“I did see him all the same!” she said sullenly. “I might get mixed up about exactly where it was from, but——”
“Now, where was it from?” asked the Chief Constable. “Come!—you can’t have forgotten that—an important matter!”
But Mrs. Braxfield’s lips again compressed themselves, and in the middle of her pale cheeks, red, angry spots began to show.
“If you won’t speak, I’ll refresh your memory,” said the Chief Constable. “Wasn’t it from the edge of that little spinney near Markenmore Hollow? Come, now?”
“What if it was?” retorted Mrs. Braxfield.
“What were you doing there, at that time of the morning?” asked the Chief Constable.
“That’s my business!” said Mrs. Braxfield with sudden defiance. “What have you to do with it?”
The Chief Constable shook his head.
“Oh, well!” he answered. “If you are going to adopt that tone, Mrs. Braxfield, we must show our hand a little more openly. Now, Mrs. Braxfield, listen to me; we know certain things. You’ve been in the habit of going to that spinney, or round about it, very early of a morning, to have a shot at foxes; the foxes, we hear, have given you trouble about your fowls. Is that so?”
“What if it is?” demanded Mrs. Braxfield. “Do you think I’m going to have my valuable fowls and chickens carried off by foxes? I’m not!—not for all the hunting men in the country! So there! I wish I could shoot every fox that’s running about! As it is, all I’ve done has been to frighten them.”