“Rotten!” said Hemingway. “If that's the way it was, and he'd hung about, trying to summon up enough resolution to pull the trigger, he'd have gone off home without pulling it at all!”
“There might be some other explanation.”
“There might. What happened to his motor-bike all this time? Did he leave it standing in the lane for nearly two hours, just to make sure anyone that happened to have passed that way would know he must be somewhere around?”
“Of course not. He might have hidden it amongst the bushes on the common. Taken it up the path that goes to the seat where we found Biggleswade.”
“Talk sense! You try and hide a motor-bike amongst a lot of bushes! That old sinner would have spotted it like a flash!”
“By the time he reached the place Ladislas would have retrieved it, and ridden off,” returned the Inspector.
“Then Father Time would have heard the engine starting up, and he hasn't said a word about hearing any such thing.”
“That isn't to say he didn't hear it. He's out to make a case against Reg Ditchling, and that would spoil it.”
“All right, I'll concede you that point. There's this to be said in favour of suspecting Ladislas: he had a motive we don't need a strong microscope to see. What about Haswell?”
“There isn't enough about him, and, if you'll forgive me saying so, sir, that's the trouble. We don't really know where he was, or what he was doing, up till eight o'clock, when he got home.”