“In what way?”
Hemingway cocked his head a little to one side, dubiously surveying the letter. “This is the last letter you'll ever receive from me, and I don't propose ever to set eyes on you again,” he read aloud. “Well, I suppose that's one way of saying you mean to do yourself in, but it doesn't seem to me a natural way to put it.”
“You only want to come here for what you can get out of me, and to goad me into losing my temper with your damned tongue, and to be maddened by you on top of all I have to suffer is too much.” He lowered the paper. “You know, sir, the more I think about that, the less I like it. Sounds to me more as if he was telling his brother he wouldn't have him about the place any more than that he meant to kill himself.”
“What about "I've reached the end of my tether"?” countered the Colonel. “Then, that bit about the place being Gavin's sooner than he expected?”
“". . . and when you step into my shoes you can congratulate yourself on having done your bit towards finishing me off,"” read Hemingway. He rubbed the tip of his nose reflectively. “Doesn't say Gavin had driven him to commit suicide, does he? More like a general strafe against him for plaguing him when his health wasn't good enough to stand any worry.” He saw the scepticism in the Colonel's face, and added: “Take it this way, sir! Supposing he hadn't committed suicide, and Gavin had happened to show you that letter: would you have thought that was what he'd had in mind?”
The door opened to admit Inspector Harbottle. The Colonel grunted a greeting, and took the letter out of Hemingway's hand, and read it through once more. “No,” he said, having considered it for a minute or two. “I don't know that I should. I should probably have thought it was written in one of his fits of temper. But he did commit suicide!”
Hemingway turned to Harbottle, and received from him a sheaf of papers, saying briefly: “Thanks, Horace! Mind if I go through this lot now, sir?”
“No, I should prefer you to. Sit down, Inspector!”
Harbottle pulled up a chair to his Chief's elbow, and together they read the report of the inquest, while the Colonel, after watching Hemingway's face for a few minutes, chose a fresh pipe from the rack on his desk, filled and lit it, and sat smoking, and staring out of the window. For some time nothing broke the silence but the crackle of the sheets as they were turned over, and, once, a request from Harbottle, not so swift a reader as his Chief, that a page should not be turned for a moment. A frown gathered on Hemingway's brow as he read, and several times he flicked the pages back to refer to something which had gone before. When he finally laid the sheaf down there was a very intent look in his eyes, and he did not immediately speak.
The Colonel glanced at him. “Well? Quite straightforward, isn't it?”