The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [38]
“In father’s study. He must have left it behind last night. He was smoking it after dinner.”
“Sure it’s his?”
“Oh, yes. You’ll see why when you see it. A dirty old meerschaum shaped like a nigger’s head.”
“You haven’t got it here, then?” As he asked, he realised that the question was a foolish one.
“It’s up at the house.” Alec nobly refrained from a sarcastic comment, and stepped to the end of the punt, preparatory to diving into the river.
“I say, Alec, don’t you think we ought to tell him—?” his brother checked him.
“Tell him what? Oh, that. You are a fool, Peter. No, it’s got nothing to do with it.”
“What’s that?” the Inspector enquired.
“Oh, nothing,” was the airy answer. “Something we lost, not something we found.”
“Better tell me, then,” Rudge suggested. “Police job to find things, you know.”
“Then you can do the diving instead of us,” Alec suggested, brightly. “Still, as Peter’s said so much, I’d better tell you. But it’s got nothing to do with your business. At least, I don’t see why it should have. It’s just that we—or at least Peter—left a knife in the summer-house yesterday afternoon, or he says he did, and it’s not there now.”
“Is that so?” Hempstead too pricked up his ears. “What sort of a knife? A pocket-knife, I suppose.”
“Well, no. It was a large-sized Norwegian knife. We’d used it to point a stake—you want a sharp knife for that. Anyway, it’s lost; and the chances are that Peter never left it in the summer-house at all. He’s as bad as father for not knowing where he’s put things.”
And he plunged into the river, promptly followed by Peter, the Inspector getting somewhat splashed in consequence. But he was content to get this fresh news at the cost of a few drops of water, and with a smile on his face he watched the two lads swim across, scramble out on to the far bank and begin to dive valorously in search of the unknown weapon.
The smile slowly faded; evidence—or call it information—seemed to be piling up. He thought of the proverb about the difficulty of seeing the wood for the trees.
“Interesting, sir, wasn’t it?” Hempstead’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “Things begin to take shape, as you might say.”
The latter phrase was as much a question as the former.
“Maybe,” the Inspector answered him, slowly, “but there are plenty of puzzles yet. One thing, Hempstead, is that overcoat. Suppose the Admiral went out in his boat: well, I grant you he might take an overcoat with him, but it would need to be a very cold night before you or I’d put on a thick overcoat to row in. Other things apart, you want your arms free, don’t you?”
The constable produced a throaty noise meant to convey assent without definitely committing him to it.
“And another thing,” Rudge went on, “is that evening paper. Oh, lots of puzzles there are about that, as well as the cross-word. But the biggest is ‘where did he get it?’ It must have come by the eight-thirty last night—there’s no getting away from that.”
There was a pause; and then he added slowly and almost breathlessly, “Unless it came down by road.”
And then he turned to Hempstead, just sharply enough to catch him smothering a yawn. He remembered that the unfortunate constable had been on night duty. That in turn suggested two things to him—first that he must get the oars and rowlocks up to the station, and that Hempstead could see to that and have himself “relieved” at the same time; and secondly—
“You didn’t notice anything particular in the way of cars in the neighbourhood, round about half-past ten, say, last night, did you, Hempstead?”
The constable considered the point.
“Well, now you come to mention it, sir,” he said at length, “there was a car stopped in Lingham just about a quarter to eleven or thereabouts. I noticed it stop by the lamp in the Square. Closed car, it was, with a woman in it.”
“Alone?”
“That I couldn’t say. I only know there was a woman because I saw her lean out of the window and speak to the chauffeur, or whoever was driving.”
“Would you know her again?”
“Can’t say I should, sir. And I didn’t notice the number