“I’m not quite so careless as that. It was unloaded, but there was a box of cartridges beside it.”
“It was apparently loaded in all six chambers and one shot had been fired.”
Lawrence nodded.
“And whose hand fired it? It’s all very well, sir, but unless the real murderer is discovered, I shall be suspected of the crime to the day of my death.”
“Don’t say that, my boy.”
“But I do say it.”
He became silent, frowning to himself. He roused himself at last and said:
“But let me tell you how I got on last night. You know, old Miss Marple knows a thing or two.”
“She is, I believe, rather unpopular on that account.”
Lawrence proceeded to recount his story.
He had, following Miss Marple’s advice, gone up to Old Hall. There, with Anne’s assistance, he had had an interview with the parlourmaid.
Anne had said simply:
“ Mr. Redding wants to ask you a few questions, Rose.”
Then she had left the room.
Lawrence had felt somewhat nervous. Rose, a pretty girl of twenty-five, gazed at him with a limpid gaze which he found rather disconcerting.