“I don’t agree with you, inspector,” I said. “ Mrs. Lestrange doesn’t seem to me to be a potential blackmailer. She’s—well, it’s an old-fashioned word, but she’s a—lady.”
He threw me a pitying glance.
“Ah! well, sir,” he said tolerantly, “you’re a clergyman. You don’t know half of what goes on. Lady indeed! You’d be surprised if you knew some of the things I know.”
“I’m not referring to mere social position. Anyway, I should imagine Mrs. Lestrange to be a déclassée . What I mean is a question of—personal refinement.”
“You don’t see her with the same eyes as I do, sir. I may be a man—but I’m a police officer, too. They can’t get over me with their personal refinement. Why, that woman is the kind who could stick a knife into you without turning a hair.”
Curiously enough, I could believe Mrs. Lestrange guilty of murder much more easily that I could believe her capable of blackmail.
“But, of course, she can’t have been telephoning to the old lady next door and shooting Colonel Protheroe at one and the same time,” continued the inspector.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he slapped his leg ferociously.
“Got it,” he exclaimed. “That’s the point of the telephone call. Kind of alibi . Knew we’d connect it with the first one. I’m going to look into this. She may have bribed some village lad to do the phoning for her. He’d never think of connecting it with the murder.”
The inspector hurried off.