"I can't say that it does," confessed Hemingway. "All the same, something did scrape that tree, and not so long ago either, from the looks of it; and as it's only a couple ofsteps from where the rifle was found, it may turn out to be highly relevant. You never know. All right, what'syour-name, I've finished here. I'll take a look at the stream now."
The stream, however, did not hold his interest for long. Having visually measured the width between the opposite banks, the Inspector sighed, and passed on to look at the wall separating the Dower House grounds from the road. Finally he went back to the lawn where he had left Janet, and asked her if she recognised the hairslide.
"It's not mine," Janet said. "I'm absolutely certain of that, because I never wear them."
"Do you know anyone who does, Miss White?"
"Oh, I couldn't say! I mean, I've never thought. Lots of people do, I expect. As a matter of fact, I think Florence does. She's our maid, and if you found it in the shrubbery it just shows I was right all along, and she does slip out to meet her young man when it isn't her half-day at all!"
Florence, however, when confronted with the hairslide, promptly disowned it, and denied strenuously, if not altogether convincingly, that she had ever set foot in the shrubbery, or had ever entertained her young man within the gates of the Dower House.
"Well, that was a lie, anyway," said the constable, as they left the Dower House. "I know Florrie Benson's young man, and he comes out here pretty well every evening."
"She's one of those who'd sooner tell a lie than not," said Hemingway. "She'll keep. Where does this Dr Chester live? I'll see that housekeeper of his next."
The doctor was out when they presently reached his house in the village. A manservant opened the door to them, and ushered the Inspector and his Sergeant into a room in the front of the house. Here, the housekeeper, an elderly woman with kindly, short-sighted blue eyes, soon joined them. She looked rather alarmed, but assured Hemingway that, although she knew nothing about Mr. Carter's death, she would be only too glad to tell him anything that could be of use to him.
"I'm just checking up on the evidence," explained Hemingway. "By what I hear, the doctor had a visit on Sunday from this Prince that's staying with Mrs. Carter, didn't he?"