Detection Unlimited by Georgette Heyer Page B

the locality well, and somewhere between the Haswell's place and Warrenby's he had that rifle cached where he could pick it up easily at the right moment. You're a countryman! You ought to know it isn't very difficult, where you've got woods, and hedges, and ditches. I'd choose a ditch, myself, at this time of the year, when the grass is long, and everything a regular tangle of dog-roses, and meadowsweet, and the rest of it.'

    'Yes,' admitted Harbottle. 'If it turns out to be like you describe.'

    'Well, we shall soon see,' said Hemingway. 'Carsethorn's coming round here before six to pick us up, and take us out to Thornden. They've had a chap keeping an eye on Fox House ever since yesterday, and Miss Warrenby wants him to be removed as soon as convenient, on account of the maid, who says she can't stay there with a policeman on the premises. Nice reputation the police have got in these parts!'

    'People don't like having police in the house,' said the Inspector seriously. 'It isn't respectable.'

    'Well, once I've had a look at the scene, and gone through any private papers there may be in the desk, he can be taken off. I don't want to lose that girl a maid, even if she did murder her uncle, which 73 we don't know, after all. Warrenby had a London solicitor, but beyond having drawn up his Will he doesn't seem to have done much for him. He's fishing in Scotland at the moment, anyway: the Chief Constable had a word with his clerk, and then with Miss Warrenby, who said she was sure her uncle wouldn't have minded us doing whatever it was our duty to do. So we don't have to lug this bird back from Scotland before we can get on with the job.'

    'What about the Will?' objected Harbottle.

    'That was in Warrenby's safe at his office. This London lawyer is one of the executors, according to what his clerk told the Colonel, and Miss Warrenby's the other. Which made it all plain sailing. It was opened in her presence, and I can go through any papers there may be, in her presence, too. And when we get through at Fox House, we'll call on Mr Drybeck. We don't want to start a scandal in his office, by going to interview him there tomorrow.'

    This programme was carried out. At the appointed hour Sergeant Carsethorn arrived with a police-car, and twenty minutes later the Chief Inspector was enjoying his first view of the village of Thorn-den. A game of cricket was being played on the common, where a level piece of the ground beside the Trindale-road had been turned into a playing-field; but the village itself was wrapped in a Sunday stillness. The Sergeant drove up to the cross-road, to enable Hemingway to see where Wood Lane turned out of the High Street, and then turned, and drove back to Fox Lane.

    Before entering the garden of Fox House, the three men, leaving the car, climbed the rising ground of the common to where the flaming gorse bushes stood. From this point of vantage quite an extensive view could be obtained over the common, which stretched away eastward in the general direction of Bellingham. It was dotted over with similar clumps of gorse, and a great many blackberry bushes, with here and there one or two trees, mostly silver birches. Away to the north, close to the Hawkshead-road, some fencing railed off a gravel-pit which, the Sergeant told Hemingway, had recently been opened up by the Squire. He explained that the common was not Crown land, but manorial waste. 'All the land here used to belong to the Ainstables, except what the Plenmellers had, west of the village, but you know how things have been for people like them, ever since the First War. They say young Plenmeller doesn't care, and from what I've seen of him I shouldn't think he cares about anything much; but the Squire's a very different sort of man. Quite one of the old school, as you may say. He'll carry on while he lives, but it's likely to be a bad look-out when he dies, because it's not to be expected that the next man will work like he does to keep things