At least twenty people would confirm this, including Ebeneezer Lambert down the road.
If the Inspector should by any remote chance happen to see old Lambert he might tell him that he had lost his bet and owed him, William Murton, Esquire, a fiver.
And not to forget the esquire. We might not all be Earls, but there was no law yet against us all being esquires, was there?
And if the Inspector wanted to know who he thought had done it…
The great-aunts.
“In fact, sir,” said Crosby, as he drove Inspector Sloan from the cottage up to the House, “we aren’t short of suspects, are we?”
“No.”
“That chap ran right through the lot for us. Did you notice, sir?”
“He didn’t mention Dillow,” said Sloan, “and he didn’t mention Mr. Ames.”
“The Vicar?” said Crosby. “I hadn’t thought of him.”
“You should think of everyone, Constable. That’s what you’re here for.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He came to the house at about the right time on Friday afternoon,” said Sloan. “He told us so.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he knows about armour.”
“He doesn’t look like a murderer.”
“Neither did Crippen.”
This profound observation kept Constable Crosby quiet until they reached Ornum House.
Dillow was at hand as ever.
“The Vicar is in the Great Hall, gentlemen, waiting your arrival. Mr. Purvis is in the morning-room interviewing the Press…”
“The Queen is in the Parlour eating bread and honey,” muttered the incorrigible Crosby, irritated by all this formality.
“Very good, sir,” murmured the butler smoothly, not at all put out.
Sloan reflected that an irrepressible police constable must be child’s play to a man who had worked for that eccentric millionaire Baggles.
“And, sir, Edith, the housemaid—you indicated you wished to speak to her—is available whenever you wish.”
“Now,” suggested Sloan. “I just wanted to know when she last went into the Library.”
Dillow produced Edith immediately. She was willing and cheerful, but not bright.
“Yeth, sir”—she was slightly adenoidal too—“Saturday morning, sir. There was nobody there then.”
This was clarified by Sloan into
“That’s right,” agreed Edith. “Nobody at all.”
“Did you go right into the Library—to the very far end?”
“Oh, yeth, sir.”
“Passed the farthest bay?”
“Yeth, sir. Because of the General.”
“The General?”
“Yeth, sir. He gets very dusty if you leave him over the day.”
“Ah, you mean the bust…”
Edith looked as if she hadn’t liked to mention the word in front of three gentlemen. She nodded.
“And what time would that have been?”
“Nine o’clock, sir. After I cleared the breakfasts.”
“Thank you, Edith. That’s all.”
Edith looked relieved and went. In the distance at the top of the great balustraded staircase they caught a glimpse of Cousin Gertrude tramping across the upper landing.
Mr. Ames was waiting for them in the Great Hall. He looked older in broad daylight.
“We’ve just been checking a few facts,” said Sloan truthfully. “The family and so forth.”
“One of the oldest in the County,” said the Vicar. “Hereditary Beacon Keepers to the Crown for Calleshire since the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First…”
Sloan hadn’t meant that sort of fact.
“She was afraid of the Spanish coming, you know, Inspector.”
“Really?”
“The old Norman Tower above the Keep has a flat roof.” The Vicar smiled a clerical smile. “The Norman invasion, you remember, had been a successful one. A highly successful one.”
“Yes, sir”—stolidly.
“A beacon fire lit there could be seen from the roof of Calle Castle, which is some way inland. They in turn would light a beacon fire there and so on.”
“I see, sir, thank you.”
“And then there was Charles the Second.”
Sloan was not interested in Charles the Second.
“He,” said Mr. Ames, “Was afraid of the Dutch. Now George the Third…”
Sloan had come about murder not history.
“He was worried about the French. Napoleon, you know.”
“I don’t think the historical side concerns us, Vicar.” It was, after all, as Superintendent Leeyes had said, the twentieth century.
“And then,” said Mr. Ames, unheeding, “there was 1940 and the Germans. We had a really big beacon all ready for firing then. Bert Hackle’s father—old Hackle—he used to keep look-out…”
“Quite so, sir. Now if we might come back to the more immediate past—like Friday.”
With police-like patience he set about taking the Vicar through all the details of his abortive visit to the house following Osborne Meredith’s message. Mr. Ames obediently detailed his story for the second time.
He had had a message, he had come up to the House, he had not seen Meredith in the Muniments Room or anywhere else.
“The documents chests,” said Sloan suddenly. “Were they shut or open?”
The Vicar screwed up his eyes the better to remember. “Open,” he said eventually. “That’s what made me think Meredith would still be about somewhere.”
“Did you see anyone else while you were here?”
“Dillow—he said he thought Meredith had gone home as he wasn’t about—and Miss Cremond—Miss Gertrude Cremond, you know. She was cleaning the chandelier in here.”
They all looked upwards.
“A very lovely piece,” said Mr. Ames. “French crystal.”
“Was she alone?” asked Sloan.
The Vicar nodded. “Miss Cremond,” he murmured diplomatically, “is in total charge of all the Ornum china and glass. Lady Eleanor helps her with the flowers, but Miss Cremond handles all the rest herself.”
“I see, sir.”
“It was all still down on the table when I saw her,” said Mr. Ames. “Hundreds of pieces.”
“A day’s work,” agreed Sloan, turning to go.
As he did so he stopped in his tracks.
Sloan would not have described himself as a sensitive man. If he thought of himself at all it was as an ordinary policeman—warts and all. But at that moment—as he stood with Crosby and the Vicar in the Great Hall— the atavistic sensation came to him that they were being watched.
It was a very primitive feeling.
The hairs on the back of his neck erected themselves and an involuntary little shiver passed down his spine. Primeval reactions that were established long before Man built himself his first shelter—let alone medieval castles.
Sloan let his gaze run casually round the Great Hall. It was not long before he spotted the peephole up near
