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can rest assured that we’re doing everything we can.’
    Mrs Warwick sat on the sofa, placing her stick against the arm. ‘This man MacGregor,’ she asked. ‘Has he been seen hanging about locally? Has anyone noticed him?’
    â€˜Enquiries have gone out about that,’ the inspector informed her. ‘But so far there’s been no record of a stranger being seen in the locality.’
    â€˜That poor little boy,’ Mrs Warwick continued. ‘The one Richard ran over, I mean. I suppose it must have unhinged the father’s brain. I know they told me he was very violent and abusive at the time. Perhaps that was only natural. But after two years! It seems incredible.’
    â€˜Yes,’ the inspector agreed, ‘it seems a long time to wait.’
    â€˜But he was a Scot, of course,’ Mrs Warwick recalled. ‘A MacGregor. A patient, dogged people, the Scots.’
    â€˜Indeed they are,’ exclaimed Sergeant Cadwallader, forgetting himself and thinking out loud. ‘“There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make,” ’ he continued, but the inspector immediately gave him a sharp look of disapproval, which quietened him.
    â€˜Your son had no preliminary warning?’ Inspector Thomas asked Mrs Warwick. ‘No threatening letter? Anything of that kind?’
    â€˜No, I’m sure he hadn’t,’ she replied quite firmly. ‘Richard would have said so. He would have laughed about it.’
    â€˜He wouldn’t have taken it seriously at all?’ the inspector suggested.
    â€˜Richard always laughed at danger,’ said Mrs Warwick. She sounded proud of her son.
    â€˜After the accident,’ the inspector continued, ‘did your son offer any compensation to the child’s father?’
    â€˜Naturally,’ Mrs Warwick replied. ‘Richard was not a mean man. But it was refused. Indignantly refused, I may say.’
    â€˜Quite so,’ murmured the inspector.
    â€˜I understand MacGregor’s wife was dead,’ Mrs Warwick recalled. ‘The boy was all he had in the world. It was a tragedy, really.’
    â€˜But in your opinion it was not your son’s fault?’ the inspector asked. When Mrs Warwick did not answer, he repeated his question. ‘I said–it was not your son’s fault?’
    She remained silent a moment longer before replying, ‘I heard you.’
    â€˜Perhaps you don’t agree?’ the inspector persisted.
    Mrs Warwick turned away on the sofa, embarrassed,fingering a cushion. ‘Richard drank too much,’ she said finally. ‘And of course he’d been drinking that day.’
    â€˜A glass of sherry?’ the inspector prompted her.
    â€˜A glass of sherry!’ Mrs Warwick repeated with a bitter laugh. ‘He’d been drinking pretty heavily. He did drink–very heavily. That decanter there–’ She indicated the decanter on the table near the armchair in the french windows. ‘That decanter was filled every evening, and it was always practically empty in the morning.’
    Sitting on the stool and facing Mrs Warwick, the inspector said to her, quietly, ‘So you think that your son was to blame for the accident?’
    â€˜Of course he was to blame,’ she replied. ‘I’ve never had the least doubt of it.’
    â€˜But he was exonerated,’ the inspector reminded her.
    Mrs Warwick laughed. ‘That nurse who was in the car with him? That Warburton woman?’ she snorted. ‘She was a fool, and she was devoted to Richard. I expect he paid her pretty handsomely for her evidence, too.’
    â€˜Do you actually know that?’ the inspector asked, sharply.
    Mrs Warwick’s tone was equally sharp as she replied, ‘I don’t know anything, but I arrive at my own conclusions.’
    The inspector went across to Sergeant Cadwallader and took his notes from him, while Mrs