Send for Paul Temple

Temple decided to interrupt them. There was still much that he might be able to ascertain before the police arrived. He turned to Miss Parchment to ask how long she had intended staying at the inn.

‘I hadn’t quite made up my mind,’ she replied. ‘Most probably till the end of the week.’

The innkeeper promptly took her up again. ‘You didn’t say that when you signed the register! You said it was only for one night!’

Miss Parchment was not disconcerted. She seemed to find pleasure in treating the irrepressible little Cockney with quiet dignity and endowing him with certain powers of understanding and reasoning.

Almost patronizingly, she replied: ‘It was my original intention to stay merely for the one night, but I found this inn so very, very interesting.’

Daley looked at her with astonishment. This was a new phase in a person’s character and completely beyond his comprehension.

‘Interesting?’ he asked. ‘What the ’ell’s interesting about it?’

It was Miss Parchment’s turn to appear astonished.

‘Why, so many things, my dear Mr. Daley!’ she explained patiently. ‘Do you realize the actual inn itself is over five hundred years old? Think of it. Five hundred years!’

But the innkeeper was no antiquarian. ‘Well, I’ve been ’ere the last six months,’ he grumbled, ‘and that’s long enough for me. The blinking place is dead after ’alf-past eight.’

Miss Parchment turned towards Paul Temple who was, oddly enough, thoughtfully considering her statement. ‘Five hundred years,’ he said. ‘By Timothy, that’s certainly a long time. But I was under the impression it was built about 1800?’

‘Oh, no,’ replied Miss Parchment. ‘Oh, dear, no! It goes back much farther than that.’

‘Then why should it be called “The Little General”?’ asked Temple. ‘Surely the—’

But Miss Parchment was now thoroughly at home on what appeared to be her favourite topic, and she interrupted the novelist to explain.

‘It was renamed “The Little General” about 1805,’ she said. ‘Before that it had a much more interesting name.’

Daley was looking up at her in wonderment. ‘You seem to know a dickens of a lot about this place.’

‘It’s all in the book I’m reading, Mr. Daley,’ said Miss Parchment patiently. ‘It’s all in the book.’

Horace Daley had for some little while been paying as much attention to the body as he had to Miss Parchment. Horace Daley had a peculiar aversion to dead bodies. And he told them so. He thought it was high time the police came to remove it. Then another idea occurred to him.

‘Can’t—can’t we cover him up or something till the sergeant arrives? ’E looks ’orrible just laid there staring up at the ceiling.’

‘Yes, yes, all right,’ agreed Temple.

‘I’ll get a sheet from the linen cupboard,’ said Daley. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

They heard him going upstairs and presently moving about in one of the bedrooms.

For perhaps two minutes they sat in silence.

‘Was he a very great friend of yours, Mr. Temple?’ asked Miss Parchment suddenly.

‘Not exactly what one would call a great friend. He was more a sort of business acquaintance.’

‘I see.’ Miss Parchment hesitated. ‘You know, when I first saw him, I had a vague sort of suspicion that I’d seen him before. Of course, one meets so—’

Temple interrupted her. ‘His name’s Harvey. Superintendent Harvey, of Scotland Yard.’

Miss Parchment looked up.

‘Scotland Yard!’ she said softly. ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’

There was another long pause. Then Temple said: ‘You say this inn wasn’t always called “The Little General”?’

‘No.’

‘Then what was it called?’

Miss Parchment looked at him and there was a peculiar look in her eyes.

‘A most intriguing title, Mr. Temple,’ she replied at length. ‘I’m sure you’ll like it.’

Temple waited.

‘Well?’

‘It was called “The Green Finger”,’ said Miss Parchment quietly. And she smiled.

CHAPTER V (#ulink_163e953a-b34e-5182-af50-c6c64ce58df9)

Room 7 (#ulink_163e953a-b34e-5182-af50-c6c64ce58df9)

‘“The Green Finger”!’ echoed Paul Temple, intense astonishment showing on his face.

He paused.

‘Are you sure of this?’ he said suddenly.

‘Oh, quite sure,’ replied Miss Parchment brightly. ‘It’s all in the book I’m reading, Mr. Temple. A most interesting book.’

Again Temple started pacing up and down the room, thinking over this new surprise. The coincidence was far too striking. Yet where was the connection? He decided that events must show for themselves exactly where this quaint old inn fitted in with these widespread robberies. He took a cigarette from his case and thoughtfully fitted it into his cigarette holder.

Suddenly the door to the little hall opened and Daley reappeared. Over his arm he carried the sheet for which he had been searching the linen cupboards upstairs.

‘’Ere’s the sheet, Guv’nor!’ he started. ‘Now we can cover him up a bit.’

He unfolded the sheet carefully, displaying two large holes, several smaller ones, and a number of rust stains, which showed that he had no intention of wasting one of the inn’s best sheets. He knelt down beside the body of the superintendent, at the same time keeping up a running commentary on his own feelings.

‘If there’s anything I ’ates the sight of,’ he was saying, ‘it’s a fellow that’s gone an’—’ He broke off with sudden alarm in his voice as the sound of footsteps came through the window, and men could be heard talking. ‘’Ello, what’s that?’ he exclaimed.

‘It sounds to me like the sergeant and Dr. Milton,’ replied the novelist.

The voices and the footsteps grew louder, and presently feet could be heard brushing against the mat in the hall, while Temple recognized the suave tones of Dr. Milton, in a litany with the harsher country voice of Sergeant Morrison. Then the door opened and the two men came in, followed by the stolid form of Police Constable Hodges, in every way typical of the village constabulary.