“Slipped off the road, evidently. There are a lot of rocks by the roadside thereabouts, and a man could hide himself quick enough among them, if he were put to it,” Sir Clinton pointed out.
The inspector seemed to find the suggestion unsatisfying.
“There’s just one point you’ve overlooked, I think, sir,” he criticised. “Remember what Cargill told you. With the light as it was, he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman who shot him.”
Wendover flamed up at the inspector’s insinuation.
“Look here, inspector,” he said angrily, “you seem to be suffering from an idée fixe about Mrs. Fleetwood. First of all you insist that she murdered Staveley. Now you want to make out that she shot Cargill; and you know perfectly well the thing’s absurd. You haven’t got a shred of evidence to make your ideas hang together in this last affair—not a shred.”
“I’m not talking about evidence just now, Mr. Wendover. There’s been no time to collect any as yet. I’m just taking a look at possibilities; and this is quite within the bounds of possibility, as you’ll see. Suppose Mrs. Fleetwood came out of Lynden Sands village and drove up the road towards Flatt’s cottage. She could see the door of it as she came up the hill to the corner. You’ll not deny that, I suppose?”
“No,” Wendover admitted contemptuously. “That’s quite possible.”
“Then suppose, further,” the inspector went on, “that just before she reached the corner the door of Flatt’s cottage opened and a man came out. In the light from the open door he’d be fairly plain to anyone in her position—but not too plain.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Wendover demanded brusquely. “Haven’t you Cargill’s own evidence that he knows nobody hereabouts except Derek Fordingbridge? Why should Mrs. Fleetwood want to shoot a total stranger? You’re not suggesting that she’s a homicidal maniac, are you?”
“No,” Armadale retorted, “I’m suggesting that she mistook Cargill’s figure for somebody else—somebody whom she’d a good reason for putting out of the way. She’d only get a glimpse of him as he opened and shut the cottage door. A mistake’s quite on the cards. Is that impossible, so far?”
“No, but I shouldn’t say that it mattered a rap, if you ask me.”
“That’s as it may be,” the inspector returned, obviously nettled by Wendover’s cavalier manner. “What happens after that? She shuts off her lights; gets down off the car; follows Cargill along the road, still mistaking him for someone else. She steals up behind him and tries to shoot him, but makes a muddle of it owing to the bad light. Then Cargill shouts for help, and she recognises that she’s made a mistake. Off she goes, back to her car; switches on her lights and sounds her horn; and then pretends to have been coming up the hill in the normal way and to have arrived there by pure accident at that time. Is that impossible?”
“Quite!” said Wendover bluntly.
“Come now, squire,” Sir Clinton interposed, as the tempers of his two companions were obviously near the danger-point. “You can’t say anything’s impossible except a two-sided triangle and a few other things of that sort. What it really amounts to is that you and the inspector differ pleasantly as to the exact degree of probability one can attach to his hypothesis. He thinks it probable; you don’t agree. It’s a mere matter of the personal equation. Don’t drag in the Absolute; it’s out of fashion in these days.”
Wendover recovered his temper under the implied rebuke; but the inspector merely glowered. Quite evidently he was more wedded to his hypothesis than he cared to admit in plain words.
“There isn’t much chance of our getting the bullet,” he admitted. “It went clean through Cargill’s leg, it appears. But if we do get it, and if it turns out to be from a pistol that a girl could carry without attracting attention, then perhaps Mr. Wendover will reconsider his views.”
XI
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux’s Evidence
“I shan’t be able to give you a game this morning, squire,” Sir Clinton explained at breakfast next day. “I’ve got another engagement.”
He glanced towards Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux’s empty seat at the adjoining table, and suppressed a grin as he saw the expression on Wendover’s face.
“Need you advertise yourself quite so much in that quarter, Clinton?” Wendover demanded, rather put out by the turn of events.
Sir Clinton’s features displayed an exaggerated expression of coyness, as though he were a boy half inviting chaff on the subject of a feminine conquest.
“I find her interesting, squire. And good-looking. And charming. And, shall we say, fascinating? It’s a very rare combination, you’ll admit; and hence I’d be sorry not to profit by it when it’s thrust upon me.”
Wendover was somewhat relieved by the impish expression in Sir Clinton’s eye.
“I’ve never known you to hanker after semi-society ladies before, Clinton. Is it just a freak? Or are you falling into senile decay? She’s fairly obvious, you know, especially against this background.”
Sir Clinton failed to suppress his grin.
“Wrong both times, squire, making twice in all. It’s not a freak. It’s not senile decay. It’s business. Sounds sordid, doesn’t it, after your spangled imaginings? ‘Chief Constable Sacrifices All for Love,’ and that sort of thing. It’s almost a pity to disappoint you.”
Wendover’s relief was obvious.
“Don’t singe your wings, that’s all. She’s a dangerous toy, by the look of her, Clinton. I shouldn’t play with her too long, if I were you. What she’s doing down here at all is a mystery to me.”
“That’s precisely what I intend to find out, squire. Hence my devotion. There were more brutal ways of finding out; but I don’t share the inspector’s views about how to elicit evidence. You see, she’s studied in the best school of fascination, and she knows a woman can always get into a man’s good graces by leading him on to talk about his work. So she’s
