“Very happy to work with you,” said the Chief Inspector, briskly shaking the Sergeant's hand. “Of course, I don't know much about it yet, but I'm bound to say it sounds like a nice case, on the face of it.”
“Eh?” ejaculated the Colonel, startled by this view of a case which he (like Miss Patterdale) feared would lead to much unpleasantness. “Did you say nice?”
“I did, sir. What I meant was that it's out of the ordinary.”
“In a way I suppose it is. The murder itself does not present us, I think you will agree, with any unusual features, however.”
“Plain case of shooting, isn't it, sir? No locked rooms, or mysterious weapons, or any other trimmings?”
“The man was shot in his own garden,” said the Colonel, looking at him rather uncertainly. It appeared to him that Chief Inspector Hemingway approached his task in a disquietingly light-hearted spirit. He recalled that he had been warned by an old friend at Scotland Yard that he would find the Chief Inspector a little unorthodox.
“Ah!” said Hemingway. “What you might call a nice, wide field.”
“No, a garden,” said the Colonel.
“Just so, sir.”
“I'd better tell you exactly what has happened to date. Sit down, all of you! I'm going to light a pipe myself. You can do the same. Or there are cigarettes in that box.”