“Yes, I thought this case sounded a bit too good to be true,” said Hemingway. “So I'm stuck with one of these amateur crime-specialists, am I, sir? Has he got an alibi?”
“There seems to be some doubt about that,” replied the Colonel, on a dry note. “You'd better tell him what Plenmeller said to you, Sergeant. He may as well know what he's up against.”
“Well, sir, it's a fact I don't know what to make of him,” confessed the Sergeant. “Anyone would think there was nothing he liked better than to be mixed up in a case of murder! I ran him to earth at the Red Lion this morning, drinking a pint with Major Midgeholme, just after twelve. Quite the life and soul of the bar, he was, holding forth about the murder, and saying how he was sure the Major's wife had done it, because of Mr. Warrenby having been brutal to one of her little dogs. All by way of a joke, of course, but you could see the Major didn't like it. So then Mr. Plenmeller started in to prove how he might have done it himself. Very humorous he was, I'm sure, but not having the whole day to waste I stepped up to the bar, and told him who I was, and said I'd like a word with him. And if you was to ask me, sir, that was all he needed to make him quite happy. Anyone would have thought the whole thing was a play, and we was having drinks between the acts, and talking it over. Indecent, I call it, not to say cold-blooded! Naturally I'd no thought of asking him questions in a public bar: my idea was we'd step up to his house, but that wouldn't do for him. "Oh", he says, "you want to know where I was at the time the crime was committed, and I'm sure I haven't got an alibi!" The Major took him up pretty sharp on that, and said as how he knew very well he was on his way home when the rest of them—him, and Mr. Drybeck, and Miss Dearham—set off in young Mr. Haswell's car. "Ah!" says Mr. Plenmeller, "but how do you know I did go home? I might have been anywhere," he says, "and Crailing—that's the landlord of the pub—will swear I didn't come in here till close on eight last night!" Which, however, Crailing didn't do, not by a long chalk! He said he was positive Mr. Plenmeller came in long before that, though he couldn't be sure what the exact time was. Then I'm blessed if Mr. Plenmeller didn't tell him not to go saddling him with an alibi he didn't want. Before I could say anything, the Major spoke to him, very military. Told him not to make a fool of himself, and to stop trying to turn the whole thing into a farce. So then he laughed, and said it was all such good copy he wasn't going to he pushed out of it, and it was going to be very valuable to him to know how it felt to be what he called a hot suspect. However, he got a bit more serious after that, and he said that actually he had gone home before stepping down the street to the Red Lion, though he didn't think he could prove it, because so far as he knew Mrs. Blindburn—that's his housekeeper—couldn't have seen him, being in the kitchen, and certainly wouldn't have heard him, because she's as deaf as a post. Which is true enough: she is.”
“I see,” said Hemingway, somewhat grimly. “I've met his sort before! Oh, well, with any luck we may be able to pin the murder on him!”
The Colonel smiled, but Sergeant Carsethorn looked a little shocked. “Well, I daresay he could have done it,” he said dubiously, “but I can't say I know why he should want to.”
“The Chief Inspector wasn't speaking seriously, Sergeant.”
“No, sir. That's about the lot, then, as far as we've had time to discover.”
“What about young Mr. Haswell's father?” enquired Hemingway. “Or is he out of the running?”
“He wasn't there, sir. He went off to Woodhall that afternoon, and didn't get home till half-past eight. Woodhall's a good fifteen miles from Thornden: it's a big estate which he looks after for the owner. He's an estate agent, and he does a good bit of that sort of work.”
“Was he on good terms with Mr. Warrenby?”