I tried to make my voice enthusiastic, but I had already taken such a dislike to Inspector Slack that the prospect of his success failed to appeal to me. A successful Slack would, I thought, be even more odious than a baffled one.
“Who has the house next?” asked the Colonel suddenly.
“You mean at the end of the road? Mrs. Price Ridley.”
“We’ll go along to her after Slack has finished with your maid. She might just possibly have heard something. She isn’t deaf or anything, is she?”
“I should say her hearing is remarkably keen. I’m going by the amount of scandal she has started by ‘just happening to overhear accidentally.’ ”
“That’s the kind of woman we want. Oh! here’s Slack.”
The inspector had the air of one emerging from a severe tussle. He looked hot.
“Phew!” he said. “That’s a tartar you’ve got, sir.”
“Mary is essentially a girl of strong character,” I replied.
“Doesn’t like the police,” he said. “I cautioned her—did what I could to put the fear of the law into her, but no good. She stood right up to me.”
“Spirited,” I said, feeling more kindly towards Mary.
“But I pinned her down all right. She heard one shot—and one shot only. And it was a good long time after Colonel Protheroe came. I couldn’t get her to name a time, but we fixed it at last by means of the fish. The fish was late, and she blew the boy up when he came, and he said it was barely half-past six anyway, and it was just after that she heard the shot. Of course, that’s not accurate, so to speak, but it gives us an idea.”