No Wind of Blame

‘Only that I heard through the head gamekeeper that there was a funny sort of an accident in the morning. It seems to me the police will want to know a bit more about that, and as you were present you’ll be able to tell them.’

‘I should doubt whether that episode has the slightest bearing on the case,’ Hugh answered. ‘

As far as I could make out – but I wasn’t near enough to give any sort of an opinion – no one was to blame but Mr Carter himself.’

‘Remember that we’re speaking of the dead!’ begged Mr Jones.

Hugh was prevented from uttering the retort that sprang to his lips by Janet’s exclaiming suddenly that she heard a car. Her father at once hurried off up the slope to the house, and Hugh, thinking that a retreat now would present an odd appearance, remained to see what was going to happen next.

In a minute or two, White came back again, followed by a Police Inspector from Fritton, and several attendant satellites.

The Inspector, a foxy-haired man with a thin face and a very curt manner, cast a swift glance round the assembled company before turning his attention to Dr Hinchcliffe. This glance undoubtedly took in the body on the bridge, but did not dwell on it; and it seemed also to include Hugh. The Inspector, however, gave no sign of recognising the son of a member of the local Bench. He nodded to Hinchcliffe, and said briskly: ‘Well, doctor, what have you got to tell me about this?’

‘The man’s dead,’ replied the doctor. ‘Dead some time before I got here. Probably died almost immediately. Death was caused by a bullet passing either through or just above the heart – as far as I’m able to judge from a purely superficial examination.’

The Inspector stepped forward to Wally’s body, and looked at the wound. While the doctor called his attention to the absence of any burning of the clothes or powder-stains, and answered his various questions, Hugh watched the activities of his henchmen, and Mr Jones asked White, in an anxious undertone, if it would be permissible to ask to have his coat restored to him. He appeared to be unhappily conscious of his pink shirt sleeves.

The Inspector presently signified, that he had finished questioning the doctor, who picked up his case, and departed, declining Janet’s half-hearted offer to see him to his car.

‘And now, sir, if you please!’ said the Inspector, turning to White, and opening a small notebook. ‘Your name?’

‘I’m Harold White,’ replied White. ‘I live here, as you must know perfectly well.’

The Inspector paid no attention to this impatient rider. ‘And where were you at the time of the occurrence?’

‘Up there on the lawn, just outside the house,’ said White, with a jerk of his head towards the Dower House.

‘Anyone with you, sir?’

‘Yes, Mr Jones here, and my daughter. We were waiting for Mr Carter to arrive. He was coming to tea at my place.’

The Inspector raised his eyes from his notebook to bestow a look on Jones. Jones seized the opportunity to ask for the return of his coat. The Inspector said: ‘In just a moment, sir,’ and directed his gaze towards White once more. ‘An appointment, sir?’

‘Yes, I rang up this morning to ask him if he’d drop in at about five o’clock.’

‘I see, sir.’ The Inspector looked meditatively up the slope at the chairs drawn round the deserted tea-table. ‘Did you happen to see what took place here?’

‘No, I didn’t, but both my daughter and Mr Jones were sitting in full view of the bridge, and they saw Carter fall.’

‘Not me,’ interpolated Jones. ‘I wasn’t looking. I never thought anything till Miss White screamed, and then I couldn’t believe my eyes.’

‘Did you hear the sound, of the shot, sir?’

‘Yes, and then Miss White giving a scream.’

‘Did you form any impression where it came from?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Jones hesitantly. ‘You know what it is when you hear someone shooting, and don’t pay much heed. Over there, I should have said.’

The Inspector watched him wave vaguely in the direction of the thickets on the Palings’ side of the river, and demanded to know which way Wally had been facing when he was shot. Mr Jones at once disclaimed all knowledge, explaining that although he had glanced towards the stream upon Janet’s first calling attention to Wally’s approach down the path on the opposite slope, he had not looked that way again until after the shot had sounded.

Janet, who was still clutching a crumpled handkerchief with which she from time to time dabbed at her nose, interrupted to say in a lachrymose voice that she had seen the whole thing, and that Wally had been walking across the bridge towards the Dower House.

‘If that’s so,’ said the Inspector, ‘we can take it the shot didn’t come from where you thought it did, sir. Else the gentleman would have got the bullet in his back, which you can see for yourself he didn’t. Now, miss: you say you saw the whole thing. Would you be good enough to tell me just exactly what you did see?’

‘Oh, I didn’t see a thing!’ said Janet earnestly. ‘I mean, there was absolutely nothing. I saw poor Mr Carter coming down to the bridge, and I said, “Here comes Mr Carter,” or something like that, but I don’t exactly remember what; and then I said, “I’ll go and make the tea,” or words to that effect, because I’d been waiting till Mr Carter arrived, you see, and left the kettle on the stove. Oh dear, and it’s there still!’ She added, in sharpened accents, as she recalled this circumstance: ‘It must all have boiled away by this time, and probably burned a hole in the kettle! Oh, I can’t think how I could have been so forgetful!’

‘Never mind about the kettle!’ said White. ‘Answer the Inspector!’