“Exactly,” I said. “Now what time was that?”
“Time?”
“Yes, time.”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure. Well after tea-time. I do know that.”
“Can’t you get a little nearer than that?”
“No, I can’t. I’ve got my work to do, haven’t I? I can’t go on looking at clocks the whole time – and it wouldn’t be much good anyway – the alarm loses a good three-quarters every day, and what with putting it on and one thing and another, I’m never exactly sure what time it is.”
This perhaps explains why our meals are never punctual. They are sometimes too late and sometimes bewilderingly early.
“Was it long before Mr. Redding came?”
“No, it wasn’t long. Ten minutes – a quarter of an hour – not longer than that.”
I nodded my head, satisfied.
“Is that all?” said Mary. “Because what I mean to say is I’ve got the joint in the oven and the pudding boiling over as likely as not.”
“That’s all right. You can go.”
She left the room, and I turned to Griselda.
“Is it quite out of the question to induce Mary to say sir or ma’am?”
“I have told her. She doesn’t remember. She’s just a raw girl, remember?”
“I am perfectly aware of that,” I said. “But raw things do not necessarily remain raw for ever. I feel a tinge of cooking might be induced in Mary.”
“Well, I don’t agree with you,” said Griselda. “You know how little we can afford to pay a servant. If once we got her smartened up at all, she’d leave. Naturally. And get higher wages. But as long as Mary can’t cook and has those awful manners well, we’re safe, nobody else would have her.”
I perceived that my wife’s methods of housekeeping were not so entirely haphazard as I had imagined. A certain amount of reasoning underlay them. Whether it was worth while having a maid at the price of her not being able to cook, and having a habit of throwing dishes and remarks at one with the same disconcerting abruptness, was a debatable matter.
“And anyway,” continued Griselda, “you must make allowances for her manners being worse than usual just now. You can’t expect her to feel exactly sympathetic about Colonel Protheroe’s death when he jailed her young man.”
“Did he jail her young man?”
“Yes, for poaching. You know, that man, Archer. Mary has been walking out with him for two years.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Darling Len, you never know anything.”
“It’s queer,” I said, “that every one says the shot came from the woods.”
“I don’t think it’s queer at all,” said Griselda. “You see, one so often does hear shots in the wood. So naturally, when you do hear a shot, you just assume as a matter of course that it is in the woods. It probably just sounds a bit louder than usual. Of course, if one were in the next room, you’d realize that it was in the house, but from Mary’s kitchen with the window right the other side of the house, I don’t believe you’d ever think of such a thing.”
The door opened again.
“Colonel Melchett’s back,” said Mary. “And that police inspector with him, and they say they’s be glad if you’d join then. They’re in the study.”
CHAPTER XI
I saw at a glance that Colonel Melchett and Inspector Slack had not been seeing eye to eye about the case. Melchett looked flushed and annoyed and the inspector looked sulky.
“I’m sorry to say,” said Melchett, “that Inspector Slack doesn’t agree with me in considering young Redding innocent.”
“If he didn’t do it, what does he go and say he did it for?” asked Slack sceptically.
“Mrs. Protheroe acted in an exactly similar fashion, remember, Slack.”
“That’s different. She’s a woman, and women act in that silly way. I’m not saying she did it for a moment. She heard he was accused and she trumped up a story. I’m used to that sort of game. You wouldn’t believe the fool things I’ve known women do. But Redding’s different. He’s got his head screwed on all right. And if he admits he did it, well, I say he did do it. It’s his pistol – you can’t get away from that. And thanks to this business of Mrs. Protheroe, we know the motive. That was the weak point before, but now we know it – why, the whole thing’s plain sailing.”