The Sending Read Free

to how one looks at it! For a couple of days before Paddy’s death I had been running with a spare on the left front wheel. It happened to be an old but hardly used radial tyre with a distinctive tread unlike the other three. When I drove into the Penminster garage where they had been mending the puncture on my regular wheel the proprietor said to me with some embarrassment that he was sorry but he had been asked to report to police immediately if any car came in with three well-used tyres and one new radial. Of course I had no objection and went off to lunch at the Royal George. When I returned a police van was in the garage courtyard with three experts round my car. They told me at once that my car had killed Mr Gadsden, cautioned me and asked if I would care to make a statement. Behind the bumper they had found a trace of blood and a shred of cloth which matched Paddy’s trousers. In the tread of a tyre was imbedded one of Paddy’s teeth. There was no doubt that it was my car which had struck Paddy and that the off back wheel had crushed his jaw and neck.
    I had no trouble in clearing myself. On the night of Paddy’s death I had been at the house-warming party given by Sir Victor Pirrone. The Manor House is on the edge of our little town and hardly more than a mile from my home, so I walked. That is considered eccentric, but I always do if I am likely to be lavishly entertained in Penminster. I reckon that I shall not be in a fit state to drive when I leave, though sober enough to enjoy the walk home grateful for life and with heightened perception. There is the added advantage that I can leave when I choose without waiting for a lift—a lift which is bound to be inconvenient since my house is on the way to nowhere and approached from the main road by a farm track which my father refused to surface in order to prevent, as he said, fools turning down it in the hope that it led to the valley below.
    My presence at the Pirrones from eight to two was confirmed by Rita Vernon and one of our local magistrates as well as by the High Sheriff. I had even been accompanied for part of the way home by P.C. Warrender, who was wheeling his bicycle and taking a shortcut to investigate a rick fire. He was able to state that when he passed the house my car was standing outside the front door where I had left it. Neither of us had any reason to examine it closely.
    So there was no doubt that my car had been stolen and that the culprit had audaciously put it back exactly where it had been instead of abandoning it. That was risky but by no means impossible. The house stands all alone above its parkland of oak and elm, and the Pidge is easily reached by lanes and not more than a mile of main road. Fingerprinting revealed only mine and a gloved hand.
    Our superintendent of police, while assuming that it was hit-and-run accident caused by some quick-thinking criminal who then had the sense to return the car and clear out of the district on foot, had reservations. He said to me that my alibi was too perfect. When I replied indignantly that my witnesses were unimpeachable, he explained that he had not meant that at all, but did have an uneasy feeling that my alibi was intended to be perfect. If the identity of the car which killed Paddy were ever discovered, no suspicion could possibly be attached to me. Two conclusions followed from that: that the car thief knew for certain I would be out, and that Paddy’s death was murder and not an accident at all.
    He then asked who knew that I had been invited to the Pirrone party. I told him that everybody knew, but he was plainly dissatisfied with that. However, it was true. Temporary staff for house and garden had been taken on. Penminster buzzed with rumours of this dinner and dance for county magnates, financiers from the City and their offspring—hoping, I think, for TV stars and famous drunks featured in the gossip columns. Invitations had gone out a month before, and