“He might, surely, have discovered that the lease of the pit had already been granted.” objected the Colonel.
“I'll go further than that, sir. He might have known it all along. In fact, he must have known it. Everyone in Thornden couldn't help but know it. I think something made him suspect the Squire's estate had been settled, and he wanted to know just how the land lay. He hadn't a hope of getting Mr. Drybeck to tell him anything, so he went about the job in a different way.”
“I should like you to tell me exactly what's in your mind, Hemingway,” said the Colonel, in a level voice.
“Well, sir, taking one thing with another, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Squire's committing waste—and has been doing so ever since his boy was killed. Now, as I say, I'm not an expert, but I do know that if you've got a settled estate, and you go selling its capital, in a manner of speaking—timber, mineral rights, and suchlike—about two-thirds of what you make out of it has to be put into the estate funds.” He paused, but the Colonel said nothing. “And if you put the whole sum into your own pocket—or perhaps invest it so that your wife will be left comfortably off when you're dead—well, that's committing waste.”
The Colonel raised his eyes from their frowning contemplation of the blotter on his desk. “That's a pretty serious charge, Chief Inspector.”
“It is, sir. Only, of course, I'm not concerned with what Mr. Ainstable may be doing with his estate, except in so far as it might have a bearing on this case. It isn't a criminal offence.”
“What do you mean to do?”
“Get the Department to make a few discreet enquiries for me. There won't be any noise made over it, but it's got to be done.”
“Of course,” said the Colonel, a little stiffly. “If you think you have enough evidence to justify an enquiry.”
“Well, I do think so, sir. To start with, I've got reason to suspect that Warrenby had some sort of a hold over the Squire. To go on with, I've had a look at that estate, and I can see there's precious little money being spent on it, and a tidy sum being taken out of it. Then I find that it's going to a nephew who, by all accounts, is next door to being a stranger to the Squire. And I don't mind saying that I've got a lot of sympathy for the Squire, because he's been hamstrung by a settlement that was meant to make everything safe and snug. If the boy had lived to be twenty-one, I don't doubt the estate would have been resettled, and provision made for Mrs. Ainstable. But he didn't and it looks to me very much as if the Squire knows that nephew of his wouldn't look at it the same way his son would have. Well, when I saw Mr. and Mrs. Ainstable, I thought she looked a lot more likely to die than he did. But when I left Old Place, I went and paid a call on the Vicar, and that's where I learned that the Squire has a bad heart.”