“Certainly, madam, that will be quite agreeable to me,” said the Sergeant politely. “The young lady will prefer not to return until the body of the deceased has been removed to the mortuary. Very understandable, I'm sure. The ambulance is on its way.”
He turned aside to confer with his subordinates, one of whom was preparing to photograph the corpse, issued some low-voiced directions, and then announced that he would like to see Miss Warrenby without further loss of time.
“What ought we to do about the house?” asked Miss Patterdale. “There's no one inside, and although I don't suppose anybody would burgle it, we can't leave it like this, can we? At the same time, I don't like to shut the front-door, because I don't think Miss Warrenby had her handbag with her, in which case she won't have the key.”
“One of my men will be staying here to keep an eye on things, madam,” replied the Sergeant. “Everything will be quite safe.”
“Then, if you have no objection, I'll go with you,” said Miss Patterdale. “Are you coming, Charles?”
He nodded, and accompanied her out into the lane. The Sergeant waited until he had skilfully turned his car in the narrow space afforded for this manoeuvre, and then started up the engine of the police-car. Miss Patterdale was thus able to reach Fox Cottage far enough in advance of him to give her time to prepare Mavis's mind for the coming ordeal, which, as she trenchantly observed to Charles, was an extremely desirable circumstance.
However, when they stood once more in the low-pitched parlour they found that Miss Warrenby had regained her composure, and was drinking tea, a stimulant she had preferred to gin. She received the news that she was to be questioned by the police with a wan smile, and said that she had known this must happen, and had been doing her best to collect her thoughts. When the Sergeant arrived, and offered her a formal apology for being obliged to trouble her at such a time, she said that she quite understood, and was anxious to be as helpful as possible. Since she had already discussed her part in the affair with Abby, going over her every movement and mental reaction in exhaustive detail, she was able to tell her story fluently, and even to establish the approximate time of the murder.
“You see, Mrs. Cliburn and I stayed on after the others had gone to talk about the prizes for the village whist-drive,” she explained. “And I know it was ten past seven when I left The Cedars, because I caught sight of the clock in the drawing-room, and that's what it said. I'd no idea it was as late as that. I told Mrs. Haswell I must simply fly, or Poor Uncle would be wondering what had become of me, and I ran across her garden to the gate on to the footpath, and came home that way. And it only takes about five minutes to reach the stile from there, so it must have been about a quarter past seven, or perhaps twenty past when it happened.”
“Thank you, miss: that's very clear. And after you heard the shot, you didn't hear or see anything else?”
“No, only a sort of smack, and I didn't think anything of that at the time. I mean, it was so soon after the bang that it seemed part of it, in a way.”