“Oh—! Mr. Ainstable trying to get my husband to back Warrenby for the River Board lawyer, for instance! I can't see what it matters, who gets the job, but no one but the Squire wanted it to be Warrenby. And now, when I think it over, I wonder why the Squire wanted him instead of Mr. Drybeck? Mr. Drybeck is his own solicitor, and an old friend, and he wants the appointment, too.”
The sound of a firm step on the flagged passage made her break off, and turn her head towards the door. Kenelm Lindale came into the room, a slight frown between his eyes. He was dressed in ancient grey slacks, and a colour shirt, open at the throat, and he looked to be both hot and annoyed. “Police?” he said shortly.
“It's a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard,” his wife warned him. “I've told him we can't help him!”
He dug a handkerchief out of his trouser-pocket, and wiped his face, and the back of his neck. “All right,” he said, looking at Hemingway. “What is it you want to know? We've started to cut the hay, so I shall be glad if you can make it snappy.”
“I just want to check up on your evidence, sir,” said Hemingway mendaciously. “We do have to be so careful, in the Department. Now, I think you said you left that tennis-party at about ten to seven, didn't you?”
“As near as I can make it: I don't know exactly, but I think it was about then. Mr. Ainstable and I left together, by the garden-gate. He may know when it was. I haven't asked him.”
“When did you part from Mr. Ainstable, sir?”
“Couple of minutes later, I suppose. He turned off into his new plantation, which runs behind The Cedars. I went on. You'll see that one of my farm-gates opens on to the road opposite the footpath leading to the village. It's about a hundred yards up the road from here. I came in by that gate, and went to see how my chaps had got on with a job I set them to in one of my water-meadows. I was in the house by half-past seven: that I do know, because I happened to look at the clock in the passage.”
“Oh, darling, were you going by the grandfather?” said Mrs. Lindale quickly. “I thought you were relying on your watch! That clock was ten minutes fast: I put it right when I wound it up yesterday. I'm sorry: I ought to have told you, but I didn't know you were going by it.”
Her husband looked at her, and after a tiny pause said lamely: “Oh!” He went to the fireplace, and selected a pipe from a collection on the mantelshelf, and took the lid off an old-fashioned tobacco-jar. As he began to fill the pipe, his eyes on his task, the frown deepened on his brow. He said deliberately: “I don't think it can have been as fast as all that, Delia. I could hardly have been down to the water-meadows and got back here by twenty-past seven.”