Free Detection Unlimited by Georgette Heyer

for the past hour and more: I was quite unable to drag myself away, though there was a duck and green peas waiting for me at home. Instead, I ate a singularly nauseating meal at the Red Lion. I can't think how we ever came to be famed for our hostelries. Thank you, I should love some coffee! Where is the heroine of this affair?'

    'Lying down upstairs,' answered Abby. 'How did you know she was here?'

    'It is easy to see that you are a town-dweller,' said Gavin, dropping a lump of sugar into his cup. 'I used to be one myself,' and I'm so glad Walter made it possible for me to return to Thornden. Life is very dull in London. You are dependent on the Radio and the Press for all the news. Of course I know that Mavis Warrenby is here! I'm delighted to learn, however, that she's lying down upstairs: I didn't know that, though I suppose I might have guessed it. Now we can talk it all over without feeling the smallest gene.'

    'How much is known in the village?' asked Charles.

    'Oh, much more than the truth! That's why I came. I want to know what really happened. Now, don't tell me it was an accident! That was the first rumour that reached the Red Lion, but nothing would induce me to lend it ear. Of course Sampson Warrenby was murdered! He is recognizable as a character created only to be murdered.'

    'You mean if he's been a character in one of your books,' said Abby.

    'Well, he may yet be that.'

    'Charles thinks he must have been shot from the bushes opposite the house, on the common,' said Miss Patterdale.

    Gavin turned his eyes enquiringly to Charles, who briefly explained his reasons for holding this opinion. 'He was sitting in the garden with his profile turned to the lane, presumably reading some papers he's taken out with him. It wouldn't have been a very difficult shot.'

    'But where was Mavis while all this markmanship was going on? Report places her actually on the scene of the crime.'

    'No, she wasn't quite that, though darned nearly. According to her story, she was getting over the stile at the top of the lane when she heard the shot. That's where the murderer was in luck: a second or two later and she would have been on the spot -- might even have stopped the bullet.'

    'No, she mightn't,' contradicted Abby. 'That's fatuous! The man wouldn't have fired if she'd been in the way!'

    'Who knows?' murmured Gavin. 'I shall go and view the terrain tomorrow morning. Can't you see the stile from the common? I rather thought you could.'

    'Yes, I thought of that too,' agreed Charles. 'Several explanations possible. The murderer may have been too intent on taking aim to look that way. He may have been lying with the gorse bushes shutting off the stile from his sight.'

    'I find both those theories depressing. They make it seem as if the murderer is a careless, slapdash person, and that I refuse to believe.'

    'But that's what they usually are, aren't they?' asked Abby. 'Real murderers, I mean, not the ones in books. I know I've read somewhere that they nearly always give themselves away by doing something silly.'

    'True enough,' said Charles. 'It 'ud be nice if ours turned out to be a master of crime, but I'm bound to say I haven't much hope of it.'

    'If you have cast your mind round the district one can only be surprised that you have any, remarked Gavin. 'Which brings us to the really burning question exercising all our minds: who did if?'

    'I know,' said Abby sympathetically. 'I've been thinking of that, and I haven't the ghost of a notion. Because it isn't enough to dislike a person, is it? I mean, there's got to be a bigger motive than that.'

    'Besides,' said Charles caustically, 'we have it on Mavis's authority that her uncle had no enemies.'

    'Did she say that?' asked Gavin, awed.

    'Yes, she did,' nodded Miss Patterdale. 'When the detective questioned her. I must say, I thought that was going too far. Silly, too. The police are bound to find out that no one could bear the man.'

    'But did you all stand by and