The Glimpses of the Moon by Edmund Crispin Page B

until evening that Thouless was visited by Detective-Inspector Widger, who by then was working under Chief Detective-Inspector Ling from County Headquarters.
    â€˜Now, sir, as I understand the matter, you keep a window open in here night
and
day. I mean, day
and
night.’
    â€˜Yes, that’s right. For air.’
    â€˜Unwise of you, sir, if I may say so.’
    â€˜Permits of burglarious entry all the way round the clock,’ said Detective-Constable Rankine, whom Widger had unwillingly brought with him. ‘Though not, of course, properly speaking burglarious unless after dark.’
    â€˜Poor fellow’s never boned up on the 1968 Theft Act,’ said Thouless unexpectedly.
    â€˜Quite so.’ Solidarity or no solidarity, Widger was not wholly without
Schadenfreude
at seeing his informative colleague discomfited for once. ‘Rankine, you’ve put your foot in it there. How you ever passed your examination for the C.I.D. -’
    â€˜The 1968 Theft Act, sir, had for its chief intention the -’
    â€˜Later, Rankine, later. Just now, for the moment, if you think you’ve quite finished, I’d like to ask Mr Thouless something else. What you’re saying, then, sir, is that the bust could have been stolen at any time during the last two days.’
    â€˜Yes, yes, of course. I keep telling you so. When can I have it back?’
    â€˜Not yet awhile, sir,’ said Widger. ‘There are tests to be made - fingerprints and so forth. Reminding me that we’ll have totake your fingerprints, for elimination purposes. Your cleaner’s, too.’
    â€˜Mrs Dunwoody’s? She’s been away ill for days now. Cleaners,’ said Thouless testily, ‘have very little natural resistance to infection, I find.’
    While his fingerprints were being taken, he explained about Hagberd, who sometimes did gardening jobs for him. He had drawn Hagberd’s attention to the bust, he said, as a matter of family pride, approximately a fortnight ago, taking the opportunity to give an account of Culloden and its aftermath, and Hagberd had seemed greatly impressed with Cumberland’s nickname. ‘Butcher,’ he had kept muttering, ‘Butcher, Butcher,’ until Thouless, alarmed, had shooed him back to his hedging. In view of this it seemed at least possible - Thouless now told Widger - that it was Hagberd who had been responsible for the theft of this intrinsically not very valuable lump of marble.
    And with this Widger was able to agree, for since morning it had become a moral certainty that Hagberd was guilty, if not of Routh’s actual murder, at any rate of disassembling him and lugging his severed head round the neighbourhood; chief factor in this decision was the discovery of a knife, a saw and a hatchet - all of them blood-stained, all of them bearing Hagberd’s fingerprints and no one else’s - buried in a heap of Glo-Coal in an out-house at Hagberd’s cottage. The man himself remained for a long time elusive. In Constable Luckraft’s opinion, eventually proved correct, he hadn’t gone into hiding or fled, but simply happened to be away on his own somewhere, working at something; and it wasn’t until ten in the evening that he was at last located and taken into custody. In the meantime he had made further arrangements about Routh’s head, and these had manifested themselves to an evening angler, a local unemployable called Don Goodey, who was futilely attempting to poach trout from a reach of the Burr where nothing was known to have been taken since the year of Alamein. Dozing over his wet fly, Goodey was roused by - as he said afterwards - ‘a Presence’, and on opening his eyes found himself confronted by a raft - in fact, a packing-case lid - which was nudging the bank by his feet; on this was Routh’s gory head, secured upright by long nails driven in aslant, and staring at Goodey’stoe-caps ‘as if in