"Emmy, we must not speak ill of the dead," said the Vicar.
"No, Hilary, but truth is truth, and it would be clear hypocrisy to pretend that the General was anything but a rude, overbearing, and ill-natured person. No doubtt he had his good qualities; I can only say that they were hidden from me. He treated Lady Billington-Smith abominably — not that I have any sympathy to waste on her, for I have always considered such a marriage, between a man of his age and a girl of hers, as little short of disgusting — and his behaviour to his son — such a delicate boy, too! — was positively brutal!"
"He seems to have been a very unpleasant man," interposed Harding tactfully. "What I want to know, Mrs. Chudleigh, is this: when you walked down that garden path, you must have passed the study window. Did you notice whether anyone but Sir Arthur was in the study?"
Mrs. Chudleigh sat up straighter than ever. "In my young days, Inspector, we were taught that to look in at other people's windows was the height of ill-breeding!" she pronounced.
"I wasn't suggesting that you — shall we say, peered in? But it would have been a perfectly natural thing for you to have glanced that way. Are you sure that you did not do so?"
"It would have been a very unnatural thing for me to have done," replied Mrs. Chudleigh with asperity, "particularly since I knew that the General was in his study. Really, I don't know what the world is coming to if I am to be suspected of staring in at windows!"
"Had anyone been talking in the study do you thing you would have heard voices?" asked the unwearied Inspector.
The Vicar leaned forward to pat his wife's hand "Come, my dear, the Inspector is not accusing you of peering in at the window," he said soothingly. "You must see that if you did hear or see anyone it may have important bearing on the case."
"If I had seen or heard anyone in the study when I passed I should have communicated with the police the instant the news of Sir Arthur's murder came to my ears." said Mrs. Chudleigh. She met her husband's mild gaze and relented a little. "So far as I am aware there were no voices raised when I passed the window. I daresay my attention would have been attracted had there been any sounds, though I trust I should not have given way to idle curiosity."
"Equally, Mrs. Chudleigh, any movement in the study would have caught your eyes — er — irresistibly?" She thought it over. "It might have. I should not like to say definitely. My impression is that there was no movement."