Here Comes a Chopper by Gladys Mitchell

simply taking it for granted it’s this chap Lingfield, but, after all, it may not be. You’d have to find the head to be able to prove who it is.’
    ‘It
must
be Lingfield,’ said Roger. ‘And, what’s more, Mrs Bradley knows it. That dog knew it, too. Took us straight to him, you know, as soon as he got on the trail.’
    ‘There might be another explanation of that,’ said Dorothy.
    They reached Whiteledge an hour before Mrs Bradley arrived in the police car with an inspector and a sergeant of the County Constabulary. She seemed surprised to find them outside the gates of the house, and accepted with an eldritch but non-committal screech of laughter Dorothy’s reason for their having remained in the drive.
    She left the police conferring in their car, took Dorothy and Roger up to the door with her, and knocked. The impeccable Bugle opened to them, and Mrs Bradley, hustling them past him in a way which seemed crudely unceremonious, thrust her two young people in at the first round-headed doorway.
    There was nobody in the room but the spinsterish young-old woman who had been seated on Dorothy’s left at the dinner party.
    ‘Look after these children, please, Mary, my dear,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘and tell me where I can find your mother.’
    Before Mary Leith could reply there came an official-sounding knock at the front door, and Bugle, after a suitable interval, appeared in the doorway of the room.
    ‘The police, Miss Mary, Mrs Bradley. Inspector Oats, accompanied,’ he announced.
    At this, Mary Leith looked anxiously at Mrs Bradley.
    ‘Are they—have you …?’ she enquired.
    ‘They are, and we have,’ Mrs Bradley replied composedly. ‘So you see how necessary it is for you to find your mother at once.’
    ‘Indeed, yes,’ said the pale woman. She left them. Bugle hovered in the doorway.
    ‘Show the inspector in here, Bugle,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘and bring along some sandwiches and drinks. We are going to be here a long time.’
    ‘Very good, madam.’
    The inspector and the sergeant entered, and everybody sat down until Lady Catherine and her daughter came in, followed by Captain Ranmore. The inspector, the sergeant and Roger got up at Lady Catherine’s entrance, and then there followed a slight reshuffle of seats which brought Roger and Dorothy together on a settee. They sat and surreptitiously held hands, both needing support and sympathy. Lady Catherine glanced at them once, and then addressed the police.
    ‘So you found him!’ she said. ‘I did not think you would. Poor Humphrey!—I mean, poor Harry! His was a tragic life and a tragic death. How did he do it?—A shot—“So quick, so clean an ending”—and I doubt it. It does not seem like him. Besides, shooting was too good for him, anyway. Now do tell me all about it!’ She settled herself cosily to await the revelations.
    At this the inspector coughed.
    ‘I think, Lady Catherine,’ he said, ‘the inquiry had better be conducted in an official manner, if you take me. An unfortunate gentleman’s body was discovered in circumstances which lead us to believe we have a very serious affair on our hands, although, of course, the inquest will have to come before we can move very far, because of the difficulty of identification. So, if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions, that is all we shall need for today.’
    The sergeant took out a notebook. Lady Catherine looked haughty but was really—she confessed afterwards—mad with curiosity, and only too determined to tell every detail she knew. ‘It’s not as though I
liked
poor Harry,’ she said later.
    ‘Very well, inspector,’ she observed. The inspector thereupon gave another slight cough and said:
    ‘I understand a gentleman is missing from this house.’
    ‘Yes. The owner, Mr Lingfield, did not return to dinner last evening, Inspector, and we have heard no more of him. As you know, we rang up the police this morning, as soon as I realized that MrLingfield was still