“I’m not so sure about that ‘between ourselves!’” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield with unmistakable asperity. “It strikes me that some folk, when they say ‘between ourselves’ mean a good deal of the very opposite. I believe some of you”—here she gave Blick an indignant glance—“some of you have been talking about me, behind my back! Here’s my charwoman just come up from the village, and she says there’s talk going on down there about me and the murder! Nay!—there’s more! They’re saying, some of them, that I had something to do with it—did it myself, some of them are saying, straight out! Now where’s all that originated, I should like to know? But I’ll find out—and then I’ll see what my lawyer has to say!” “Quite so, Mrs. Braxfield,” agreed the Chief Constable. “You’ll be quite within your rights to do that if false rumours are being spread about you. But we’ve heard of these rumours, and we want to ask a few questions. I’m sure you’ll see that it will be advisable for you to answer them—eh, Mrs. Braxfield?” “Depends what they are!” replied Mrs. Braxfield, still angry. “I shall please myself!” “Well, the first thing is this,” continued the Chief Constable, becoming somewhat sterner in manner. “I’m afraid you didn’t tell the exact truth at the inquest the other day. You said that you saw Mr. John Harborough at a certain spot on the hill-side from your chamber window—your bedroom window. Now, Mrs. Braxfield, you couldn’t see him at that place from your bedroom window—there’s the rise of a hill between your house and that particular place. What have you to say to that?” Mrs. Braxfield had paled again, and started visibly at this, and her lips compressed themselves for an instant. “I did see him all the same!” she said sullenly. “I might get mixed up about exactly where it was from, but——” “Now, where was it from?” asked the Chief Constable. “Come!—you can’t have forgotten that—an important matter!” But Mrs. Braxfield’s lips again compressed themselves, and in the middle of her pale cheeks, red, angry spots began to show. “If you won’t speak, I’ll refresh your memory,” said the Chief Constable. “Wasn’t it from the edge of that little spinney near Markenmore Hollow? Come, now?” “What if it was?” retorted Mrs. Braxfield. “What were you doing there, at that time of the morning?” asked the Chief Constable. “That’s my business!” said Mrs. Braxfield with sudden defiance. “What have you to do with it?” The Chief Constable shook his head. “Oh, well!” he answered. “If you are going to adopt that tone, Mrs. Braxfield, we must show our hand a little more openly. Now, Mrs. Braxfield, listen to me; we know certain things. You’ve been in the habit of going to that spinney, or round about it, very early of a morning, to have a shot at foxes; the foxes, we hear, have given you trouble about your fowls. Is that so?”