“As far as I can make out,” said Miss Patterdale, “you're all so promiscuous these days that it would be unwise to suppose anything! Are you going to marry her?”
Charles looked at Abby. “Am I, my only love?”
“Yes,” said Abby. “If—if you think we could make a do of it, I'd like to—awfully!”
“Well, if that's a proposal I'm glad I never received one!” said Miss Patterdale. “However, it'll give you both something to think of beside meddling in a murder-enquiry, so I daresay it's a good thing. I'll go and put the kettle on for tea.”
“That,” said Charles, releasing his betrothed, and opening the gate, “I take to be an invitation and a general blessing. That's better! Now I can kiss you properly! To hell with the murder! Who cares?”
Miss Dearham returned his embrace with fervour, but said, as soon as she was able to say anything: “As a matter of fact, I've rather lost interest in it, too. Though I should like to know what those detectives were doing up the lane, and what they're up to now.”
They were, in fact, being driven back to Bellingham; and as neither placed any great reliance on Constable Melkinthorpe's discretion, their conversation would scarcely have interested Miss Dearham. It was not until they had been set down at the police-station, and Inspector Harbottle had given the deformed bullet he had dug out of the elm-tree into the safe-keeping of Sergeant Knarsdale, that the murder of Sampson Warrenby was even mentioned. The Sergeant said: “That looks like a .22 bullet all right. Well, if the rifle wasn't the last you brought in, sir, I'm blessed if I know what to make of it!”
“What we found out this afternoon puts an entirely different complexion on things,” said Hemingway. “You get going, Knarsdale! I want the report on that little fellow as soon as I can get it! Horace, ask the chaps here for the Firearms Register, and bring it along to me!”
When the Inspector presently entered the small office, he found his superior sorting the papers that had been taken from Sampson Warrenby's desk. He said, as he put them aside: “We must have Coupland on to these. There's one letter which seems to be written in answer to something I can't yet find, but it's a job for him, not for me. Got the Register? Good!”
“I don't know if you think I may have missed a .22 rifle, sir,” said Harbottle, somewhat starchily, “but I can tell you now I made a list of every one within a radius of twenty miles of Thornden.”