“I can't tell you, because I'm no good at riddles either, but it seems to me it's something the police might look into instead of nosing round my place, and scaring my wife!” said Lindale, his eyes smouldering. “I don't know whether Plenmeller did it, or even if he had any reason to do it—not that I think that 'ud worry him! I've often wondered whether these fellows who are so damned clever at murdering people on paper ever put their methods into practice—but I can see how he could have concealed a light rifle without exciting any suspicion, supposing he'd walked into someone. Ever thought that that limp of his might be turned to good account!”
“Well, it's the sort of thing that's bound to strike one sooner or later, isn't it?” said Hemingway, picking up his hat.
Lindale escorted him out to the waiting car. “No doubt you think I shouldn't have said any of this. I daresay I shouldn't have, if I didn't know that Plenmeller himself had no such scruples! You can tell him, if you like: I've no objection.”
“Well, from what I've seen of him,” said Hemingway, “I don't suppose he'd have any objection either. I hope we shall be able to let you have your rifle back in a day or two. Good-day to you, sir!”
Constable Melkinthorpe, sedately driving towards the gate, hoped that his unconventional passenger might tell him what had been the outcome of his interview, but all Hemingway said was: “Can we get to the Ainstables' house from where we are?”
“Old Place, sir? Yes, sir: there's an entrance on to this road. Matter of a mile farther on. Shall I drive there now?”
Hemingway nodded. “Yes, but you can pull up first by this footpath I've heard so much about.”
Melkinthorpe obeyed, turning to the right as he emerged from the farm, and stopping a hundred yards up the road. Hemingway alighted, and slammed the door. “Right! You wait here!” he said, and walked off down the footpath.
On his left lay the common; on his right, for about a hundred yards, a ditch surmounted by a post-and-wire fence separated the path from a plantation of young fir-trees. A lichened stone wall marked its southern boundary, and this wall then flanked the path for perhaps fifty yards. Hemingway knew that behind it lay part of the garden of The Cedars, and took note of the position of the gate, set in it at its southern end. Just beyond the gate, the wall turned at right-angles again, completely shutting the gardens from view. The path then continued for another fifty yards between the common and a small spinney, before curving sharply westward to join Wood Lane at a point immediately south of The Cedars' front-gate. Where it turned to the west, a stile had been set, giving access to it from Fox Lane.
Hemingway paused there for a few minutes, thoughtfully considering the lie of the land. He glanced along the path, but a bend in it hid Wood Lane from his sight. Over the stile Fox House could be seen, through the trees in its garden, and so too could the gorse clump on the rising common, gleaming gold behind the bole of an elm-tree growing beside the lane. Uncultured voices, and the flutter of a summer-frock, informed the Chief Inspector that in one of his surmises at least he had been right: Fox Lane had suddenly become attractive to sightseers. He pursed up his mouth, shook his head slightly, and walked back to the main road, disappointing his chauffeur by saying nothing more, as he got into the car, than: “Go ahead!”