“All right, sir! You've gone and lent it to someone,” said Hemingway. “Which, of course, you've got no business to do.”
“I cannot deny it,” said the Vicar mournfully. “But when one possesses a sporting gun—selfishly, I feel for I have no use for it—it seems churlish to refuse to lend it to lads less fortunate, particularly when the example is set me by our good Squire, who allows shooting on his waste-land, and is always the first to encourage the village-lads to spend their leisure hours in sport rather than the pursuits which, alas, are by far too common in these times! Splendid fellows, too, most of them! I've watched many of them grow up from the cradle, and I can assure you, Inspector, though I have undoubtedly broken the law in lending a rifle to any unauthorised person, I should not dream of putting it into the hands of anyone I could not vouch for.”
“Well, sir, whose hands did you put it into?” asked Hemingway patiently.
“I think,” said the Vicar, “and such, also, is my wife's recollection, that I lent it last to young Ditchling. One of my choirboys, till his voice broke, and a sterling lad! The eldest of a large family, and his mother, poor soul, a widow. He has just received his call-up papers, and I fear that in the excitement of the moment he must have forgotten to return the rifle to me, which was remiss of him, and still more so of me, for not having reminded him. For young people, you know, Inspector, are inclined to forget things.”
“They are, aren't they, sir?” agreed Hemingway, with commendable restraint. “Did you say he was the eldest of a large family? With a whole lot of young brothers, I daresay, who have been having a high old time with a gun that doesn't belong to them, and have very likely lost it by this time!”
The Vicar, much dismayed, said: “Indeed, I trust not!”
“Yes, so do I,” said Hemingway grimly. “Where does this large family live?”
“At No. 2 Rose Cottages,” replied the Vicar, regarding him with an unhappy look in his eye. “That is the row of cottages facing the common, on the Trindale-road.”
“It is, is it?” said Hemingway, his excellent memory at work.
“I know what you are thinking,” said the Vicar, sitting down heavily in the chair behind his desk. “I can never sufficiently blame myself for having been the cause—unwitting, but equally unpardonable!—of bringing suspicion to bear upon a member of a gallant and a persecuted nation, and one, moreover, of whom I know no ill!”