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‘I like talkers,’ replied Hemingway. ‘You never know what you may pick up from them. Now, I’ve found out a lot from Miss White that you people never told me. Is that the bridge?’
‘That’s it, sir, and if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the spot where the rifle was found.’
The Inspector plunged into the shrubbery in his wake, and the zealous constable pointed out to him not only where the rifle was found, which was close to a slim sapling, but also the view to be obtained of the bridge. Hemingway grunted, and asked if anything else had been found near the spot. The constable shook his head, and offered to show him next the way by which the murderer had probably made his escape. The ground was strewn with fallen leaves, which in some places made a thick bed, and the Inspector, tripping over a little mound, kicked some of these out of place, disclosing a small object which instantly caught his eye. He bent, and picked up a horn hair-slide.
‘Didn’t search very closely, did you?’ he said. ‘Supposing you were to have another search? You never know: we might find some more little things of this nature.’
The Sergeant joined in the search, but the result, though surprising, was not very helpful.
‘In fact,’ said Hemingway, regarding the collection of objects which the shrubbery had yielded, ‘you might call it a bit confusing. It beats me how things get into places like this. Where did you find that old boot?’
‘That was just by the wall by the road,’ said the constable.
‘Thrown over by some tramp. It’s been there for months, from the looks of it. You can take it away, and that broken bit of saucer with it. And if that rusty thing’s the lid of a kettle, I shan’t want that either. Now, what have we got left?’
‘One broken nail-file, one toy magnet, and a pocket-knife,’ said the Sergeant, as one checking an inventory.
Hemingway scratched his chin. ‘I’m bound to admit it’s a mixed bag,’ he said. ‘Still, you never know. I don’t myself carry nail-files in my pocket, nor magnets either, but that isn’t to say others mayn’t. Mind you, the nail-file, being broken, may have been chucked away, same as the kettle-lid, and that bit of china.’
‘Seems a funny place to use as a rubbish heap,’ demurred the Sergeant. ‘I knew a chap that used to carry a nail-file about with him. Sissy sort of fellow, with waved hair.’
‘He would be,’ said Hemingway. ‘We’ll keep that file, in case it turns out to be relevant.’
‘What about the magnet?’ asked Wake. ‘Who’d go dropping a thing like that around? Looks to me like it could only have been some kid, playing around in the shrubbery.’
‘Trespassing, do you mean?’ inquired the constable. ‘Well, they could, easy, because the wall’s only a low one, as you’ll see, sir.’
‘Know of anyone, other than a kid, who’d be likely to carry a small magnet in his pocket?’ asked Hemingway.
‘Can’t say I do, sir. Sort of engineer, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’m bothered if I know,’ replied Hemingway frankly.
‘Well, the pocket-knife seems the likeliest find to me,’ said Wake. ‘Nothing the matter with it; both blades intact, so we can take it it wasn’t chucked away. I don’t know what you think about it, sir, but I don’t set much store by that hair-slide. Sort of thing that might easily get lost. I was thinking it might be Miss White’s.’
‘It might,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘If it is, she can identify it. But what strikes me is that it hasn’t, from the looks of it, been lying out here long. Tell me what you make of this.’
He drew the Sergeant towards the sapling which stood a few paces from where the rifle had been found, and pointed out to him some grazes on the smooth bark, about eighteen inches from the ground.
Wake inspected the marks rather dubiously. ‘Well, I don’t know that I make anything of it, sir. Not immediately, that is. Someone might have scraped the tree, I suppose.’
‘What for?’ inquired Hemingway.
The Sergeant shook his head. ‘You have me there, sir. Still, trees do get bruised, don’t they? Does it mean anything to you?’
‘I can’t say that it does,’ confessed Hemingway. ‘All the same, something did scrape that tree, and not so long ago either, from the looks of it; and as it’s only a couple of steps from where the rifle was found, it may turn out to be highly relevant. You never know. All right, what’s-your-name, I’ve finished here. I’ll take a look at the stream now.’
The stream, however, did not hold his interest for long. Having visually measured the width between the opposite banks, the Inspector sighed, and passed on to look at the wall separating the Dower House grounds from the road. Finally he went back to the lawn where he had left Janet, and asked her if she recognised the hair-slide.
‘It’s not mine,’ Janet said. ‘I’m absolutely certain of that, because I never wear them.’
‘Do you know anyone who does, Miss White?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t say! I mean, I’ve never thought. Lots of people do, I expect. As a matter of fact, I think Florence does. She’s our maid, and if you found it in the shrubbery it just shows I was right all along, and she does slip out to meet her young man when it isn’t her half-day at all!’
Florence, however, when confronted with the hair-slide, promptly disowned it, and denied strenuously, if not altogether convincingly, that she had ever set foot in the shrubbery, or had ever entertained her young man within the gates of the Dower House.
‘Well, that was a lie, anyway,’ said the constable, as they left the Dower House. ‘I know Florrie Benson’s young man, and he comes out here pretty well every evening.’
