This programme was carried out. At the appointed hour Sergeant Carsethorn arrived with a police-car, and twenty minutes later the Chief Inspector was enjoying his first view of the village of Thornden. A game of cricket was being played on the common, where a level piece of the ground beside the Trindale-road had been turned into a playing-field; but the village itself was wrapped in a Sunday stillness. The Sergeant drove up to the cross-road, to enable Hemingway to see where Wood Lane turned out of the High Street, and then turned, and drove back to Fox Lane.
Before entering the garden of Fox House, the three men, leaving the car, climbed the rising ground of the common to where the flaming gorse bushes stood. From this point of vantage quite an extensive view could be obtained over the common, which stretched away eastward in the general direction of Bellingham. It was dotted over with similar clumps of gorse, and a great many blackberry bushes, with here and there one or two trees, mostly silver birches. Away to the north, close to the Hawkshead-road, some fencing railed off a gravel-pit which, the Sergeant told Hemingway, had recently been opened up by the Squire. He explained that the common was not Crown land, but manorial waste. “All the land here used to belong to the Ainstables, except what the Plenmellers had, west of the village, but you know how things have been for people like them, ever since the First War. They say young Plenmeller doesn't care, and from what I've seen of him I shouldn't think he cares about anything much; but the Squire's a very different sort of man. Quite one of the old school, as you may say. He'll carry on while he lives, but it's likely to be a bad look-out when he dies, because it's not to be expected that the next man will work like he does to keep things going. Lost his son in the last war, you know. I'm told the place'll go to a nephew or a cousin, or something, who never comes near it. Well, he couldn't, really: he lives in Johannesburg. Not at all the sort of Squire Thornden's accustomed to. I reckon you've got to hand it to Mr. Ainstable. It fairly knocked him out, the young chap's being killed, but he carried on, stiff-backed as you please, doing everything he can, like starting up that gravel-pit, to keep up the estate. Over there's his new plantation: he's had to sell a lot of timber.”
Hemingway nodded. “Not many left now like him.” he remarked, turning to survey the garden of Fox House. “Well, it would have been an easy shot,” he said, his eyes on the seat under the tree. They travelled on, up the lane, to the stile at the top of it.
“You see, if you was to crouch down you couldn't be seen from the stile,” the Sergeant pointed out.
“No. Seems to be woodland beyond it.”
“That's right: Mr. Haswell's spinney. The footpath skirts it. It used to be all woodland from the common up to the Vicarage meadow—you can't see that from here, but it's behind the grounds of Fox House. Of course, that's a long time ago now, but they say those fine old trees you can see were once part of it. Makes you think, doesn't it?”
The Chief Inspector was certainly thinking, but if the subject of his thought was an ancient forest he did not say so. After looking about him in silence for a few moments, he said briskly: “Well, let's get on!” and led the way down into the lane again.
The arched and massively built front-door of Fox House stood open, in the country-way, allowing a view of the hall, and of the carved staircase at the end of it. The floor was of black oak, and had two Persian rugs thrown down on it. An old chest stood under the window opposite the front-door: there was a warped gateleg-table in the centre, and several high-backed Jacobean chairs were ranged against the walls. One or two sporting prints completed an interior that seemed in some indefinable way to represent a period piece rather than the owner's individuality.
“Mr. Warrenby furnished the place regardless, when he bought it,” confided the Sergeant. “He had a man down from London to advise him, even.”
There was an iron bell hanging beside the front-door, and this the Sergeant tugged. The effect was instant and unexpected. Furious yapping arose, and through the half-open doorway on the left of the hall skidded two tawny and determined defenders. One of these made threatening darts at the intruders; the other, a more elderly gentleman, contented himself with standing squarely before them, and uttering slightly wheezy barks.