got to get the car straightened out, you know. Thanks all the same.”
“Eleanor?”
“All right, I’ll come.”
Cousin Gertrude got to her feet and said heavily, “Well, this won’t do. I’ve got work to do.”
“Poor Gertrude,” said the Countess sympathetically, “you’re always so busy.”
“Someone’s got to do the flowers,” she said. “They haven’t been touched since Friday what with one thing and another.”
“Mostly one thing, what?” blurted Miles.
She ignored him. “Hackle brought some fresh flowers in this morning. That’s one thing you can say for the month of June. There’s no shortage of flowers.”
“And no shortage of vases,” observed the Countess, “so that’s all right.”
“Quite,” said Gertrude stiffly. “Quite.”
Mr. Adrian Cossington felt constrained to say something about the murder. “Are you making any changes in… er… routine since… er… yesterday’s discovery, my lord?”
The Earl stared. “Changes? Here?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“No.”
Cossington tried again. “The public, my lord. Are they still to be admitted as usual?”
“Certainly.”
“Is that wise, my lord?”
“Wise?”
“The murder…”
“If they want their vicarious bread and circuses, Cossington, I see no reason to stop them.”
“You’ll have a good crowd.”
