A Picture of Murder by T. E. Kinsey

Author:T. E. Kinsey [Kinsey, T. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542046022
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2018-10-22T05:00:00+00:00

‘I knew I could rely on you two,’ said the inspector when we had finished listing the runners and riders. ‘Since I’m here for the afternoon, I’d like to speak to a few people. And I have my own transport, too, so there’s no need to rush.’

‘You managed to borrow Dr Gosling’s motor car, then?’ I said.

‘Actually, no. We sent Gosling out to St George in a Black Maria in case they needed to move any of the prisoners, but I didn’t need his motor car after all. We have one at the station now for CID’s exclusive use. Arrived yesterday. I was surprised by how fast one can get here.’

‘Poor Simeon,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘He was never the adventurous type. We shouldn’t rag him too much about it.’

The inspector made a face that rather eloquently conveyed, ‘Just you wait until you’re in a hurry to get somewhere and you have Gosling driving you,’ without his actually having to say anything. What he did say, as he consulted his ever-present notebook, was, ‘I’ll need a few words with the surviving film folk. I’m very interested to meet this Aaron Orum character. And I suppose I ought to speak to Dinah Caudle, though I know from previous encounters that she’ll probably just irritate me.’

‘You’re not an admirer?’ I said.

‘She has plenty of those without needing an old fogey like me,’ he said. ‘It’s her manner that grates on me. I can’t put my finger on it.’

‘She didn’t impress me much, if it’s any consolation,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

‘It doesn’t do to talk about people behind their backs, I know, but she gets on my nerves. And her infatuation with Orum does her no favours at all. It seems a bit grubby for someone in her position to be fawning over an old roué like that.’

‘What about the Hugheses?’ I asked.

‘Those two get on my nerves as well,’ he said.

‘Understandably,’ I said. ‘But will you be speaking to them?’

‘I shall have to speak to them in case they witnessed anything,’ he said. ‘Though I strongly doubt that they had anything to do with it. They are, as the phrase has it, “known to the police”, but for the most part they’re just a confounded nuisance. I’d hound them off the streets if it were up to me. The trouble is that one of an Englishman’s most treasured freedoms is the freedom to make a confounded nuisance of himself, so we’re obliged to let them get on with it.’

‘The vicar said the same thing,’ I said. ‘But they can’t be as simplistic and simple-minded as they make out, surely. And even if all they want really is to save us all from our own sins, they can’t have been happy to find that the second showing of The Witch’s Downfall was even more popular than the first. Would that drive them to serve up another warning?’

‘You might have to track them to their lair in Bristol,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

‘Might they have decamped?’ he asked.

‘They had a bit of a run-in with the vicar’s wife’s dog earlier,’ she said.

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