Джорджетт Хейер - Detection Unlimited

“Well,” said the Major, shrugging, “I've told you for what it's worth, that's all!” He looked up, and stiffened a little. Gavin Plenmeller, coming from the direction of his house, was crossing the road diagonally towards them.

“Undergoing interrogation, laying information, or just passing the time of day, Major?” enquired Gavin. “I'm glad to see you here, Chief Inspector, and I'm sure the whole village shares my feeling. We confidently expected to see you in our midst at crack of dawn, but it was not to be. I may add that a certain amount of dissatisfaction has been felt. Action is what we want, and we did think that a real detective from London would provide us with plenty to talk about.”

“Well, I must be getting along,” said the Major, not quite comfortably.

Gavin looked at him, a glint in his eyes. “Now, why are you suddenly in a hurry to go away?” he wondered. “Can it be—can it possibly be—that you were telling the Chief Inspector something damaging about me?” He watched a dull red creep into the Major's cheeks, and laughed. “Splendid! What was it? Or would you prefer not to tell me?”

It was patent that the Major would very much have preferred not to tell him, but he was an officer and a gentleman, and he was not going to turn and run in the face of fire. He said boldly: “Seems to me that you've done so much talking yourself about people that you can't very well object if the tables are turned.”

“Of course I don't object!” said Gavin cordially. “I merely hope that you've dug up something good about me.”

“I haven't dug up anything. Not my business to pry into your affairs! And if you want to know what's been sticking in my mind, it's this!—Why did you tell me that Warrenby had never crossed your threshold?”

“Did I?” said Gavin, faintly surprised.

“You know damned well you did!”

“I don't. It's quite possible, of course, and I shouldn't dream of denying it, but when did I make this momentous statement?”

“You said it to Drybeck and to me when we were walking up Wood Lane on Saturday. You said that yours was the only threshold he couldn't cross.”

“I spoke no less than the truth, then. Yes, I remember: our Thaddeus wasn't a bit pleased, was he? But what is this leading up to?”

“That won't wash, Plenmeller!” said the Major, gaining assurance with indignation. “Warrenby had crossed your threshold that very morning!”

“Take note, Chief Inspector,” said Gavin quite unmoved, “that I instantly and categorically deny this infamous accusation!”

“It may interest you to know, however, that my wife saw him go into your house!”

“She lies in her throat,” said Gavin amiably. “She may have seen him enter my garden. In fact, if she was in the High Street at the time, I should think she could hardly have escaped seeing that. She may even have noticed his very vulgar car parked at my gate. Now tell me how she saw through a brick wall and I shall be all interest!”

The Major looked a good deal taken aback, and a little sceptical. “Are you telling me he didn't enter your house?”

“You oughtn't to need telling,” Gavin reproved him. “He found me in the garden, and in the garden we remained. I don't say he didn't make a spirited attempt to cross my threshold, for he did. He had the impertinence to suggest that we should go into the house, which forced me to disclose to him that to admit him would be to break a solemn vow.”

The Major gasped. “You can't have said such a thing!”

“Nonsense, you know very well that I find not the smallest difficulty in saying to people's faces precisely what I say behind their backs!”

The Chief Inspector intervened at this point. “Why did he want to cross your threshold, sir?”

“Vaulting ambition, perhaps. It may be said to have o'erleapt itself. Or do you want to know why he wanted to see me?”

“That's it,” said Hemingway.

“Ah! Well, he came to remonstrate with me. At least, that was how he phrased it. He seemed to think I had been inserting a spoke into his wheel on various occasions, and it had come to his ears—one wonders how!—that I had spoken of him in opprobrious terms. So I told him that these allegations were true, and he then asserted that he would know how to put a stop to my activities. How he proposed to do any such thing I am unable to tell you, and, of course, we shall now never know what Napoleonic scheme he may have had in mind. I can only say that he failed to convince me that he had evolved any form of counterattack whatsoever. The remonstrance somewhat rapidly deteriorated into sound and fury. He favoured me with a catalogue of the serviced he had rendered to the country, adding, a trifle infelicitously, I felt, a list of the distinguished persons whom he had—as he regrettably put it—forced to play ball with him. After that he became incoherent, and I showed him off the premises.”

“Well, by Jove!” exclaimed the Major, bristling with suspicion. “Seems a queer thing you didn't tell Drybeck and me that you'd had this quarrel with Warrenby!”

“My very dear Major,” said Gavin sweetly, “in the first place, there was no quarrel: I never gratify my enemies by allowing them to lure me into losing my temper. In the second place, I have not so far been conscious of the smallest impulse to confide my minor triumphs to a Drybeck or a Midgeholme. And, in the third, I have long realised that in my not wholly unsuccessful attempts to depress Warrenby's pretensions I have been playing a lone hand.”

“You're the most offensive fellow I have met in all my life!” said the Major, his face by this time richly suffused with colour. “I'll be damned if I'll stand here bandying words with you!”

“No, I didn't think you would,” said Gavin. He watched the Major stride off down the street, and said pensively: “It's a mystery to me that so many persons find it impossible to shake off crashing bores. Did you ever see a fish take the fly more readily?”

Hemingway said, ignoring this question: “What made you dislike Mr. Warrenby so particularly, sir?”

“Sheer antipathy, Chief Inspector. Mixed with a certain amount of atavism. The blood of the Plenmellers arose in me when I saw that repulsive upstart storming every citadel, including the Ainstables'. When he lived, I rarely managed to earn my brother's approval, but now that he is dead I feel sure I'm behaving just as he would have wished. Which is what people so often do, isn't it? There's a moral to be drawn from that, but I beg you won't! Do you want to know any more about Warrenby's ill-advised visit to me, or have you had enough of it?”

“I'd like to know how he thought he could make you stop running him down,” said Hemingway, fixing Gavin with a bright, enquiring gaze.

“So would I, but it was never disclosed. I discount his veiled threat to take me into court on a charge of uttering slander. My imagination boggles at the thought of such a man as Warrenby complaining publicly of the things I've said about him. Not quite the kind of notoriety he craved for, you know!”

“Oh, he did threaten to take you into court, sir?”

“He did, and I promised him that I should do my best to ensure his winning his case. He was not in the least grateful. In his blundering way he was not devoid of intelligence. Tell, me, Chief Inspector!—have you in your diligent research come upon the name of Nenthall?”

“Why do you ask me that, sir?” countered Hemingway.

There was a derisive gleam in Gavin's eyes. “I'm not at all sure, but I see that you haven't. Well, when you have finished following up the theories put forward by the village half-wits, you might find it profitable to discover what was the significance of that name. I can't help you: I never heard it until it was tossed, with apparent carelessness, into the conversation at the Red Lion, one evening about a month ago.”