I was silent, but I did not agree with him. I was quite sure that Anne Protheroe had had no pistol with her since Miss Marple had said so. Miss Marple is not the type of elderly lady who makes mistakes. She has got an uncanny knack of being always right.
“What did get me was that nobody heard the shot. If it was fired then – somebody must have heard it – wherever they thought it came from. Slack, you’d better have a word with the maid.”
Inspector Slack moved with alacrity towards the door.
“I shouldn’t ask her if she heard a shot in the house,” I said. “Because if you do, she’ll deny it. Call it a shot in the wood. That’s the only kind of shot she’d admit to hearing.”
“I know how to manage them,” said Inspector Slack, and disappeared.
“Miss Marple says she heard a shot later,” said Colonel Melchett thoughtfully. “We must see if she can fix the time at all precisely. Of course it may be a stray shot that had nothing to do with the case.”
“It may be, of course,” I agreed.
The colonel took a turn or two up and down the room.
“Do you know, Clement,” he said suddenly, “I’ve a feeling that this is going to turn out a much more intricate and difficult business than any of us think. Dash it all, there’s something behind it.” He snorted. “Something we don’t know about. We’re only beginning, Clement. Mark my words, we’re only beginning. All these things, the clock, the note, the pistol – they don’t make sense as they stand.”
I shook my head. They certainly didn’t.
“But I’m going to get to the bottom of it. No calling in of Scotland Yard. Slack’s a smart man. He’s a very smart man. He’s a kind of ferret. He’ll nose his way through to the truth. He’s done several very good things already, and this case will be his chef d’œuvre. Some men would call in Scotland Yard. I shan’t. We’ll get to the bottom of this here in Downshire.”
“I hope so, I’m sure,” I said.
I tried to make my voice enthusiastic, but I had already taken such a dislike to Inspector Slack that the prospect of his success failed to appeal to me. A successful Slack would, I thought, be even more odious than a baffled one.
“Who has the house next door?” asked the Colonel suddenly. “You mean at the end of the road? Mrs. Price Ridley.”
“We’ll go along to her after Slack has finished with your maid. She might just possibly have heard something. She isn’t deaf or anything, is she?”
“I should say her hearing was remarkably keen. I’m going by the amount of scandal she has started by ‘just happening to overhear accidentally.'”
“That’s the kind of woman we want. Oh! here’s Slack.”
The inspector had the air of one emerging from a severe tussle.
“Phew!” he said. “That’s a tartar you’ve got, sir.”
“Mary is essentially a girl of strong character,” I replied.
“Doesn’t like the police,” he said. “I cautioned her – did what I could to put the fear of the law into her, but no good. She stood right up to me.”
“Spirited,” I said, feeling more kindly towards Mary.
“But I pinned her down all right. She heard one shot – and one shot only. And it was a good long time after Colonel Protheroe came. I couldn’t get her to name a time, but we fixed it at last by means of the fish. The fish was late, and she blew the boy up when he came, and he said it was barely half-past six anyway, and it was just after that she heard the shot. Of course, that’s not accurate, so to speak, but it gives us an idea.”
“H’m,” said Melchett.
“I don’t think Mrs. Protheroe’s in this after all,” said Slack,
With a note of regret in his voice. “She wouldn’t have had time, to begin with, and then women never like fiddling about with firearms. Arsenic’s more in their line. No, I don’t think she did it. It’s a pity!” He sighed.