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The Inspector said in a shaken voice: ‘May have made her up. Yes, I see, miss. Thank you very much indeed… No, I don’t think there’s anything more I want to ask you.’ He laid down the receiver, and said to his Sergeant: ‘I’ll have to be taken off this case soon, I can see that. Did you get that? Carter’s rich aunt probably never existed outside of his imagination. I’ll bet he floated a whole lot of phoney companies in his time! Now you get the Department for me, and find out if the Chief’s there.’
; In a few minutes’ time the Sergeant handed him the receiver, and the deep, calm, voice of Superintendent Hannasyde hailed him. ‘Hallo, Hemingway! How’s it going?’
‘Fine!’ replied the Inspector. ‘Lovely décor, very classy cast, right out of Ibsen.’
A chuckle reached him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Oh, nothing, only that I’m beginning to hear noises in my head,’ said the Inspector.
‘Oh! Like that is it? Is that what you rang up to say?’
‘No, sir, I rang up to ask for a bit of research to be done by the Department.’
‘All right, what is it?’
‘You know Chipston?’ said Hemingway. ‘Well, I want someone to find out if there’s a Home for Mentally Deficients there. If there is, I want an old lady of the name of Clara Carter. She’s a spinster, she’s very rich, and she’s been in residence a good many years. I want to know who looks after her affairs, and where he lives; and I want someone to find out from him who, after Wallis Carter, is the heir to her property.’
‘Very well. It doesn’t sound very difficult. Is that all?’
‘Except for booking a nice quiet room for me, it is,’ replied the Inspector. ‘But I wouldn’t like to keep anything back, Chief, and I’m bound to tell you that I’m not absolutely sure that there’s any such person as Clara Carter.’
Hannasyde’s voice sounded a little puzzled. ‘I thought you said she was a rich spinster?’
‘That’s right,’ responded the Inspector. ‘She’s a rich spinster, gone cuckoo, if she exists. Of course, if she doesn’t exist, we shall just have to forget about her, and start all over again from the beginning. That’s what I want to discover.’
‘I suppose you know what you’re about,’ said Hannasyde. ‘Clara Carter, Chipston, present heir to property. Right?’
‘Right it is, Chief,’ replied the Inspector, and rang off. ‘And that’s about finished me for today,’ he announced. ‘If I’m on to what I think I am, there’s nothing more I can do till I hear from the Department. And if I’m not on to it, I’m still packing up for the night, because my brain’s addled.’
‘You certainly have been hard at it today, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘You want to get a good night’s rest.’
Apparently, the Inspector enjoyed a very good night’s rest, for when his subordinate saw him next morning he was his usual brisk and bright-eyed self. He went off to Stilhurst Village to pursue inquiries into Robert Steel’s possible movements on the afternoon of the murder, and was coming out of the general shop there when he walked into Hugh Dering.
‘Hallo!’ Hugh said. ‘I rather wanted to see you.’
‘That’s funny,’ said the Inspector. ‘I could do with a few minutes’ chat with you myself.’
‘Hold on while I buy some stamps, and I’ll be with you.’ Hugh vanished into the shop, reappearing presently to find that the Inspector had strolled on down the street to where Hugh had left his car. He soon overtook him. ‘Miss Cliffe tells me that you rang her up last night to make inquiries about the mythical aunt. I see what you’re after, of course, but do you really believe in the aunt?’
‘I’ve got an open mind, sir. What’s your feeling on the subject?’
‘I haven’t an idea. My instinct always prompted me to disbelieve any statement Carter made, but in this case I’ve nothing to go on, beyond the fact that Mrs Carter doesn’t seem ever to have set much store by the aunt. A rich aunt, conveniently mad, and hidden from sight in an asylum, sounds suspiciously unlikely to me.’
‘Yes, it does,’ agreed Hemingway. ‘All the same, he went so far as to say that she lived in Chipston.’
‘H’m! Giving a local habitation and a name to an airy nothing, perhaps.’
‘Look here, sir, I don’t want a Job’s comforter, if it’s all the same to you!’ protested Hemingway. ‘What I do want, on the other hand, is a bit of expert information. You told Miss Cliffe in my presence, the day before yesterday, that there was no question of her inheriting this aunt’s money.’
‘I did.’
‘I take it you’re sure of your facts, sir?’
‘Quite sure. According to what Carter let fall from time to time, she became insane before she had made a Will. The Law regarding intestacy is perfectly clear.’
‘Would it be bothering you if I were to ask you to tell me this Law, sir?’
