“Well—well, no, sir—not at once I didn't. I mean—I had it in the shed, but it wasn't locked, of course, “cos I had to do a job for Mum,” said Reg apologetically. “Two, really, because Claud and Alfie went and broke one of the chairs, scrapping, you know, so I mended that, and then I got on with the plate-rack Ted and me was making for her.”
“You mean you were in the shed yourself?”
“That's right, sir. I locked it up when Mum called me in to supper, which we had a bit late, on account of Claud not getting in till near a quarter to eight, because of the Outing the Wolf Cubs had.”
“So that you're quite sure no one could have got hold of the rifle?”
“Well, they couldn't, sir not possibly! And what's more, sir, I don't see how Mr. Biggleswade could have heard me shooting, not from where he was sitting! Because when he came in to tell Mum how he'd been talking to you, which he did, right away, he told her where he'd been sitting when he heard the shot, and Mum says his own daughter told him not to talk so silly, because he couldn't have heard it, not all that way off. And it stands to reason he didn't, sir, because if he heard one shot, why didn't he hear all the others?”
Hemingway pulled open a drawer in the desk, and took from it the sketch-plan of Thornden. “Where was he sitting?” he asked. “Come and show me!”
Reg obediently got up, and stared at the plan over the Chief Inspector's shoulder. It took him a minute or two to grasp it. Then he said: “Well, sir, it's a bit difficult, because this doesn't show the trees, and the paths, and that, on the common. Only the gorse bushes beside Fox Lane. There's some trees just beyond them, about here.” He laid a finger on the plan, a little to the north-east of the gorse-clump.
“Between the bushes and the gravel-pit. Yes, I saw them. And beyond them the ground falls away, doesn't it?”
“That's right, sir. You get a view over the common from there, and there's a seat, and a path leading to it. Mr. Biggleswade said he was sitting there, and I daresay he was, because it's the walk he always takes. And you can see for yourself it's a long way off the gravel-pit.” He paused, a frown of deep concentration on his brow. “What's more, if he had heard me shooting, he must have known which side of him I was, and he's gone and said I was firing in the very opposite direction to what I was! He must be getting barmy! But what I think, sir, is that he never heard anything, and he only said he did because of seeing me with the rifle, and wanting to get into the papers.”
“Where did he see you?”