Fen Country by Edmund Crispin Page A

inspector smiled. “Colonel Rackstraw. Quite a figure in these parts. Why, I remember him from when I was a boy.”
    Masters stared. “Are you just guessing, or—”
    “No, no. lt was the colonel all right. Of course, you haven’t heard.”
    “Haven’t heard what?”
    “That the colonel was attacked this evening in exactly the same way as Mr. Soane—the only difference being that the colonel survived it. It was a courting couple that found him, shortly after nine. He’d been knocked unconscious, and he was just coming round. From what he says, it must have happened fairly soon after you two met him down at Lumsden Bridge.”
    And at that, Oliver Masters was filled with a sudden wild elation which he was hard put to it to conceal. If he had been a wiser man, he would have known this for what it was—an excessive nervous reaction after an excessive nervous strain, like the snap of a released elastic band.
    But Masters was not wise; he was only clever. God, that was bright of me, he thought. For in truth, he remembered the respectable Colonel Rackstraw a great deal better than he had pretended: remembered how the colonel had asked them the time, how, even as he spoke, their ears had caught the faint distant jangle of the church clock’s chimes. “Ah—half past,” the colonel had said confidently, answering his own question.
    But it had not been half past: it had been a quarter to. And Masters, striding along with a distracted Enid at his side, straining instinctively, unreasoningly, to put more distance, and ever, more distance, beween themselves and the thing that had happened in the churchyard after Evensong, until such time as they could collect themselves and consider what was best to do—Masters had seen, in a flash of inspiration, how the old man’s mistake could be turned to their advantage. Leave him to himself, and in due course he was liable to discover the error. But creep back surreptitiously, knock him unconscious with a heavy stone—and how would he know how long he had been dead to the world, how would he know that he had misheard the village clock … ?
    It had worked, apparently.
    “And the colonel didn’t see who attacked him?” Masters found himself asking.
    “No. But I don’t doubt it was the same fellow who killed Mr. Soane… Incidentally, Mr. Masters, the colonel has told us that it was just half past eight when you and Mrs. Soane met him at Lumsden Bridge. It occurred to us that he might have come across you while you were out on your walk, and in fact he recognized your description at once. He asked you the time, he says, and—”
    “That’s true. I’d forgotten. And he’s right—it was half past eight.’ Masters pretended to hesitate. “Is that important?”
    “Fairly important, yes. You see, just before I came here this evening I managed at long last to establish, from a combination of factors, that it must have been round about half past when Mr. Soane was murdered. So if you two were a good ten minutes’ walk away…”
    “I see,” said Masters. “Well, Inspector, I won’t make a fuss about your having suspected Enid and me, because obviously you’re bound to suspect everybody. But at the same time, I won’t pretend I’m not glad the colonel’s evidence clears us.”
    “Oh yes, he’s quite definite about it,” said the inspector with perfect truth. “We can’t shake him… By the way, I suppose you checked the time on your own watch? It really was half past?”
    “Certainly.”
    “Your watch is reliable, is it?”
    “Yes, perfectly reliable.”
    The inspector got to his feet. “Well, so now we know where we are.” He snapped his notebook shut. “I’m arresting the pair of you for Mr. Soane’s murder. And I have to warn you that anything you say now may be used in evidence at your trial.”
    Enid Soane cried out incoherently. She was not a very intelligent woman: for all her lover’s explanations, she had never really understood how the attack on