“Hullo! Mrs. Bredon speaking—who is it, please? … Oh, it’s you. … Yes, he’s in, but he’s not answering the telephone. … No, only drunk. … Just rather drunk. … Business? Good; that’s just what he wants. … A man called what? … M-o-t-t-r-a-m, Mottram, yes. … Never heard of it. … St. William’s? Oh, the Midlands, that are sodden and unkind, that sort of Midlands, yes? … Oh! … Is it—what? … Is it supposed to have been an accident? … Oh, that generally means suicide, doesn’t it? … Staying where? … Where’s that? … All right, doesn’t matter; I’ll look it up. … At an inn? Oh, then it was in somebody else’s bed really! What name? … What a jolly name! Well, where’s Miles to go? To Chilthorpe? … Yes, rather, we can start bright and early. Is it an important case? Is it an important case? … Oo! I say! I wish I could get Miles to die and leave me half a million! Righto, he’ll wire you tomorrow. … Yes, quite; thanks. … Good night.”
“Interpret, please,” said Angela, returning to the drawing-room. “Why, you’ve been going on with your patience the whole time! I suppose you didn’t listen to a word I was saying?”
“How often am I to tell you that the memory and the attention function inversely? I remember all you said, precisely because I wasn’t paying attention to it. First of all, it was Sholto, because he was ringing you up on business, but it was somebody you know quite well—at least I hope you don’t talk like that to the tradesmen.”
“Sholto, yes, ringing up from the office. He wanted to talk to you.”
“So I gathered. Was it quite necessary to tell him I was drunk?”
“Well, I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment. I couldn’t tell him you were playing patience, or he might have thought we were unhappily married. Go on, Sherlock.”
“Mottram, living at some place in the Midlands you’ve never heard of, but staying at a place called ‘Chilthorpe’—he’s died, and his death wants investigating; that’s obvious.”
“How did you know he was dead?”
“From the way you said ‘Oh’—besides, you said he’d died in his bed, or implied it. And there’s some question of half a million insurance—Euthanasia, I suppose? Really, the Euthanasia’s been responsible for more crimes than psychoanalysis.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you’ve got it all right. What did he die of?”
“Something that generally means suicide—or rather, you think it does. The old sleeping draught business? Veronal?”
“No stupid, gas. The gas left turned on. And where’s Chilthorpe, please?”
“It’s on the railway. If my memory serves me right, it is Chilthorpe and Gorrington, between Bull’s Cross and Lowgill Junction. But the man, you say, belongs somewhere else?”
“Pullford; at least it sounded like that. In the Midlands somewhere, he said.”
“Pullford, good Lord, yes. One of these frightful holes. They make perambulators or something there, don’t they? A day’s run, I should think, in the car. But of course it’s this Chilthorpe place we want to get to. You wouldn’t like to look it up in the gazetteer while I just get this row finished, would you?”
“I shan’t get your sock finished, then. On your own foot be it! Let’s see, here’s Pullford all right. … It isn’t perambulators they make, it’s drainpipes. There’s a grammar school there, and an asylum; and the parish church is a fine specimen of early Perp., extensively restored in 1842; they always are. Has been the seat of a Roman Catholic Bishopric since 1850. The Baptist Chapel—”
“I did mention, didn’t I, that it was Chilthorpe I wanted to know about?”
“All in good time. Let’s see, Chilthorpe—it isn’t a village really, it’s a ship town. It has 2,500 inhabitants. There’s a lot here about the glebe. It stands on the River Busk, and there is trout fishing.”
“Ah, that sounds better.”
“Meaning exactly?”
“Well, it sounds as if the fellow had done himself in by accident all right. He went there to fish—you don’t go to a strange village to commit suicide.”
“Unless you’ve got electric light in your house and want to commit suicide with gas.”
“That’s true. What was the name of the inn, by the way?”
“The Load of Mischief. Such a jolly dedication, I think.”
“Now let’s try the map.”
“I was coming to that. Here’s the Busk all right. I say, how funny, there’s a place on the Busk called ‘Mottram.’ ”
“Anywhere near Chilthorpe?”
“I haven’t found it yet. Oh, yes, here it is, about four miles away. Incidentally, it’s only twenty miles or so from Pullford. Well, what about it? Are we going by car?”
“Why not? The Rolls is in excellent condition. Two or three days ought to see us through; we can stay, with any luck, at the Load of Mischief, and the youthful Francis will be all the better for being left to his nurse for a day or two. You’ve been feeding him corn, and he is becoming obstreperous.”
“You don’t deserve to have a son. However, I think you’re right. I don’t want to trust you alone in a ship town of 2,500 inhabitants, some of them female. Miles, dear, this is going to be one of your big successes, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, I shall lose no time in reporting to the directors that the deceased gentleman had an unfortunate accident with the gas, and they had better pay up like sportsmen. I shall further point out that it is a great waste of their money keeping a private spy at all.”
“Good, then I’ll divorce you! I’m going to bed now. Not beyond the end of that second row, mind; we shall have to make an early start tomorrow.”
III
At the Load of Mischief
By next morning Bredon’s spirits had risen. He had received by the early post a confidential letter from the company describing Mr. Mottram’s curious offer, and suggesting (naturally) that the state of his health made suicide a plausible conjecture. The morning was fine, the car running well, the road they had selected in admirable
