Mystery at the Rectory by A. E. Fielding

Author:A. E. Fielding
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781839740596
Publisher: Red Kestrel Books
Published: 2019-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The inquest on the rector was next morning. As he was walking from the police station to it, Pointer heard his name called. A smart car was stopping beside him. A young woman jumped out, and waved to the chauffeur to go on.

“You’re the bogey man, aren’t you,” she said with a display of white teeth. “The Major was talking about you to me. I’m Lady Witson.”

Pointer saw a young woman on the right side of thirty, very tall, very thin, with a dress that fitted her as its last leaf does a cigar. She was, if not pretty, well made up, very up to date. He was particularly interested in her. One of Shilling’s men had learned last night that there had been a tremendous quarrel between Sir Hubert and his wife on Saturday, and that the servants all believed the rector’s call to have been made for the purpose of reasoning with Lady Witson who, according to them, had taken very ostentatiously to drink since Anthony Revell’s death, with whom all the servants believed she had been carrying on a wild flirtation. Both flirtation and drinking, according to them, arose not so much from affection, as from a hope that Sir Hubert if really alarmed would leave The Towers and go back at once to London where Eva-May Witson longed to be.

Pointer thought that Lady Witson looked capable of anything that would further her own plans. The servants had told Shilling’s inquirer that they had heard the name of Revell called out once during the half an hour’s talk that the rector had had with husband and wife. It had been apparently screamed at her husband by Lady Witson. The maid who had passed on most of this information, if it could be called that, had heard the rector call her firmly to order, as though she had said something that was unpardonable, but the girl claimed that she had shrilled the name again and again before rushing in hysterics—“put-on ones,” in her opinion—from the room.

“I hear that Miss Hill has not been called as a witness by the Coroner,” Lady Witson said now in a very sharp nasal voice.

“I suppose the Coroner thought that this second death coming so soon after her own personal loss would have been a great shock to her,” Pointer suggested.

Lady Witson gave the little screech that she considered a laugh. “A great personal loss it was indeed!” There was mockery in her tone. “If he hadn’t had that accident she would have lost him just the same. Anthony Revell never really intended to marry Olive Hill! What happened was that she misunderstood, or pretended to misunderstand, something pretty he said to her, and the rector came in, and Olive asked for his blessing, and there was poor Anthony in the net! And all for the sake of one of his pretty speeches. Once in, he was making the best of it, but that was really why he went rock-climbing for a fortnight.

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