The Ha-Ha Case Page 20

  The inspector rose to his feet as she entered the room; but she invited him, with a gesture, to sit down again. Now that the plunge had been taken, she meant to see the thing through; and quite probably she would need time to elicit what she wanted from him. Besides, by sitting down she gained a weapon. By rising from her chair she could tacitly hint that the interview had lasted long enough. Cool and collected, she chose a chair which gave Hinton no advantage of light; and then, turning to him, she waited for him to make the first move.

  “Sorry to trouble you, Miss Menteith,” the inspector began. “I’ve called to ask for the loan—only temporary, of course—of the guns that were used on the morning of that shooting-accident.”

  Una saw her fears realised, but she managed to feign surprise in her reply.

  “I thought all that was over and done with.”

  “It’s just a formal matter,” the inspector lied glibly. “We need particulars of them for record purposes.”

  “Oh? Is that so? Well, they’re in the gun-room, if you want them,” Una answered with well-assumed indifference.

  But here Hinton had over-reached himself by despising his opponent. Una knew nothing of police procedure, but the inspector had under-rated her intelligence when he coined that feeble excuse. A request for Johnnie’s gun alone, she could have understood, although it had already been produced and examined at the inquest. But at the inquest there had been no question of the other guns. Why were they wanted now? What had they to do with the ‘accident’? She could make neither head nor tail of it at the moment. One thought occupied the foreground of her mind just then: the whole affair was going to be raked up afresh, evidently, and it behoved her to walk cautiously.

  The inspector seemed in no hurry to take possession of the guns. In a casual tone, as though merely making conversation, he put a new question which surprised Una by its apparent irrelevance.

  “You were staying with Mrs. Laxford, weren’t you?”

  “I was employed by Mrs. Laxford,” Una corrected him. “I’m engaged to Mr. Oswald Brandon. I’m staying here for the present to look after old Mr. Brandon while his sons are away on business.”

  Inspector Hinton did not quite like the dry tone in which these particulars were volunteered. “What business is it of yours?” was the tacit query underlying the frankness of her response to his question.

  “Yes, yes,” he acknowledged. “I see, quite. The point is this, Miss Menteith. A Mr. Hay was staying here, not long ago, you remember. We can’t get his address. As you were on the spot at the time, perhaps you know it?”

  At Hay’s name, Una had difficulty in restraining a start. How much did this man know about Hay and his doings? But at least this question presented no difficulties. She shook her head decidedly.

  “Mr. Laxford could give you it, surely,” she suggested. “Mr. Hay was a friend of his.”

  “Mr. Hay wasn’t a friend of Mr. John Brandon’s, by any chance?”

  “Oh, no! They were complete strangers. Mr. John Brandon told me so before Mr. Hay arrived. He said something about Mr. Hay having business with Mr. Laxford.”

  Una congratulated herself that this, while truthful, would put the inspector off the dangerous track. Her main object was to keep Johnnie’s name out of the talk and to prevent Hinton from thinking that Hay and Johnnie had anything in common.

  “Business,” the inspector echoed ruminatively. “What sort of business, I wonder?”

  “Something about timber, I gathered,” Una volunteered, after a moment’s reflection.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Una could not restrain her natural irony, now that she had steered him away from the dangerous subject.

  “Another formal inquiry?” she asked. “For record purposes?”

  “Just so,” Hinton assured her stolidly.

  He hardly took the trouble to pretend, now. The girl’s looks and tone betrayed that his half-truth about formalities had not deceived her in the slightest. Still, he had no desire to show his hand just then. Until he knew where she stood, it was safer to keep up the thin fiction that he was merely following out a prescribed routine. Una ignored his last words. She knitted her brows in an evident effort to recall something which eluded her memory for a few moments. Then it came back to her suddenly.

  “Yes, I remember now,” she declared with assurance. “I happened to be in the room with Mr. Laxford and Mr. Hay. They were talking low, and naturally I paid no attention. Then Mr. Hay raised his voice for a moment. Rather pleased with himself over something, I thought. And he said”—she imitated Hay’s accent—“‘Ain’t I a workman? There ain’t another lumberer could do it as neat as that.’ Mr. Laxford glanced across at me and seemed annoyed about something. He said a word or two about timber and felling trees—lumber, you know. I paid no more attention to what they said. It was obviously a bit of private talk and no affair of mine.”

  The inspector’s face betrayed nothing except a certain dull interest; but behind his mask he was jubilant. Miss Menteith might be content with Laxford’s gloss about timber, but Hinton had a different interpretation for the word ‘lumberer.’ With this information, there was a chance that Scotland Yard might solve the mystery of Hay’s identity without much trouble.

  “Felling timber?” he said doubtfully. “But a tenant can’t fell timber, surely?”

  “There was some talk of buying Edgehill,” Una explained.

  “How did you hear that?” Hinton inquired ponderously.

  Una now saw that she had blundered in making that admission.

  “Mr. John Brandon told me,” she confessed reluctantly.

  “Oh, so Mr. Laxford thought of buying the estate?”

  Una saw that she was getting deeper and deeper. Johnnie’s name was drifting into the centre of the field again.

  “No, the idea was to buy the estate on behalf of Mr. John Brandon I believe. It was to be done in his name, anyhow. You see, Mr. Laxford couldn’t manage it in his own name. He’s an undischarged bankrupt.”

  There! That carrot might lead this ass off on a fresh track and let her get Johnnie’s name out of the picture. To her delight, Hinton seemed to rise to the bait.

  “An undischarged bankrupt, is he? Well, well. But perhaps his wife has means of her own?”

  Una hastened to take full advantage of this opportunity. She owed nothing to the Laxfords and had not the slightest scruple in telling what she knew about them.

  “I hardly think so,” she said ironically. “People with large private incomes are not usually in debt to their governesses.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” the inspector commented with a laugh. “Having money and parting with it aren’t the same thing.”

  He seemed rather pleased with his feeble joke. Una smiled, but not at the jest.

  “That may be. Still, would a woman with large private means let her husband pawn her personal jewellery—rings and trinkets—to raise money to pay the railway fares of the family and square off the milk account?”

  “They did that, did they?”

  “Yes, when they were coming to Edgehill from the last place we lived at. As to my salary, it’s months in arrear. I didn’t press for it. I don’t need the money urgently.”

  “How do you know all this about pawning?” Hinton demanded, dropping his pretences completely.

  “I saw Mr. Laxford hand over the tickets to his wife, telling her how much he’d raised. They made no concealment about it. In fact, it was rather a family joke.”

  “Of course they redeemed the jewellery later?”

  Una shook her head.

  “Not so far as I know. The pawn-tickets were in a drawer of a writing bureau. I saw them not long ago, just before the Laxfords left here.”

  The inspector’s evident interest in the Laxford finances surprised Una more than a little; but her main feeling was one of relief that she had led him away from the subject of Johnnie. His next question, however, brought her back on to dangerous ground.

/>   “Was Mr. Laxford in the position of guardian or trustee to Mr. John Brandon, do you know?”

  “Not so far as I know. It’s hardly likely, is it? with old Mr. Brandon still alive.”

  Hinton reflected for a moment before putting his next question.

  “You lived with the family, Miss Menteith. Did you see anything to suggest that Mr. Laxford had any power over young Mr. Brandon?”

  Una thought swiftly before answering. This was the most dangerous subject of all, from her point of view.

  “You mean, had he much influence with Mr. John Brandon?” she asked, adroitly shifting the ground. “Well, in a way, yes. Mr. Brandon admired him, you see, and took a lot of ideas from him. He had very considerable trust in Mr. Laxford’s judgment, I could see. If Mr. Laxford had advised him, I think he’d have taken the advice.”

  “Quite so. And did the rest of the Brandon family approve of that state of affairs?”

  Una evaded this blunt question.

  “I think the rest of the Brandon family could answer that much better than I can. If you don’t mind, let’s stick to what I know myself. I can’t speak for other people’s opinions.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the inspector agreed. “Now from your own knowledge, can you tell me if Mr. Laxford was interested in the Brandon estate?”

  “There was some friction between him and the rest of the Brandon family, I believe,” Una admitted with some reluctance.

  “Quite so. Now, Miss Menteith, from your own knowledge have you the impression that Mr. John Brandon was, putting it figuratively, a pawn in some game?”

  Una could have ground her teeth with vexation. This man with his polite noises, his “Quite so,” and “Yes, yes, of course,” had driven her into a corner. Then a possible line of escape opened up before her.

  “A pawn in some game? In connection with the Brandon estate?” she asked, changing the bearing of the question by her qualification. “Well, I can’t speak for the Brandon family. As a mere looker-on, I certainly got the impression that they were anxious to get Mr. John Brandon away from Mr. Laxford. Natural enough, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, quite. But why was Mr. Laxford so anxious to retain him?” asked the inspector shrewdly.

  Una saw that she had been out-manœuvred and that once again the inquiry was bringing her on to thin ice.

  “I don’t understand much about the Brandon estate,” she said candidly. “You’ll have to see Mr. James Brandon about that, if you want details. He has it all at his finger ends. It’s got something to do with a custom called ‘borough English,’ if that’s the right name for it. All I know about it is that before they could do anything about the estate they had to wait till Mr. John Brandon came of age and gave his consent to some arrangement or other.”

  “Ah! And so Mr. Laxford’s influence with the boy might be a factor in the business when they got to that stage?”

  “You can form your own opinion about that,” Una retorted rather tartly, as though she felt that she was being trapped into going further than she intended.

  “Just so, just so,” Hinton admitted, as though he recognised that he was asking an unfair question. Then, to Una’s relief, he changed the subject.

  “You were on the spot when Edgehill was leased, weren’t you, Miss Menteith? It wasn’t taken in Mr. Laxford’s name, I suppose, since he’s an undischarged bankrupt?”

  Una pondered for a moment or two before replying.

  “I’m trying to remember,” she explained. Then after a further pause she added, “I believe it was taken on behalf of Mr. John Brandon. The first payment was made by a cheque drawn on Mrs. Laxford’s account. I know that because Mr. John Brandon mentioned it to me at the time.”

  “But she had no money, you told me,” the inspector countered swiftly.

  Una looked puzzled for a moment.

  “She hadn’t, shortly after that,” she said. “But perhaps she ran herself short by drawing that cheque. It may have taken the whole of her balance to meet it.”

  “Something in that, perhaps,” the inspector admitted, though in a grudging tone.

  Much to Una’s relief, he rose to his feet.

  “I think I’ll take those guns, now, Miss Menteith, if you’ll let me borrow them. They’ll be returned in due course. I’ll give you a receipt for them, to keep things shipshape.”

  Una led the way to the gun-room, where Hinton picked out the guns and gave her a receipt for them. As he turned to go, a fresh idea seemed to strike him.

  “I’d better take some of the cartridges also, perhaps,” he suggested. “Number Fives, they were.”

  “They’re in this drawer,” Una explained.

  Hinton helped himself to a double handful which he slipped into his pocket.

  “That’s all I need trouble you with, Miss Menteith,” he said, courteously enough, as he stood aside to let her pass out first. “It’s very good of you to spare the time to give me this information.”

  Una accompanied him to the front door and watched him stow the guns in the rear seats of a car which waited there in charge of a constable. The inspector took the wheel, and she noticed that he turned into the back road by the Long Plantation.

  That interview had left an uncomfortable feeling in her mind. Una Menteith liked to understand things; and in this affair there had been several points which puzzled her. Why were all three guns wanted? Not for ‘record purposes’; that excuse had been much too thin. And why this sudden interest in Hay, who had played no part at the inquest? Again, what lay behind the inspector’s evident curiosity about the Laxford finances? What had they to do with Johnnie’s death. But the crucial thing was this sinister suggestion that Johnnie might have been ‘a pawn in a game.’ The inspector was no fool, evidently, since he had seen as far into the affair as that. If he persisted along that line, the whole scandal might be unearthed, just when they had begun to hope that it was dead and buried.

  Her thoughts were so much concentrated on this single aspect of the case that she missed the main object of Hinton’s investigation at the moment.

  Meanwhile the inspector had stopped his car by the Long Plantation, got out, and given the constable instructions to take the guns to the police station, and return later on. Hinton cut through the Plantation to the spot where a little pile of stones marked the position where Johnnie’s body had lain at the top of the sunk fence.

  Hinton began by making a minute examination of the trees on the north side of the glade. Here and there he seemed to find something: withered leaves, snapped twigs, or marks on the bark of branches or trunks. At each of these, he affixed scraps of paper; and soon a dozen or more white patches stood out against the foliage. One spot in particular, where there was a localised shattering of twigs, appeared to interest him particularly; and he fixed there a half-sheet from his notebook, as a conspicuous sign.

  Taking a prismatic compass from his pocket, the inspector then retired to the southern side of the glade; and from two points among the bushes he examined the positions of his white scraps. He took a number of bearings with his compass, jotted the figures down in his notebook, and then, advancing to the tiny cairn, he took some further measurements which he entered up in turn. The results, evidently, were not what he had hoped for; and he spent some time in making rough sketches in his book and examining the half-sheet of paper on the tree from various points in the glade and along the line of the sunk fence.

  Finally, with a somewhat puzzled air, he returned his compass to his pocket, removed his paper indicators from the trees, and fell to making a minute search of the glade and its immediate neighbourhood. He persisted in this until interrupted by the appearance of the constable among the trees.

  “You can take on this job,” Hinton ordered. “Hunt about all around here and see if you find anything out of the common among the grass or in the bushes.”

  “What sort of thing, sir?” the constable inquired.

  “I don’t know what sort of thing,” Hinton retorted, rather ir
ritably. “Anything you can find. I want to be able to say that this place has been thoroughly searched, so see you don’t miss anything.”

  The constable set to work with a somewhat rueful face. Hinton watched him sardonically for a moment or two.

  “Don’t spare the knees of your trousers,” he suggested. “Get down to it. We can’t all have brains, but everybody’s got a pair of eyes. And bending your back’s good for rheumatism, they say.”

  He walked off through the Plantation to where the car was waiting on the back road. The morning’s work had resulted in a very mixed bag, but his researches in the wood had not been one of its successes. He got into the car and drove slowly back towards Talgarth, still puzzling over his results.

  His luck served him at the last, however, for just as he was about to enter the village he saw in front of him a rather ungainly girl with a market-basket on her arm, evidently on her way to the village shops. The inspector’s face brightened as he caught sight of her; and as he drew level with her he stopped his car and leaned over to speak.

  “Hullo, Beauty! Going to buy your trousseau?”

  “As soon as you ask me,” Miss Tugby retorted impudently.

  “No use putting your money on a non-starter,” advised the inspector. “But if you want me to talk business, I’ll oblige you. It would be worth a matter of ten bob to me if Mr. Copdock, by a slip of somebody’s tongue, was able to tell me who pays cheques to Mrs. Laxford. But of course if everybody had the same bit of information, it wouldn’t be worth anything to me, because I could get it for nothing. See?”

  Miss Tugby’s small eyes twinkled. Ten shillings meant a good deal to her; but to be put on the track of some scandal meant much more.

  “I’ll get it for you,” she said eagerly.

  “Oh, no, you won’t,” rejoined the inspector, who preferred a roundabout method when handling dirty tools. “If Mr. Copdock happens to drop me that information next time I see him, he’ll get a present of a ten-bob note in an envelope with no name on it. And, if I hear about it in the bar at the Arms, I shouldn’t be surprised if you got the push from your job. Queer affair, this cause-and-effect business, ain’t it? So you be careful, Beauty, or you’ll be caught in the larder with cream on your whiskers, one of these days. And then the trouble’ll start.”