As I went out I ran into Haydock on the doorstep. He glanced sharply after Slack, who was just passing through the gate, and demanded:
“Has he been questioning her?”
“Yes.”
“He’s been civil, I hope?”
Civility, to my mind, is an art which Inspector Slack has never learnt, but I presumed that according to his own lights, civil he had been, and anyway, I didn’t want to upset Haydock any further. He was looking worried and upset as it was. So I said he had been quite civil.
Haydock nodded and passed on into the house, and I went on down the village street, where I soon caught up the inspector. I fancy that he was walking slowly on purpose. Much as he dislikes me, he is not the man to let dislike stand in the way of acquiring any useful information.
“Do you know anything about the lady?” he asked me point blank.
I said I knew nothing whatever.
“She’s never said anything about why she came here to live?”
“No.”
“Yet you go and see her?”
“It is one of my duties to call on my parishioners,” I replied, evading to remark that I had been sent for.