Here Comes a Chopper by Gladys Mitchell Page B

sir?’
    ‘We were tracking Mr Lingfield with the help of an Alsatian puppy.’
    ‘Why on the Common, sir? I mean, Lady Catherine says he went riding on the Common, but how did
you
know that?’
    ‘First, Inspector, I dined yesterday at this house.Secondly, it was where we had seen him last. At least, we look it to be Mr Lingfield, but, of course, it may not have been. I couldn’t be sure, as I’ve never met him in my life.’
    ‘You had better explain all that, sir. You understand that the sergeant is taking down all that you say?’
    ‘Oh, Lord, yes, of course. I only hope he can spell.’
    ‘And that you may be required to sign your statement?’
    ‘Well, dash it, I’ve no reason to tell lies!’
    ‘Nothing would be gained by it, sir, if you had. We know what we know. I am here to make enquiries as part of my duty. Now, sir, perhaps I had better have your statement apart from those of the other witnesses to the finding of the body.’
    ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes. Carry on,’ said Roger, slightly panic-stricken because the inspector refused to lose his temper.
    ‘Very well, sir.’ The inspector looked at Dorothy and then at Lady Catherine.
    ‘Ring the bell, Mary,’ said Lady Catherine, ‘and when Bugle comes tell him to let the police have the small ante-room. Although I shan’t allow them to have the girl in there without a chaperone, mind. It wouldn’t be suitable. What do
you
say, Mrs Bradley?’
    ‘I think it would be quite suitable, in the circumstances,’ Mrs Bradley replied, ‘but I will go with the child when her turn comes, if you prefer it.’
    ‘I don’t see why we can’t both be together,’ said Roger.
    ‘I prefer to obtain your two stories quite separately, sir,’ said the inspector.
    ‘We’re not in collusion, dash it!’
    ‘No, sir, of course not. And, if you will accept my advice, that is not the word I should use if I were you. But the young lady might find it embarrassing, did she not quite agree with your statements, to contradict what you said, or even give a different account of the matter, in front of you.’
    ‘Of course I shouldn’t,’ said Dorothy. ‘I shouldn’t find it at all embarrassing to contradict him. And, after all, I know what
he
saw, and I know what
I
saw. It was exactly the same thing, and we
couldn’t
give different accounts.’
    ‘Nevertheless, miss,’ said the inspector, ‘I think you will find it more agreeable to bear with my ways just for once.’
    Bugle appeared, and took Roger, the inspector and the sergeant to the small ante-room. It contained exactly three chairs. The inspector now looked at Roger rather as though he were an overdone steak when the inspector had particularly requested that his steak should be underdone, and fired away with his questions.
    ‘Where were you, sir, when you saw, as you allege, Mr Lingfield riding by across the common?’
    ‘I don’t
allege!
I don’t know who it was I saw. It happened that I was out for a walk with Miss Woodcote, and we saw three people on horseback. Two of them, as I now know, happen to be stayingat this house, and the third I have not seen since; therefore I conclude that the third may have been Mr Lingfield, as he is missing from the house party, and as he is said to have been riding on the Common on the day in question and with the two people I mentioned.’
    ‘I see, sir. Got that down, sergeant?’
    The sergeant, unemotionally, and with word for word correctness, read out what Roger had said.
    ‘Now, as to your little jaunt, sir. May I ask if you were expecting to come to this house to spend the evening?’
    ‘No, of course I wasn’t! We got lost, and we’d walked a long way, and I came to the house to ask to be directed to the railway station. That’s all there was to it. But Lady Catherine had us stay to dinner because she didn’t want to sit down thirteen, although, as a matter of fact——’
    ‘And it was after you were received at the house, then, sir, that you knew that Mr