After staring at Hemingway for a moment, he said in a flattened voice: “When I say I did not see him, I mean—I mean—”
“You mean you did,” supplied Hemingway. “Comes of being foreign, and not being able to speak English right, I daresay.”
Ladislas gulped. “He was in his study. He was reading some papers.”
Hemingway nodded. “At his desk? You could see him from the road, easy, if that was where he was. So then, according to what you told Carsethorn, you slipped up to the back-door, which, I must say, seems to me a silly thing to have done, because, for one thing, I've seen the path which the tradesmen use, and it runs up that side of the house, so that I should have thought you'd have caught Mr. Warrenby's eye; and, for another, unless he was uncommonly deaf, I should have expected him to have heard you knocking on the back-door. However, if that's your story, I don't mind: it doesn't seem to me to matter much.”
“Now I shall tell you the truth!” said Ladislas impulsively. “I did not go to the door! I went away, because I do not wish to make trouble for Miss Warrenby, and if her uncle is at home it is plain to me that she cannot go with me anywhere. It makes nothing!”
“Only a bit of extra work for the police, and that's fair enough, isn't it?” said Hemingway.
He left Ladislas hovering between doubt and relief, and went out to find that Constable Melkinthorpe was no longer alone. He had left the car, and was standing beside it, grinning down at an aged and disreputable individual in a much-patched suit of clothes and a greasy cap, which he wore at a raffish angle wholly inappropriate to his advanced years. Beside him stood a buxom lady, who appeared to be torn between anxiety and annoyance; and, eying them both in a boding fashion, was a stout and middle-aged constable. As the Chief Inspector paused for a moment, surveying the group, the buxom lady tried to take the old gentleman's arm, and besought him urgently to give over, and come off home to his tea.
“You lemme go, or I'll fetch you a clip!” said the Oldest Inhabitant, in shrill but slightly indistinct tones, and brandishing a serviceable ash-plant. “Wimmen! I 'ates the sight of them! I'm a-going to 'ave a few words with the Lunnon 'tec, and it 'ud take more than a nasty, meddling female to stop me! Ah! And more than a mutton-headed flat-foot wot never got no promotion, and never would, not if he lived to be as old as wot I am, which 'e won't becos 'e eats too much—unless it ain't fat, but dropsy 'e's got.”
“Father!” expostulated his daughter, giving his arm a shake. “You've got no call to be rude to Mr. Hobkirk! If you don't stop it—”
“You give me any more of your impudence, Biggleswade, and you'll wish you'd kept a civil tongue in your head!” interrupted Constable Hobkirk, swelling with wrath.