Inspector Brown’s two gardeners were making laborious work of their search. The end of the roof where the ivy grew was full in the blaze of the sun, and coats and waistcoats were in turn discarded. There were intervals for chatty little rests and the mopping of faces. In three-quarters of an hour a very small bit of the roof had been dealt with, and I calculated that it would be dark before the whole could be cleared unless Progress was speeded up.
The inspector was evidently of the same opinion, for he came in while we were watching and we soon heard his loud-voiced complaints across the lawn. A little later the party was increased to three.
They cleared the roof methodically, a foot at a time. When the main strands of the tangled growth had been cut and disentangled, they were carefully shaken out and thrown to the lawn below. The loose leaves on the roof were examined and put into a bucket. These having been removed, the smaller bits were collected together and riddled through a sieve. The siftings were swept aside and the remainder carefully searched. Then another few strands were cut and the process repeated.
Margaret and I watched them idly as we sat, their clippings and the noise of the bucket as it was handled up and down from the roof punctuating our desultory conversation. I fancy we were both meditating with lazy inconsequence on the day’s events and our few remarks reflected our meditations.
“We are sure to have some of them down from the club to make inquiries this evening,” I said.
“Yes. It will be rather awkward, won’t it?”
A long pause in which I puffed away leisurely at my pipe and she lay back gently rotating her red parasol.
“Don’t you think we ought to have some definite understanding about what we are all of us going to say when callers do appear? We are sure to have no end directly it gets about. The Hansons know nearly every one there is to know in Merchester and I can assure you from my own experience, that we simply can’t be beaten where curiosity is concerned.” She moved her chair round as she spoke to get a better view of the surgery wing.
“I think that you are right,” I said, knocking the ashes out of my pipe. “I’ll have a word with the doctor about it.”
“He would deal with them better than any of us,” she agreed, “but he may not be here all the time, and I can’t imagine that either Ethel or Kenneth would excel at the job. They are both too——” She paused for a word.