“Heavens, I don't know! I'd forgotten all about it until you told us all this. He was the most inquisitive man—and quite unsnubbable!” She laughed, and stubbed out her cigarette. “I wonder who his client was? It sounds rather as if it must have been some shady firm he knew my husband wouldn't have had anything to do with. What fun!”
“No doubt that would have been it,” agreed the Chief Inspector, rising to his feet.
Chapter Eleven
It was five o'clock when Hemingway reached the Vicarage, and he found the vicar in conference with one of the Church wardens, Mr. Henry Haswell. An awed and inexperienced maidservant ushered him straightaway into the Vicar's study, saying with a gasp: “Please, sir, it's a gentleman from Scotland Yard!”
“Good gracious me!” ejaculated the Vicar, startled. “Well, you'd better show him in, Mary—oh, you are in! All right, Mary. That'll do! Good-afternoon—I don't know your name?”
Hemingway gave him his card, which he put on his spectacles to read. “Chief Inspector Hemingway: dear me, yes! You must tell me what I can do for you. Oh, this is one of our Church wardens—Mr. Haswell!”
“Perhaps you'd like me to clear out?” said Haswell, nodding briefly to the Chief Inspector.
“Not on my account, sir,” said Hemingway. “Very sorry to come interrupting you, Vicar. It's quite a small matter, really. I see by the Firearms Register that you own a .22 rifle. Could I have a look at it?”
“Rifle?” said the Vicar blankly. “Oh, yes, so I do! But it is really my son's. That is to say, I got it for him originally, though of course he has no use for it now he lives in London. Still, one never knows when he might like to have it, beside getting a little sport when he comes to visit us. I don't shoot myself.”
“No, sir. Might I see it?”