Abby laughed, and gave her a hug. “He was rather snubbing. Like you, angel!”
“So I should hope! Now, Abby, I've nothing to say against your playing at detection, but you stick to Thaddeus! Do him good to be harried a little, old stick-in-the-mud! Leave the Ainstables alone! They've had enough trouble, poor things, without being worried by policemen. I should be seriously annoyed if I found you'd said anything to that Scotland Yard man which put a lot of false ideas into his head. If the Ainstables were kinder than most of us to that odious man, it was because they always feel they have a duty towards everyone in the district.”
“It's all right: I'm not going to do anything snakeish,” Abby assured her. “All the same, you do think it was funny of the Ainstables, don't you? Funny-peculiar, I mean.”
“Whatever I may have thought on that subject, I most certainly don't think it had anything to do with Warrenby's murder. Come along, it's time we went to bed!”
Chapter Nine
Before he went to bed that night, Inspector Harbottle, who had spent some part of the evening at the police-station, studying the Firearms Register, was able to inform his chief, with a certain gloomy satisfaction, that thirty-seven persons, living within reasonable distance of Thornden, possessed .22 rifles. “And that, mind you, is only within a twenty-mile radius,” he added, unfolding a piece of paper.
Hemingway, who had himself been engaged with the papers he had taken from Sampson Warrenby's desk, perceived that he was about to read his list aloud, and instantly discouraged him. “I don't want to hear you reciting the names of a lot of people I've never heard of, Horace! Checking up on the rifles is a nice job for the locals, and one that'll just about suit them. You tell me who owns a .22 in Thornden! That'll be enough to be going on with.”
“It wouldn't surprise me if we had to throw the net much wider,” said Harbottle. “You're very optimistic, Chief, but—”
“Get on!” commanded Hemingway.
The Inspector cast such a glance upon him as Calvin might have bestowed on a backslider, but replied with careful correctitude: “Very good, sir. According to the Register, there are eleven .22 rifles in Thornden. That includes three belonging to farmers, living just outside the village, which I daresay you aren't interested in.”