Inside, the Chief Constable said: “It was bound to be a cause célèbre, of course. Half Bellingham's here. Silly fools! What do they think they're going to hear?”
Hemingway, scanning the audience, made no reply. Half Bellingham might be present, but Thornden was scantily represented. Neither the Ainstables nor the Lindales had apparently thought it worth while to attend the inquest; and of Gavin Plenmeller there was no sign. Major and Mrs. Midgeholme were seated beside Mr. Drybeck; and Mr. Haswell had found a place not far from them. Possibly he had come to hear his son give evidence.
Charles, who was suffering from a strong sense of ill-usage, had brought Mavis, Abby, and Miss Patterdale from Thornden, in his dashing sports car. So incensed was he with Abby for electing to accompany Mavis on her shopping expedition on the previous afternoon, rather than to have run down to the coast with him, as had been (he insisted) arranged, that he had invited Miss Patterdale to occupy the front seat in his car, and had even gone so far as to say that he didn't know why Abby wanted to attend the inquest at all. But Mavis, who (he savagely whispered to Miss Patterdale) had got herself up to look like a French widow, said gently that she had asked Abby to go with her, so there was nothing more to be said about that. Abby had then made a very rude grimace at him, an unendearing gesture which had had the extraordinary effect upon him of confirming him in his resolve to marry her, even if he had to drag her to the altar to do it.
When he shepherded his party into the court-room, those who had come into Bellingham on the omnibus were already ensconced in front-row seats. Besides Mr. Drybeck and the Midgeholmes, these included Mr. Biggleswade, and the late Mr. Warrenby's cook-general, a sharp-eyed damsel with tow-coloured hair cut in the style adopted by her favourite film-star. Gladys, a good cook and a hard worker, was known to be a Treasure, but she was also one of those who believed in sticking up for her rights. Not even her late employer had ever been permitted to encroach on these; and since he was well aware of the difficulty of getting servants to live in quiet villages, and set a high value on Gladys's culinary skill, he had been content, after one attempt to subjugate her, to rate Mavis for being unable to manage the household better. Gladys considered it to be her unquestionable right to attend the inquest; and when Mavis had shown reluctance to grant her leave off in the middle of the morning, she had spoken so ominously about the Unsettled state of her feelings ever since Mr. Warrenby's death, that Mavis had hastily retracted her first refusal. An attempt on her part to convince Gladys that nice girls did not wish to attend sensational inquests failed entirely.
“Well, it's only natural, isn't it?” had said Gladys.
“I don't think it is, Gladys. I'd give anything not to have to go.”
“You'll enjoy it all right once you get there, miss,” had replied Gladys, briskly stacking the breakfast-china in a cupboard.”
“'Tisn't as though Mr. Warrenby was any loss.”
“He is a great loss to me,” had said Mavis, in a repressive tone.
“Well, it's quite proper you should say that, miss,” had been the paralysing response. “It wouldn't hardly be decent not to, being as he's left you all his money. But I know what I know, and many's the time I've wondered why ever you put up with him and his nasty, bullying ways.”