Джорджетт Хейер - The Unfinished Clue

"She bicycles, does she?" Harding's frown deepened. "That's a point we'll go into. For if Mrs. Chudleigh was cycling home , I no longer like the look of young Billington-Smith's alibi. She fixed ten-to-one as the time of her seeing him, because she knows that it takes about half an hour to walk from the Grange to the Vicarage. What she forgets — if she was cycling that day — is that it wouldn't take anything like that time to cover the distance on a bicycle."

The Sergeant nodded slowly. "That's so, sir. More likely she'd have seen him a good ten minutes earlier, or more. That's what happens when you get ladies giving evidence about time. It's a queer thing, but I've very often noticed that women never have any notion of time. You've only got to wait for your wife to go upstairs to get her hat on to see that. Well, you aren't a married man, sir — least ways I've got an idea you're not — but if ever you do happen to get married you'll see what I mean. And if your good lady don't keep you hanging about a quarter of an hour, and then stand you out she was only upstairs a couple of minutes — well, she'll be different from mine, sir, that's all." With which misogynistic pronouncement the Sergeant folded his arms across his chest, and brooded silently till the car drew up at the Grange front door. Then, as he climbed out, he gave the result of his meditations. "But if that was so, sir, and supposing Mr. Billington-Smith to have come back here unbeknownst and murdered the General, he'd have got here round about five to one, by my reckoning, and run slap into Mrs. Twining coming to fetch the General for his cocktail."

"Yes," said Harding. "He would."

"Well, but that goes and upsets it, doesn't it, sir?"

Harding did not answer, and before the Sergeant could repeat his remark Finch had opened the front door.

Harding stepped into the hall. "Finch, when Mrs. Ghudleigh called here on Monday morning, was she walking, or on her bicycle?"

"Mrs. Chudleigh, sir? She was on her bicycle," replied the butler.

"Are you sure of that?"

"Oh yes, sir. Mrs. Chudleigh had propped her machine up against the porch, and I thought at the time that it was very much in the way of anyone coming in. I cannot say that I care for bicycles myself, sir. What I should call troublesome things, if you take my meaning."

The Inspector stood slowly pulling off his driving gloves, his eyes, with the hint of a frown in them, fixed on the butler's face. Then, just as Finch, rendered slightly nervous by this hard, unseeing stare, was about to ask if anything were wrong, he turned away, and laid his hat and gloves down on the table. "Is Miss Fawcett in?" he asked abruptly.

"I believe so, sir. I will go and see."

"Ask her if she can spare me a moment in the morning room, will you?" said Harding. He went up to the study door and opened it.

The Sergeant coughed. "I take it you won't be needing me, sir?"

"No," replied Harding, "I shan't. What I want you to do, Sergeant, is to take a stroll in the garden and have a chat with the under-gardener if you can find him. Ludlow we know to have spent Monday morning in the kitchen garden, but the other man seems to have been pottering about all over the place. Try and get out of him whether he was in sight of the front drive any time between twelve and one, and find out if he saw anyone either approaching or leaving the house during that time. If it was only the butcher's boy I want to know of it."

Miss Fawcett, entering the morning-room, ten minutes later, found it empty, and was conscious of disappointment. Since she had sought refuge from Camilla Halliday's conversation in the spinney at the bottom of the garden it had taken Finch some time to find her. Apparently Inspector Harding had lost patience and departed.

"Damn!" murmured Miss Fawcett, wandering aimlessly towards the fireplace. Looking up, she caught sight of her own disconsolate face in the mirror. She regarded it with some severity." Look here, my girl," she said sternly, "you're getting maudlin about this policeman. Pull yourself together!"

"Which policeman?" inquired an interested voice behind her.

She spun round to find Harding standing in the long window, watching her. For once the redoubtable Miss Fawcett was clearly at a disadvantage. "I've — I've lost my heart to the Sergeant!" she said wildly.

"I'm sorry. I hoped it was to the Inspector," returned Harding with simple directness.

Miss Fawcett, blushing furiously, retreated to the door. Harding stepped into the room. "Please don't go!" he said. "I ought not to have listened to you, or to have said that. I apologise."

Miss Fawcett, who wanted to make a calm and sensible reply, said something quite incoherent and subsided.

Inspector Harding said haltingly: "When I see you I keep forgetting I'm here — purely professionally. I've no right to — I ought to know better than to -" He broke off evidently feeling that he had embarked on a hopeless sentence.

Miss Fawcett, observing his flounderings, recovered the use of her tongue and was understood to say, though in a very small voice, that she quite understood.

"Do you?" said Inspector Harding, grasping the edge of the table. "Do you, Dinah?"

Miss Fawcett nodded, and began to trace invisible patterns on the table with one forefinger. "Well, I — well, I think I do," she replied carefully. "When you aren't being professional — I mean — well, anyway, I quite understand."

"As soon as I've done with this case," said Inspector Harding, "there's something I'm going to ask you. I've been wanting to ever since I set eyes on you."

"More — more cross-examinations?" inquired Miss Fawcett, with a noble attempt at lightness.

"No. A very simple question requiring just "Yes", or — or "No", for an answer."

"Oh!" said Miss Fawcett, sketching another and more complicated pattern on the table. "I don't think I should dare say "No" to a policeman."

There was a moment's silence. Inspector Harding let go of the table-edge. "It's no use!" he said, advancing upon Miss Fawcett. "I have tried, but there are limits to what can be expected of one!"

Sergeant Nethersole, whose search for the under gardener led him up the path at the side of the house, passed the morning-room window, and, not sharing Mrs. Chudleigh's scruples, looked in. The sight that met his eyes had the effect of bringing him up short, staring. Then, for he was a tactful man, he withdrew his gaze from the spectacle of Miss Fawcett locked in Inspector Harding's arms, and tiptoed cautiously away.

For quite twenty minutes after he had gone the conversation between Miss Fawcett and Inspector Harding had no bearing at all upon the problems that might have been supposed to engross the Inspector's attention, and was not remarkable for any very noticeable degree of intelligence or originality. It seemed, however, to be an eminently satisfactory conversation from their point of view, and might have been continued for an unspecified length of time, had not Miss Fawcett chanced to ask Inspector Harding if he realised that if no one had murdered the General they might never have met.

Recalled to a sense of his duties, Inspector Harding put Miss Fawcett firmly away from him. "Sit down in that chair, Dinah, and pretend I'm the Superintendent, or the sub-human detective who came about the plated entree dishes," he said, and resolutely retired to a chair on the other side of the table.

"Oh, do you remember that?" asked Dinah idiotically.

"I rem — No!" said Harding with emphasis. "You must help me. I'm here strictly on business. There are things I want to ask you." He eyed Miss Fawcett across the table.

"It isn't helping to look at me like that," he said uncertainly. "It only makes me want to kiss you again."

"Pretend I'm Camilla," suggested Dinah. "Oh, and do you know, she thinks I'm making a dead set at you? Shc told me so at lunch. I didn't, did I?"