“What we do know, though, is that he was driving himself in his car. If I've got to choose between a car and a motor-bike, I'll try and hide the motor-bike, thank you very much!”
“There must be some place where either could be hid,” said the Inspector obstinately. “The more I think of it, the more I'm convinced transport was needed.” He paused, and said suddenly: “What about the dead man's own garage? It's a double one: I noticed that. What was to stop him, as soon as he'd shot Warrenby, from driving his car in, and leaving it there until Miss Warrenby had run off to fetch Miss Patterdale?”
“And what little bird told him that's what she would do?” enquired Hemingway. “You have got a touch of the sun, Horace! What anyone would expect her to do was to have rung up for the police, or the doctor, not to lose her head, and go careering off as she did!”
“I don't know about that,” said Harbottle defensively. “Girls do lose their heads, after all!”
“They do, and not only girls either. But when that happens you can't guess what they'll do, far less bank on them choosing any particular one of four or five silly antics!”
“No,” Harbottle admitted. “Come to think of it, sir, it's funny she did lose her head, isn't it? She seems to me one of the self-possessed kind.”
“No, I don't think it is,” Hemingway replied. “In fact it's what I should have expected her to do. Nasty jolt for a girl who kids herself into believing that all is love and light. She was rocked right off her balance.” He knocked his pipe out lightly, and got up. “Come on, now! It's no use us arguing who might have fired that shot at 6.15 until we're sure there was a shot at that time. And if there was, then what was our operator aiming at when he fired the second shot an hour later?”
The Inspector looked gloomy. “As well look for a needle in a haystack! He probably fired it into the ground.” He saw Hemingway cock a quizzical eyebrow at him, and said hastily: “No, not the ground! Not if Miss Warrenby heard the impact!”
“Just in time, Horace!” remarked Hemingway. “You and your knowledge of guns! And I don't think we need go round looking for a likely haystack. What we've got to remember is that what we've all been thinking was a narrow shave for our operator was just as carefully planned as the rest of it. He wanted Miss Warrenby on the spot as a witness; he wanted the shot to sound natural; and he didn't want the bullet to be found. Well, the only safe targets I can see are the trees. Plenty of them across the lane, in the grounds of Fox House, but they're too far off to be dead-certain targets. Putting myself in his place, I should have aimed for the elm-tree. It's the only tree on this side of the lane with a big enough trunk for the purpose. Let's go and take a look at it!”
They descended into the lane, and walked up it a few yards to where the elm-tree stood. The Inspector glanced back at the gorse-bushes, silently calculating. “You're not looking high enough, Chief,” he said. “If it's there, I should expect to find it a good ten feet above the ground.”