No Wind of Blame

by Georgette Heyer

There was a pause. Inspector Cook said in a disgruntled tone: "Yes, and don't we hope we may find it! Ten to one, he took it up to the house with him. He's had plenty of time to get rid of it since Sunday."

Hemingway tapped his teeth with a pencil, pondering. "No," he said presently. "That's bad psychology. What you want to do is to put yourself in his place. To start with, you've got a vice to carry. On top of that, there must have been some bit of mechanism which actually fired the gun. Now, supposing you were to take a chance of getting them hidden away in the house: what happens if you go and run into someone on the way?"

"Well, he'd have to take some chances. The maid was out, anyway."

"This bird take chances?" said Hemingway scornfully. "I fancy I see him! Supposing Miss White had come up to the house for brandy, or bandages, or something, and had run into him carrying that ironmongery? She might easily have done it."

"Well, if it comes to that, how was he going to explain himself to Miss White, if he'd run into her without his gadgets?"

"Easy!" said the Sergeant promptly. "He could have pitched a tale about hearing someone in the shrubbery, and running after him. You bet he had all that planned!"

"Then you say he hid the vice, and whatever else it was, down a rabbit-hole, or some such place?"

"What was wrong with that pool I saw?" inquired Hemingway. "It seems to me that if he had to dispose of something in a hurry, the pool was the quickest and the safest place. All he had to do was to climb that sandy bank, heave his gadgets into the pool, and be off up to the house to put through those telephone-calls."

"What about the splash?" suggested Cook. "I grant you they might not have heard it on the bridge, seeing that it's round the bend, and a bit of a distance off, but wouldn't you have expected Miss Fanshawe, or that dog of hers, to have heard it?"

"That's where White was luckier than he knew," answered Hemingway. "Five minutes earlier, Miss Fanshawe was down by the stream, and would have seen the whole thing. But she told me that after she heard the shot, she turned into one of the paths leading up the slope. Now, I reckon that between the firing of the rifle, and White's heaving the vice and what-not into the pool (if that's what he did do) must have been all of five minutes, and very likely more. Miss Fanshawe would be out of earshot by that time, or if not absolutely out of earshot, far enough away for a splash not to catch her attention."