Free Detection Unlimited by Georgette Heyer Page B

Charles. 'I bet he isn't the only one who might have done it.'

    'Well, just you remember that!' she admonished him. 'It's all very well to talk like that about people like poor old Thaddeus Drybeck, but you wouldn't think it nearly so amusing if someone were to do the same about your father, for instance.'

    Charles stared at her. 'Dad? But he wasn't there!'

    'Of course he wasn't. But what would you feel like if we started to make up stories of where he might have been? You shouldn't let your tongue run away with you.'

    She appealed to deaf ears. Young Mr Haswell, betraying an unfilial delight in this novel aspect of his parent, gave a shout of laughter, and gasped: 'Dad! Oh, what a rich thought! I must ask him if he can account for his movements!'

    5.

    BY noon on the following day, the Chief Constable was listening to a report from Detective-Sergeant Carsethorn, who had spent a busy but unpromising morning; half an hour later he expressed a desire to be allowed to think the thing over; and within ten minutes he had reached a not unexpected but not very welcome decision. 'And I don't mind telling you, Carsethorn,' he said, as he sat waiting to be connected with a certain London telephone number, 'that I should do exactly the same if Inspector Thropton hadn't chosen this moment to go down with German measles!'

    'Yes, sir,' said the Sergeant, torn between a natural desire to achieve promotion through his brilliant handling of a difficult case, and an uneasy suspicion that the problem was rather too complicated for him to tackle.

    It was therefore with mixed feelings that, shortly before four o'clock, he made the acquaintance of a bright-eyed and cheerful individual, who was ushered into the Chief Constable's room at the police-station, a tall and rather severe man at his heels.

    'Chief Inspector Hemingway?' said Colonel Scales, rising behind his desk, and holding out his hand across it. 'Glad to meet you! Heard of you, of course. I warned Headquarters this would need a good man, and I see they've sent me one.'

    'Thank you, sir!' said the Chief Inspector, without a blush. He shook the Colonel's hand, and indicated his companion. 'Inspector Harbottle, sir.'

    'Afternoon, Inspector. This is Detective Sergeant Carsethorn, who has been in charge of the case.'

    'Very happy to work with you,' said the Chief Inspector, briskly shaking the Sergeant's hand. 'Of course, I don't know much about it yet, but I'm bound to say it sounds like a nice case, on the face of it.'

    'Eh?' ejaculated the Colonel, startled by this view of a case which he (like Miss Patterdale) feared would lead to much unpleasantness. 'Did you say nice?'

    'I did, sir. What I meant was that it's out of the ordinary.'

    'In a way I suppose it is. The murder itself does not present us, I think you will agree, with any unusual features, however.'

    'Plain case of shooting, isn't it, sir? No locked rooms, or mysterious weapons, or any other trimmings?'

    'The man was shot in his own garden,' said the Colonel, looking at him rather uncertainly. It appeared to him that Chief Inspector Hemingway approached his task in a disquietingly lighthearted spirit. He recalled that he had been warned by an old friend at Scotland Yard that he would find the Chief Inspector a little unorthodox.

    'Ah!' said Hemingway. 'What you might call a nice, wide field.'

    'No, a garden,' said the Colonel.

    'Just so, sir,'

    'I'd better tell you exactly what has happened to date. Sit down, all of you! I'm going to light a pipe myself. You can do the same. Or there are cigarettes in that box.'

    He sat down, and began to fill his pipe from an old-fashioned rubber pouch. The Chief Inspector took a cigarette, and lit it; and his subordinate, offered the box by Sergeant Carsethorn, said in a deep voice that he never smoked.

    Having, by the expenditure of several matches, got his pipe going, it did not take the Colonel long to lay the bare facts of the case before Hemingway. It took rather