I tried not to make my voice consciously soothing, but I must have failed, for Mrs. Price Ridley glared at me suddenly.
“I am accustomed not to be listened to, but I might mention also that to leave a tennis racquet carelessly flung down on the grass without a press completely ruins it. And tennis racquets are very expensive nowadays.”
There did not seem to be rhyme or reason in this flank attack. It bewildered me utterly.
“But perhaps you don’t agree,” said Mrs. Price Ridley.
“Oh! I do—certainly.”
“I am glad. Well, that is all I have to say. I wash my hands of the whole affair.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes like one weary of this world. I thanked her and said goodbye.
On the doorstep, I ventured to ask Clara about her mistress’s statement.
“It’s quite true, sir, I heard a sneeze. And it wasn’t an ordinary sneeze—not by any means.”
Nothing about a crime is ever ordinary. The shot was not an ordinary kind of shot. The sneeze was not a usual kind of sneeze. It was, I presume, a special murderer’s sneeze. I asked the girl what time this had been, but she was very vague, some time between a quarter and half-past six she thought. Anyway, “it was before the mistress had the telephone call and was took bad.”
I asked her if she had heard a shot of any kind. And she said the shots had been something awful. After that, I placed very little credence in her statements.