Джорджетт Хейер - Detection Unlimited

Mr. Biggleswade looked him over with scant favour. “And why shouldn't I be?” he demanded. “Tell me that!”

“I can't. What's eating you today, grandfather?”

“If I was your granddad you'd 'ave more sense nor wot you 'ave,” said the old gentleman severely. “I'm disappointed in you, that's wot. You're gormless. If you'd paid attention to wot I says to you, you'd 've 'ad the bracelets on young Reg Ditchling last night.”

“Don't you worry about him!” said Hemingway. “I've got my eye on him all right.”

“A fat lot of use that is!” said Mr. Biggleswade. “You 'aving your eye on 'im don't stop 'im coming up to my place, calling me out of me name—ah, an' fetching 'is as along of 'im, and that pair of screeching Jezebels, Gert and Edie, besides. Painted 'ussies, that's wot they are, and don't you let anyone tell you different! Oo's this you got with you?”

A rheumy gaze was bent upon Inspector Harbottle; a note of disparagement sounded in the aged voice. Hemingway said promptly: “You don't have to bother about him: he's just my assistant.”

“Six foot of misery, that's wot 'e looks like to me,” said Mr. Biggleswade, not mincing matters. “You don't want to let 'im get near the milk-cans. Wot's more, if you'd done wot I told you, you wouldn't need no assistant. Plain as I 'ear you now I 'eard that shot, Saturday!”

“You tell me some more about this shot,” invited Hemingway, sitting down beside him. “How was it you only heard one shot?”

“Becos that's all there wos to 'ear.”

“But young Reg tells me he fired a whole lot of shots.”

“'E'd tell you anything, young Reg would. Ah! and you'd swaller it!”

“Now, now! He was firing at targets, you know, in the Squire's gravel-pit.”

“Oh, “e wos, was 'e? If 'e'd told you 'e was firing at a 'erd of rhinorcerusses which 'e 'appened to find in Squire's gravel-pit, you'd swaller that too! Pleecemen! I never 'ad no opinion of 'em, and I ain't got none now, and I never will 'ave. Young Reg never fired no shot in Squire's gravel-pit. “Cos why? 'Cos if 'e 'ad, no one wouldn't 'ear it this far off. Ah! and 'e couldn't 'ave got 'isself on to this 'ere path so soon as wot 'e did do. And I'll tell you another thing, my lad! I won't 'ave you taking my character away like you're trying to!”

“I shouldn't think you've much to take away,” said Hemingway frankly. “Still, I wouldn't think of taking away what you've got left of it.”

“Oh, yes, you would!” said Mr. Biggleswade fiercely. “And don't you give me no sauce! I'll 'ave you know there ain't any man in Thornden wot knows more about guns than wot I do, and I won't 'ave you spreading it about I don't know where a shot's being fired from! Over there's where Reg fired Vicar's rifle!” A trembling and gouty finger pointed in the direction of Fox Lane.

“All right,” said Hemingway soothingly. “So what did you do?”

“I says to meself, Someone's larking about in Mr. “Aswell's spinney, I says. There, or thereabouts,” replied Mr. Biggleswade, nodding wisely.

“That's some way off, grandfather,” Hemingway suggested.

“It 'ud 'ave 'ad to 'ave been a sight further off for me not to 'ear it,” said Mr. Biggleswade, with a senile chuckle. “Very sharp ears I've got! A lot of people 'ave wished I didn't 'ear so quick when I was in me prime.”

“I'll bet they did. You're a wonder, that's what you are, grandfather. It can't have made much of a noise, either, at this distance.”

“No one never said it did. If you'd 'eard it, you wouldn't 'ardly 'ave noticed it, I dessay. And as for that walking tombstone o' yours, “e'd 'ave thought it was a motor-car back-firing up on the 'Awks'ead-road as like as not.”

“Oh, no, I would not!” said Harbottle, stung into a retort.

“Shut up, Horace! Don't you pay any heed to him, grandfather! What happened after the shot? Did you see anyone besides Reg Ditchling?”

“No, I didn't. I wasn't going to go poking my nose into wot wasn't none of my business. I ain't a nasty, nosy pleeceman! I set off down this 'ere path, like I told 'Obkirk, and I 'adn't gorn so very far when I 'eard someone be'ind me, same like you'd 'ear one of them game-keepers when 'e was trying to creep on you. And I looked round, quick-like, and I see young Reg 'iding be'ind one of the bushes.”

“Down the other end of the path that was, wasn't it?”

“Right down the other end,” corroborated Mr. Biggleswade.

“How long after you heard the shot would that have been?”

“Not more'n ten minutes or so. I don't get about so fast as wot I useter,” said Mr. Biggleswade, flattered to find himself with an attentive audience at last. “And there was young Reg! If you'd 'ave paid more 'eed to wot I told you yesterday, you'd 'ave 'ad 'im safe under lock and key by this time.”

“Well, I might,” said Hemingway, getting up. “That is, if I knew what he was doing, hanging about the scene of the crime, instead of making his getaway.”

“Ah! That's telling,” said Mr. Biggleswade darkly.

“It is, isn't it? I shall have to be getting along now, grandfather. Don't you go sitting it the Red Lion till that daughter of yours has to come and drag you out! Nice goings-on at your time of life!”

The ancient reprobate seemed pleased with this sally, and cackled asthmatically. Hemingway waved to him, and began to walk away.

“'Ere!” Mr. Biggleswade called after him. “Will I 'ave me pitcher in the papers?”

“That's telling too!” replied Hemingway over his shoulder.

“Rogues' gallery, I should think!” said Harbottle, falling into step beside him. “What on earth made you encourage him to hand you all that lip?”

“I don't mind his lip. I reckon he's entitled to cheek the police, when they haven't been able to catch up with him in ninety years. He's a very remarkable old boy, and a lot sharper than the silly fools who say he's getting soft in the head. I wanted to hear some more about that shot of his.”

“Why?” demanded the Inspector.

“Because I think he did hear one.”

“Well, what of it, sir? According to what you told me, what he heard couldn't have had any bearing on the case. It was an hour too early!”

“Horace, I told you only this morning I'd got a feeling the wrong end of the stick had been pushed into my hand, and that there's something important I haven't spotted. We're now going to have a look for it!”

“Where are we off to?” enquired the Inspector. “Fox House?”

“Out of the old gentleman's sight, for a start,” Hemingway replied. “I want to think.”

They reached the gorse-clump again, and Hemingway stopped. The Inspector watched him curiously, as he stood there, his quick, bright eyes once more taking in every detail of the scene before him. Presently he gave a grunt, and sat down on the slope above the lane, and pulled his pipe and his aged tobacco-pouch out of his pocket. While his accustomed fingers teased the tobacco, and packed it into the bowl of the pipe, his abstracted gaze continued to dwell first on the spot in the garden where the seat had stood, and then upon the stile, just visible round the bole of the elm-tree. The Inspector, disposing himself on the ground beside him, preserved a patient silence, and tried painstakingly to discover, by the exercise of logic, what particular problem he was attempting to solve. Hemingway lit his pipe, and sat staring fixedly at Fox House, his eyelids a little puckered. Suddenly he said: “The mistake we've been making, Horace, is to have paid a sight too much attention to what you might call the important features of this case, and not enough to the highly irrelevant trimmings. I'm not sure I've not precious near been had for a sucker.”