“Only,” I said, “you haven’t caught the murderer.”
“H’m,” said the inspector. “It was a woman’s voice you heard through the telephone. It was in all probability a woman’s voice Mrs. Price Ridley heard. If only that shot hadn’t come hard on the close of the telephone call – well, I’d know where to look.”
“Where?”
“Ah! that’s just what it’s best not to say, sir.”
Unblushingly, I suggested a glass of old port. I have some very fine old vintage port. Eleven o’clock in the morning is not the usual time for drinking port, but I did not think that mattered with Inspector Slack. It was, of course, cruel abuse of the vintage port, but one must not be squeamish about such things.
When Inspector Slack had polished off the second glass, he began to unbend and become genial. Such is the effect of that particular port.
“I don’t suppose it matters with you, sir,” he said. “You’ll keep it to yourself? No letting it get round the parish.”
I reassured him.
“Seeing as the whole thing happened in your house, it almost seems as though you had a right to know.”
“Just what I feel myself,” I said.
“Well, then, sir, what about the lady who called on Colonel Protheroe the night before the murder?”
“Mrs. Lestrange,” I cried, speaking rather loud in my astonishment.
The inspector threw me a reproachful glance.
“Not so loud, sir. Mrs. Lestrange is the lady I’ve got my eye on. You remember what I told you – blackmail.”
“Hardly a reason for murder. Wouldn’t it be a case of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs? That is, assuming that your hypothesis is true, which I don’t for a minute admit.”
The inspector winked at me in a common manner.
“Ah! she’s the kind the gentlemen will always stand up for. Now look here, sir. Suppose she’s successfully blackmailed the old gentleman in the past. After a lapse of years, she gets wind of him, comes down here and tries it on again. But, in the meantime, things have changed. The law has taken up a very different stand. Every facility is given nowadays to people prosecuting for blackmail – names are not allowed to be reported in the press. Suppose Colonel Protheroe turns round and says he’ll have the law on her. She’s in a nasty position. They give a very severe sentence for blackmail. The boot’s on the other leg. The only thing to do to save herself is to put him out good and quick.”
I was silent. I had to admit that the case the inspector had built up was plausible. Only one thing to my mind made it inadmissible – the personality of Mrs. Lestrange.
“I don’t agree with you, inspector,” I said. “Mrs. Lestrange doesn’t seem to me to be a potential blackmailer. She’s – well, it’s an old-fashioned word, but she’s a – lady.”
He threw me a pitying glance.
“Ah! well, sir,” he said tolerantly, “you’re a clergyman. You don’t know half of what goes on. Lady indeed! You’d be surprised if you knew some of the things I know.”
“I’m not referring to mere social position. Anyway, I should imagine Mrs. Lestrange to be a declassée. What I mean is a question of – personal refinement.”
“You don’t see her with the same eyes as I do, sir. I may be a man – but I’m a police officer, too. They can’t get over me with their personal refinement. Why, that woman is the kind who could stick a knife into you without turning a hair.”
Curiously enough, I could believe Mrs. Lestrange guilty of murder much more easily than I could believe her capable of blackmail.
“But, of course, she can’t have been telephoning to the old lady next door and shooting Colonel Protheroe at one and the same time,” continued the inspector.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he slapped his leg ferociously.
“Got it,” he exclaimed. “That’s the point of the telephone call. Kind of alibi. Knew we’d connect it with the first one. I’m going to look into this. She may have bribed some village lad to do the phoning for her. He’d never think of connecting it with the murder.”