Джорджетт Хейер - No Wind of Blame

,It sounds ridiculous, but I do rather wish you hadn't been out on a case at the time. I feel you might have been more use than Dr Hinchcliffe."

"Rubbish! Your cousin was dead before Hinchcliffe got there."

"I didn't mean that. Something might have struck you. You're much cleverer than Dr Hinchcliffe. Everyone says so."

"Very gratifying, but if you're imagining that I could have done anything more than he did, you're quite wrong, Mary."

They were interrupted at this moment by Ermyntrude, who bounced out of the morning-room, with Inspector Hemingway on her heels. "Oh, there you are, love!" she exclaimed. "Look, Mary, isn't it a fact that Harold White was in the gun-room on Saturday, all by himself?"

"Yes, I've already told the Inspector so."

"And what's more hadn't Wally lent him a hundred pounds, which he hadn't paid back?"

"I don't know how much it was, but certainly Wally did '

"Well, I do know, because I've been through the counterfoils of Wally's old cheque-books," said Ermyntrude. "It's as plain as a pikestaff he walked off with that rifle. I always said he was at the bottom of it!"

"Yes, I know," said Mary patiently, "but you're forgetting that Mr. White can't possibly have had anything to do with it, Aunt Ermy."

"Oh, don't talk to me!" said Ermyntrude, brushing this trifling objection aside. "If he didn't actually do it himself, I dare say he got Alan to. Yes, and now I come to think of it, what was Alan doing when Wally was shot? All we've been told is that he was out. Out where, that's what I should like to know?"

"But, Aunt, why on earth should Alan shoot Wally? It isn't even as though he's on good terms with his father!"

"I'm sure I don't know, but I've always hated those Whites, and don't anyone tell me that my instinct's wrong, because a woman's instinct never lies!"

She threw a challenging glance at the Inspector, who replied promptly that he wouldn't dream of telling her anything of the sort. "At the same time," he added, "if the story your daughter's got hold of is true, madam, I'm bound to say Mr. White should be the last person in the world to want Mr. Carter dead."

"What's this about my daughter?" demanded Ermyntrude. "Have you been persecuting her again with your wicked, false suspicions?"

"Aunt Ermy!" began Mary in an imploring tone.

"Don't Aunt Ermy me!" snapped Ermyntrude. "No one's going to badger my girl, so understand that, once and for all. Over my dead body you may, but not while I'm alive to protect her!"

The Inspector was not in the least ruffled by this unjust attack. He said cordially: "And I'm sure I don't blame you! But as for my badgering her, she's more likely to get me running round in circles, from all I've seen of her. Of course, it's easy to see where she gets her spirit from. Same place as where she got her looks if you'll pardon my saying so, madam."

Ermyntrude was naturally a little mollified by this speech, but she said sternly: "Well, what business had you with her today?"

"I hadn't," replied the Inspector. "It was she who had business with me, and since you're bound to hear about it from her, I don't mind telling you that she thinks she's discovered the reason why your husband went to see Mr. White on Sunday."

"She has?" Mary exclaimed. "Are you sure she wasn't well, pulling your leg?"

"I wouldn't be sure, only that Mr. Dering was there, fairly egging her on to tell me all," replied Hemingway candidly.

"Oh! Was I right, then? Had my cousin got some deal on with White and Jones?"

"According to Miss Fanshawe, he had. Which, if true, doesn't make it look as though he'd have shot your husband, now does it, madam?"

Mary pushed back a lock of hair from her brow. "But surely there isn't any question of that?" she said. "I understood that he wasn't even in sight of the bridge when my cousin was shot! He couldn't have had anything to do with it!"

"As a matter of fact, he couldn't," admitted the Inspector. "However, I'm not one to set myself up against a woman's instinct. Broad-minded, that's what I am."

Ermyntrude looked suspiciously at him, but he met her gaze so unblushingly that she decided that he was not being sarcastic at her expense. "I don't know anything about where he was standing when Wally was shot," she said. "Ten to one, it's a pack of lies, for though I've nothing against the girl I wouldn't trust Janet White further than I could see her, while as for Sam Jones, if ever there was a wrong'un, he's one! All I do know is that White brought my poor first husband's shot-gun back on Saturday morning, and what's more no one went with him into the gun-room! I'm sure I don't know who else had as good an opportunity to make off with that rifle, unless it was that young man that came blackmailing Wally. I suppose you aren't going to accuse the Bawtrys or the Derings of having stolen it!"

"But, Aunt Ermy, they aren't the only people who could have taken it! There's all Sunday to be reckoned with, remember."

"The only people we had here on Sunday were Bob Steel and you, Maurice. And if you're going to tell me Bob took the gun you can spare your breath, for it's a lie." She broke off, frowning, and then said triumphantly: "Now I come to think of it, didn't Alan White come over on Sunday morning to play tennis? There you are, then! Not but what I still say it was White himself took the rifle, and nothing will ever make me alter my opinion."

The Inspector regarded her with visible awe. At that moment Peake came into the hall from the servants' wing. Hemingway lifted an imperative finger. "Just you come here a minute, will you?" he said. "Did you happen to see Mr. White on Saturday morning, when he brought back the shot-gun he'd borrowed off Mr. Carter?"

"I did not see Mr. White arrive, Inspector."

"Did you see him at all, that's what I want to know?"

"I encountered Mr. White coming out of the gun-room. I was momentarily taken aback, but Mr. White explained that he had madam's leave to replace the gun."

"Did you notice whether he was carrying anything?"

"Yes, Inspector, Mr. White had his case in his hand."

"What case?" demanded the Inspector.

"That's right," corroborated Ermyntrude. "He brought the gun back in a case of his own, and I said at the time it was just like my husband to lend the gun out of its case."

"An ordinary shot-gun case?" said the Inspector.

"No, a nasty, cheap-looking thing," replied Ermyntrude.

Peake coughed behind his hand. "If I might be allowed to explain to the Inspector, madam? Mr. White was carrying what is known as a hambone-case."

"He was, was he? Was he carrying anything else?"

"No, Inspector, nothing else."

"Did you see him out of the house?"

"Certainly I did," answered Peake, slighty affronted.

"All right, that's all." He waited until the butler had departed, and then said with all the air of one whose most cherished illusion has been shattered: "There, now, we shall have to give up thinking about White after all. Seems a pity, but there it is."

"I don't see why," said Ermyntrude. "Something tells me he did it!"

"Yes, but the trouble is that something tells m° that you can't get a three-foot rifle into a thirty-inch case," replied Hemingway. "It does seem a shame, doesn't it? But, there, that's a detective's life all over! Full of disappointments."

Since Ermyntrude was extremely loth to abandon what by this time amounted to a conviction that her bete noire had murdered Wally, the Inspector's last remark annoyed her considerably. She said that to carp and to criticise and to raise niggling objections was men all over; and when the Inspector patiently asked her to explain how White could have packed a rifle into a case designed to carry, separately, the barrels and stock of a shot-gun, she replied that it was not her business to solve such problems, but rather his.