I was surprised at his qualification. “Almost? I’d think he’d be eliminated altogether.”
“Well, pretty near,” said Mr. Clemens. “There’s just two things I’d like to be sure of. First, did Lestrade suddenly change his mind and let Ed out today? And second, did Ed have any chance to learn where I was going today, then send a message to somebody to get out to the country and take a potshot at me? He might not be a gunman, but that don’t mean some of his pals aren’t. That Terry Mulligan might be one, for example.”
“Yes, he’s an important missing link, isn’t he? But I suppose he’s keeping himself well hid. Unless Lestrade’s men can find him, I doubt we’ll ever know what his part in this was—if he had any part at all.” The cab swayed as we rounded a corner, the springs creaking as the weight shifted. The driver said something to his horse, but the words did not quite penetrate inside to my ears.
“Well, he may turn up,” said Mr. Clemens. “If he does, we’ll find out what he knows. For now, that’s not my main problem.”
“What’s that?” I asked. “Are you worried that the gunman may come back?”
“No, not really,” said Mr. Clemens. “I don’t expect he has anything against me personally, and coming after me makes it more likely he’ll get caught. If one try won’t scare me off, I doubt he’ll try again.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. “Those shots were closer to me than to you, I think.”
“I told you the worthless jackass couldn’t shoot straight,” said Mr. Clemens, laughing. “But what I’m really worried about is Lestrade finding out about the shooting. He’d probably use that as an excuse to order me to stop trying to solve the case, or at very least to send a bobby to protect me—and incidentally to see that I don’t go anyplace he doesn’t want me to. So we won’t tell him about it, and he’ll leave me alone.”
“Don’t you think he’ll learn it on his own?” I asked. “I’d think that Scotland Yard would keep in close touch with other jurisdictions. Or the sheriff in Kent may want to ask you about the incident.”
I could see him shrug as a streetlight briefly illuminated the passing cab. “I guess Lestrade will find out about it eventually,” he said. “But police the whole world over are jealous of their own jurisdictions. Lestrade is the kind of cop who probably thinks the country police are too dumb to clean their own boots. So he may pretty much ignore their reports unless he’s bored. And the same may be true of the Kentish sheriff—he may prefer coming directly to me than to asking Scotland Yard’s help. That may give us enough time to get something done before Lestrade decides it’s too dangerous for me to be involved.”
Perhaps it is too dangerous for us to be involved, I thought. But Mr. Clemens had made up his mind to go forward, and that settled the question. It was my job to go where he went—dangerous or not. I hoped my own worries were unfounded. But I was not about to shrug them off. I found myself wondering where Martha McPhee had been this morning. She certainly knew that we planned to visit Sir Denis eventually. Had she gotten word to her husband, or some other confederate, that we were interviewing all the witnesses to the murder? Then I remembered her breaking down in front of us, and I felt a twinge of guilt for even considering Martha as possibly having set up the shooting incident.
Mrs. Clemens and her daughters had already eaten before we got home, but the cook had left a big pot of hearty chicken soup simmering on the stove, and we ate it with great chunks of buttered bread while Mrs. Clemens and the two older girls—little Jean had already gone to bed—listened to Mr. Clemens give a somewhat selective account of the day’s events. Luckily, our clothes had cleaned up well enough to pretend that nothing worse had happened to them than a tramp through the woods and a bit of kneeling on the damp ground at Sir Denis’s shooting range.
But as we were finishing our dessert, the maid came into the room and said, “Pardon me, Mr. Clemens, but there’s a man at the back door says ’e wants to see you.”
“Oh? I wonder who that could be,” said my employer, starting to stand up. Then he caught the tone of her voice and her disapproving expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“ ’Tis a great bloomin’ Irishman, and ’e’s polite enough, but you’d think ’e’d find time to wash before ’e come to visit respectable folk.” She sniffed.
“Irish, is he?” Mr. Clemens’s face lit up. “Well, don’t keep the man waiting. Bring the fellow in, bring him in here.”
“If you say so, sir,” said the servant, and she went back into the kitchen to admit the mysterious visitor.
“Irish,” I said. “Do you think—”
“I reckon we’ll know in a minute,” said my employer. “But I’d lay odds it’s the man we went looking for the other night.”
The door opened again, and in walked a man whose face I recognized, though I had seen it only briefly. “Terry Mulligan, right?” Mr. Clemens stood up and extended his hand to McPhee’s assistant, who took it in both of his and shook it.
“Aye, that’s the name,” said the man. Then he peered at my employer for a moment. “I saw your picture in the paper.”
Mr. Clemens growled. “I wonder if there’s any way to sue those bast—” Then, with a glance at his wife, he remembered his manners. “I guess you can understand why a fellow might not want his face to become too familiar.
