“That whistling. It disturbs me. Besides, there is a dead man in the house.”
“All right, sergeant, I forgot all about him.” Constable Heather stopped in the middle of a lively stave, sat down on a chair, got up again, and went out of the room with a heavy tread.
Sergeant Westaway returned to his official report with a worried expression on his gaunt face. He was a country police officer with no previous experience of murders, and twenty-five years’ official vegetation in Ashlingsea, with nothing more serious in the way of crime to handle than occasional outbreaks of drunkenness or an odd case of petty larceny, had made him rusty in official procedure, and fearful of violating the written and unwritten laws of departmental red tape. He wrote and erased and rewrote, occasionally laying down his pen to gaze out of the open window for inspiration.
It was a beautiful day in early autumn. The violent storm of the previous night had left but few traces of its visit. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky, and the notes of a skylark singing joyously high above the meadow in front of the farm floated in through the open window. The winding cliff road was white and clean after the heavy rain, and the sea was once more clear and green, with little white-flecked waves dancing and sparkling in the sunshine.
Sergeant Westaway, gloomily glancing out at this pleasing prospect, saw two men entering the farm from the road. They had been cycling, and were now pushing their machines up the gravel-path to the front door. One of them was in police uniform, and the other was a young man about thirty years of age, clad in cycling tweeds and knickerbockers, with a tweed cap on the back of his curly head. He had blue eyes and a snub nose, and a cigarette dangled from his lower lip. He was a stranger to Sergeant Westaway, but that acute official had no hesitation in placing him as a detective from Scotland Yard. To the eye of pessimism he looked like the sort of man that Scotland Yard would send to assist the country police. His companion in uniform was Detective-Inspector Payne, of the County police headquarters at Lewes, and was well known to Sergeant Westaway. The latter had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the County Commissioner of Police, having several other mysterious crimes to occupy the limited number of detectives at his disposal, had asked for the assistance of Scotland Yard in unravelling the murder at Cliff Farm. Sergeant Westaway knew what this would mean to him. He would have a great deal to do In coaching the Scotland Yard man regarding local conditions, but would get none of the credit of sheeting home the crime to the murderer. The Scotland Yard man would see to that.
“How are you, Westaway?” exclaimed Inspector Payne, as he stood his bicycle against the wall of the house near the front door. “What do you mean by giving us a murder when we’ve got our hands full? We’ve burglaries in half a dozen towns, a murder at Denham, two unidentified bodies washed ashore in a boat at Hemsley, and the disappearance from Lewes of a well-known solicitor who is wanted for embezzling trust funds. Let me introduce you to Detective Gillett, of Scotland Yard. I’m turning the investigation of this murder of yours over to him. You will give him all the assistance he wants.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Sergeant Westaway.
“Glad to meet you, Westaway,” said Detective Gillett, as he shook hands with the Sergeant.
Sergeant Westaway had come to the door to meet the new-comers, and he now led the way back to the room where he had been preparing his report.
Detective Gillett took up a position by the open window, and sniffed gratefully at the soft air.