CHAPTER VI
We puzzled over the business of the clock for some time, but we could make nothing of it. Griselda said I ought to make another effort to tell Inspector Slack about it, but on that point I was feeling what I can only describe as “mulish.”
Inspector Slack had been abominably and most unnecessarily rude. I was looking forward to a moment when I could produce my valuable contribution and effect his discomfiture. I would then say in a tone of mild reproach:
“If you had only listened to me, Inspector Slack -”
I expected that he would at least speak to me before he left the house, but to our surprise we learned from Mary that he had departed, having locked up the study door and issued orders that no one was to attempt to enter the room.
Griselda suggested going up to Old Hall.
“It will be so awful for Anne Protheroe – with the police and everything,” she said. “Perhaps I might be able to do something for her.”
I cordially approved of this plan, and Griselda set off with instructions that she was to telephone to me if she thought that I could be of any use or comfort to either of the ladies.
I now proceeded to ring up the Sunday School teachers, who were coming at 7.45 for their weekly preparation class. I thought that under the circumstances it would be better to put them off.
Dennis was the next person to arrive on the scene, having just returned from a tennis party. The fact that murder had taken place at the Vicarage seemed to afford him acute satisfaction.
“Fancy being right on the spot in a murder case,” he exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to be right in the midst of one. Why have the police locked up the study? Wouldn’t one of the other door keys fit it?”
I refused to allow anything of the sort to be attempted. Dennis gave in with a bad grace. After extracting every possible detail from me he went out into the garden to look for footprints, remarking cheerfully that it was lucky it was only old Protheroe, whom every one disliked.
His cheerful callousness rather grated on me, but I reflected that I was perhaps being hard on the boy. At Dennis’s age a detective story is one of the best things in life, and to find a real detective story, complete with corpse, waiting on one’s own front doorstep, so to speak, is bound to send a healthy-minded boy into the seventh heaven of enjoyment. Death means very little to a boy of sixteen.
Griselda came back in about an hour’s time. She had seen Anne Protheroe, having arrived just after the Inspector had broken the news to her.
On hearing that Mrs. Protheroe had last seen her husband in the village about a quarter to six, and that she had no light of any kind to throw upon the matter, he had taken his departure, explaining that he would return on the morrow for a fuller interview.
“He was quite decent in his way,” said Griselda grudgingly.
“How did Mrs. Protheroe take it?” I asked.
“Well – she was very quiet – but then she always is.”
“Yes,” I said. “I can’t imagine Anne Protheroe going into hysterics.”
“Of course it was a great shock. You could see that. She thanked me for coming and said she was very grateful but that there was nothing I could do.”
“What about Lettice?”
“She was out playing tennis somewhere. She hadn’t got home yet.” There was a pause, and then Griselda said:
“You know, Len, she was really very queer – very queer indeed.”
“The shock,” I suggested.
“Yes – I suppose so. And yet -” Griselda furrowed her brows perplexedly. “It wasn’t like that, somehow. She didn’t seem so much bowled over as – well – terrified.”
“Terrified?”
“Yes – not showing it, you know. At least not meaning to show it. But a queer, watchful look in her eyes. I wonder if she has a sort of idea who did kill him. She asked again and again if any one were suspected.”
“Did she?” I said thoughtfully.