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Kitabı oku: «A Murder is Announced», sayfa 3
He detached the mask. Necks were craned forward. Mitzi hiccuped and gasped, but the others were very quiet.
‘He’s quite young,’ said Mrs Harmon with a note of pity in her voice.
And suddenly Dora Bunner cried out excitedly:
‘Letty, Letty, it’s the young man from the Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells. The one who came out here and wanted you to give him money to get back to Switzerland and you refused. I suppose the whole thing was just a pretext—to spy out the house … Oh, dear—he might easily have killed you …’
Miss Blacklock, in command of the situation, said incisively:
‘Phillipa, take Bunny into the dining-room and give her a half-glass of brandy. Julia dear, just run up to the bathroom and bring me the sticking plaster out of the bathroom cupboard—it’s so messy bleeding like a pig. Patrick, will you ring up the police at once?’
CHAPTER 4
The Royal Spa Hotel
George Rydesdale, Chief Constable of Middleshire, was a quiet man. Of medium height, with shrewd eyes under rather bushy brows, he was in the habit of listening rather than talking. Then, in his unemotional voice, he would give a brief order—and the order was obeyed.
He was listening now to Detective-Inspector Dermot Craddock. Craddock was now officially in charge of the case. Rydesdale had recalled him last night from Liverpool where he had been sent to make certain inquiries in connection with another case. Rydesdale had a good opinion of Craddock. He not only had brains and imagination, he had also, which Rydesdale appreciated even more, the self-discipline to go slow, to check and examine each fact, and to keep an open mind until the very end of a case.
‘Constable Legg took the call, sir,’ Craddock was saying. ‘He seems to have acted very well, with promptitude and presence of mind. And it can’t have been easy. About a dozen people all trying to talk at once, including one of those Mittel Europas who go off at the deep end at the mere sight of a policeman. Made sure she was going to be locked up, and fairly screamed the place down.’
‘Deceased has been identified?’
‘Yes, sir. Rudi Scherz. Swiss Nationality. Employed at the Royal Spa Hotel, Medenham Wells, as a receptionist. If you agree, sir, I thought I’d take the Royal Spa Hotel first, and go out to Chipping Cleghorn afterwards. Sergeant Fletcher is out there now. He’ll see the bus people and then go on to the house.’
Rydesdale nodded approval.
The door opened, and the Chief Constable looked up.
‘Come in, Henry,’ he said. ‘We’ve got something here that’s a little out of the ordinary.’
Sir Henry Clithering, ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, came in with slightly raised eyebrows. He was a tall, distinguished-looking elderly man.
‘It may appeal to even your blasé palate,’ went on Rydesdale.
‘I was never blasé,’ said Sir Henry indignantly.
‘The latest idea,’ said Rydesdale, ‘is to advertise one’s murders beforehand. Show Sir Henry that advertisement, Craddock.’
‘The North Benham News and Chipping Cleghorn Gazette,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Quite a mouthful.’ He read the half inch of print indicated by Craddock’s finger. ‘H’m, yes, somewhat unusual.’
‘Any line on who inserted this advertisement?’ asked Rydesdale.
‘By the description, sir, it was handed in by Rudi Scherz himself—on Wednesday.’
‘Nobody questioned it? The person who accepted it didn’t think it odd?’
‘The adenoidal blonde who receives the advertisements is quite incapable of thinking, I should say, sir. She just counted the words and took the money.’
‘What was the idea?’ asked Sir Henry.
‘Get a lot of the locals curious,’ suggested Rydesdale. ‘Get them all together at a particular place at a particular time, then hold them up and relieve them of their spare cash and valuables. As an idea, it’s not without originality.’
‘What sort of a place is Chipping Cleghorn?’ asked Sir Henry.
‘A large sprawling picturesque village. Butcher, baker, grocer, quite a good antique shop—two tea-shops. Self-consciously a beauty spot. Caters for the motoring tourist. Also highly residential. Cottages formerly lived in by agricultural labourers now converted and lived in by elderly spinsters and retired couples. A certain amount of building done round about in Victorian times.’
‘I know,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Nice old Pussies and retired Colonels. Yes, if they noticed that advertisement they’d all come sniffing round at 6.30 to see what was up. Lord, I wish I had my own particular old Pussy here. Wouldn’t she like to get her nice ladylike teeth into this. Right up her street it would be.’
‘Who’s your own particular Pussy, Henry? An aunt?’
‘No,’ Sir Henry sighed. ‘She’s no relation.’ He said reverently: ‘She’s just the finest detective God ever made. Natural genius cultivated in a suitable soil.’
He turned upon Craddock.
‘Don’t you despise the old Pussies in this village of yours, my boy,’ he said. ‘In case this turns out to be a high-powered mystery, which I don’t suppose for a moment it will, remember that an elderly unmarried woman who knits and gardens is streets ahead of any detective sergeant. She can tell you what might have happened and what ought to have happened and even what actually did happen! And she can tell you why it happened!’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, sir,’ said Detective-Inspector Craddock in his most formal manner, and nobody would have guessed that Dermot Eric Craddock was actually Sir Henry’s godson and was on easy and intimate terms with his godfather.
Rydesdale gave a quick outline of the case to his friend.
‘They’d all turn up at 6.30, I grant you that,’ he said. ‘But would that Swiss fellow know they would? And another thing, would they be likely to have much loot on them to be worth the taking?’
‘A couple of old-fashioned brooches, a string of seed pearls—a little loose change, perhaps a note or two—not more,’ said Sir Henry, thoughtfully. ‘Did this Miss Blacklock keep much money in the house?’
‘She says not, sir. Five pounds odd, I understand.’
‘Mere chicken feed,’ said Rydesdale.
‘What you’re getting at,’ said Sir Henry, ‘is that this fellow liked to play-act—it wasn’t the loot, it was the fun of playing and acting the hold-up. Cinema stuff? Eh? It’s quite possible. How did he manage to shoot himself?’
Rydesdale drew a paper towards him.
‘Preliminary medical report. The revolver was discharged at close range—singeing … h’m … nothing to show whether accident or suicide. Could have been done deliberately, or he could have tripped and fallen and the revolver which he was holding close to him could have gone off … Probably the latter.’ He looked at Craddock. ‘You’ll have to question the witnesses very carefully and make them say exactly what they saw.’
Detective-Inspector Craddock said sadly: ‘They’ll all have seen something different.’
‘It’s always interested me,’ said Sir Henry, ‘what people do see at a moment of intense excitement and nervous strain. What they do see and, even more interesting, what they don’t see.’
‘Where’s the report on the revolver?’
‘Foreign make—(fairly common on the Continent)—Scherz did not hold a permit for it—and did not declare it on coming into England.’
‘Bad lad,’ said Sir Henry.
‘Unsatisfactory character all round. Well, Craddock, go and see what you can find out about him at the Royal Spa Hotel.’
At the Royal Spa Hotel, Inspector Craddock was taken straight to the Manager’s office.
The Manager, Mr Rowlandson, a tall florid man with a hearty manner, greeted Inspector Craddock with expansive geniality.
‘Glad to help you in any way we can, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Really a most surprising business. I’d never have credited it—never. Scherz seemed a very ordinary, pleasant young chap—not at all my idea of a hold-up man.’
‘How long has he been with you, Mr Rowlandson?’
‘I was looking that up just before you came. A little over three months. Quite good credentials, the usual permits, etc.’
‘And you found him satisfactory?’
Without seeming to do so, Craddock marked the infinitesimal pause before Rowlandson replied.
‘Quite satisfactory.’
Craddock made use of a technique he had found efficacious before now.
‘No, no, Mr Rowlandson,’ he said, gently shaking his head. ‘That’s not really quite the case, is it?’
‘We-ll—’ The Manager seemed slightly taken aback.
‘Come now, there was something wrong. What was it?’
‘That’s just it. I don’t know.’
‘But you thought there was something wrong?’
‘Well—yes—I did … But I’ve nothing really to go upon. I shouldn’t like my conjectures to be written down and quoted against me.’
Craddock smiled pleasantly.
‘I know just what you mean. You needn’t worry. But I’ve got to get some idea of what this fellow, Scherz, was like. You suspected him of—what?’
Rowlandson said, rather reluctantly:
‘Well, there was trouble, once or twice, about the bills. Items charged that oughtn’t to have been there.’
‘You mean you suspected that he charged up certain items which didn’t appear in the hotel records, and that he pocketed the difference when the bill was paid?’
‘Something like that … Put it at the best, there was gross carelessness on his part. Once or twice quite a big sum was involved. Frankly, I got our accountant to go over his books suspecting that he was—well, a wrong ’un, but though there were various mistakes and a good deal of slipshod method, the actual cash was quite correct. So I came to the conclusion that I must be mistaken.’
‘Supposing you hadn’t been wrong? Supposing Scherz had been helping himself to various small sums here and there, he could have covered himself, I suppose, by making good the money?’
‘Yes, if he had the money. But people who help themselves to “small sums” as you put it—are usually hard up for those sums and spend them offhand.’
‘So, if he wanted money to replace missing sums, he would have had to get money—by a hold-up or other means?’
‘Yes. I wonder if this is his first attempt …’
‘Might be. It was certainly a very amateurish one. Is there anyone else he could have got money from? Any women in his life?’
‘One of the waitresses in the Grill. Her name’s Myrna Harris.’
‘I’d better have a talk with her.’
Myrna Harris was a pretty girl with a glorious head of red hair and a pert nose.
She was alarmed and wary, and deeply conscious of the indignity of being interviewed by the police.
‘I don’t know a thing about it, sir. Not a thing,’ she protested. ‘If I’d known what he was like I’d never have gone out with Rudi at all. Naturally, seeing as he worked in Reception here, I thought he was all right. Naturally I did. What I say is the hotel ought to be more careful when they employ people—especially foreigners. Because you never know where you are with foreigners. I suppose he might have been in with one of these gangs you read about?’
‘We think,’ said Craddock, ‘that he was working quite on his own.’
‘Fancy—and him so quiet and respectable. You’d never think. Though there have been things missed—now I come to think of it. A diamond brooch—and a little gold locket, I believe. But I never dreamed that it could have been Rudi.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Craddock. ‘Anyone might have been taken in. You knew him fairly well?’
‘I don’t know that I’d say well.’
‘But you were friendly?’
‘Oh, we were friendly—that’s all, just friendly. Nothing serious at all. I’m always on my guard with foreigners, anyway. They’ve often got a way with them, but you never know, do you? Some of those Poles during the war! And even some of the Americans! Never let on they’re married men until it’s too late. Rudi talked big and all that—but I always took it with a grain of salt.’
Craddock seized on the phrase.
‘Talked big, did he? That’s very interesting, Miss Harris. I can see you’re going to be a lot of help to us. In what way did he talk big?’
‘Well, about how rich his people were in Switzerland—and how important. But that didn’t go with his being as short of money as he was. He always said that because of the money regulation he couldn’t get money from Switzerland over here. That might be, I suppose, but his things weren’t expensive. His clothes, I mean. They weren’t really class. I think, too, that a lot of the stories he used to tell me were so much hot air. About climbing in the Alps, and saving people’s lives on the edge of a glacier. Why, he turned quite giddy just going along the edge of Boulter’s Gorge. Alps, indeed!’
‘You went out with him a good deal?’
‘Yes—well—yes, I did. He had awfully good manners and he knew how to—to look after a girl. The best seats at the pictures always. And even flowers he’d buy me, sometimes. And he was just a lovely dancer—lovely.’
‘Did he mention this Miss Blacklock to you at all?’
‘She comes in and lunches here sometimes, doesn’t she? And she’s stayed here once. No, I don’t think Rudi ever mentioned her. I didn’t know he knew her.’
‘Did he mention Chipping Cleghorn?’
He thought a faintly wary look came into Myrna Harris’s eyes but he couldn’t be sure.
‘I don’t think so … I think he did once ask about buses—what time they went—but I can’t remember if that was Chipping Cleghorn or somewhere else. It wasn’t just lately.’
He couldn’t get more out of her. Rudi Scherz had seemed just as usual. She hadn’t seen him the evening before. She’d no idea—no idea at all—she stressed the point, that Rudi Scherz was a crook.
And probably, Craddock thought, that was quite true.
CHAPTER 5
Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner
Little Paddocks was very much as Detective-Inspector Craddock had imagined it to be. He noted ducks and chickens and what had been until lately an attractive herbaceous border and in which a few late Michaelmas daisies showed a last dying splash of purple beauty. The lawn and the paths showed signs of neglect.
Summing up, Detective-Inspector Craddock thought: ‘Probably not much money to spend on gardeners—fond of flowers and a good eye for planning and massing a border. House needs painting. Most houses do, nowadays. Pleasant little property.’
As Craddock’s car stopped before the front door, Sergeant Fletcher came round the side of the house. Sergeant Fletcher looked like a guardsman, with an erect military bearing, and was able to impart several different meanings to the one monosyllable: ‘Sir.’
‘So there you are, Fletcher.’
‘Sir,’ said Sergeant Fletcher.
‘Anything to report?’
‘We’ve finished going over the house, sir. Scherz doesn’t seem to have left any fingerprints anywhere. He wore gloves, of course. No signs of any of the doors or windows being forced to effect an entrance. He seems to have come out from Medenham on the bus, arriving here at six o’clock. Side door of the house was locked at 5.30, I understand. Looks as though he must have walked in through the front door. Miss Blacklock states that that door isn’t usually locked until the house is shut up for the night. The maid, on the other hand, states that the front door was locked all the afternoon—but she’d say anything. Very temperamental you’ll find her. Mittel Europa refugee of some kind.’
‘Difficult, is she?’
‘Sir!’ said Sergeant Fletcher, with intense feeling.
Craddock smiled.
Fletcher resumed his report.
‘Lighting system is quite in order everywhere. We haven’t spotted yet how he operated the lights. It was just the one circuit went. Drawing-room and hall. Of course, nowadays the wall brackets and lamps wouldn’t all be on one fuse—but this is an old-fashioned installation and wiring. Don’t see how he could have tampered with the fusebox because it’s out by the scullery and he’d have had to go through the kitchen, so the maid would have seen him.’
‘Unless she was in it with him?’
‘That’s very possible. Both foreigners—and I wouldn’t trust her a yard—not a yard.’
Craddock noticed two enormous frightened black eyes peering out of a window by the front door. The face, flattened against the pane, was hardly visible.
‘That her there?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
The face disappeared.
Craddock rang the front-door bell.
After a long wait the door was opened by a good-looking young woman with chestnut hair and a bored expression.
‘Detective-Inspector Craddock,’ said Craddock.
The young woman gave him a cool stare out of very attractive hazel eyes and said:
‘Come in. Miss Blacklock is expecting you.’
The hall, Craddock noted, was long and narrow and seemed almost incredibly full of doors.
The young woman threw open a door on the left, and said: ‘Inspector Craddock, Aunt Letty. Mitzi wouldn’t go to the door. She’s shut herself up in the kitchen and she’s making the most marvellous moaning noises. I shouldn’t think we’d get any lunch.’
She added in an explanatory manner to Craddock: ‘She doesn’t like the police,’ and withdrew, shutting the door behind her.
Craddock advanced to meet the owner of Little Paddocks.
He saw a tall active-looking woman of about sixty. Her grey hair had a slight natural wave and made a distinguished setting for an intelligent, resolute face. She had keen grey eyes and a square determined chin. There was a surgical dressing on her left ear. She wore no make-up and was plainly dressed in a well-cut tweed coat and skirt and pullover. Round the neck of the latter she wore, rather unexpectedly, a set of old-fashioned cameos—a Victorian touch which seemed to hint at a sentimental streak not otherwise apparent.
Close beside her, with an eager round face and untidy hair escaping from a hair net, was a woman of about the same age whom Craddock had no difficulty in recognizing as the ‘Dora Bunner—companion’ of Constable Legg’s notes—to which the latter had added an off-the-record commentary of ‘Scatty!’
Miss Blacklock spoke in a pleasant well-bred voice.
‘Good morning, Inspector Craddock. This is my friend, Miss Bunner, who helps me run the house. Won’t you sit down? You won’t smoke, I suppose?’
‘Not on duty, I’m afraid, Miss Blacklock.’
‘What a shame!’
Craddock’s eyes took in the room with a quick, practised glance. Typical Victorian double drawing-room. Two long windows in this room, built-out bay window in the other … chairs … sofa … centre table with a big bowl of chrysanthemums—another bowl in window—all fresh and pleasant without much originality. The only incongruous note was a small silver vase with dead violets in it on a table near the archway into the further room. Since he could not imagine Miss Blacklock tolerating dead flowers in a room, he imagined it to be the only indication that something out of the way had occurred to distract the routine of a well-run household.
He said:
‘I take it, Miss Blacklock, that this is the room in which the—incident occurred?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you should have seen it last night,’ Miss Bunner exclaimed. ‘Such a mess. Two little tables knocked over, and the leg off one—people barging about in the dark—and someone put down a lighted cigarette and burnt one of the best bits of furniture. People—young people especially—are so careless about these things … Luckily none of the china got broken—’
Miss Blacklock interrupted gently but firmly:
‘Dora, all these things, vexatious as they may be, are only trifles. It will be best, I think, if we just answer Inspector Craddock’s questions.’
‘Thank you, Miss Blacklock. I shall come to what happened last night, presently. First of all I want you to tell me when you first saw the dead man—Rudi Scherz.’
‘Rudi Scherz?’ Miss Blacklock looked slightly surprised. ‘Is that his name? Somehow, I thought … Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. My first encounter with him was when I was in Medenham Spa for a day’s shopping about—let me see, about three weeks ago. We—Miss Bunner and I—were having lunch at the Royal Spa Hotel. As we were just leaving after lunch, I heard my name spoken. It was this young man. He said: “It is Miss Blacklock, is it not?” And went on to say that perhaps I did not remember him, but that he was the son of the proprietor of the Hotel des Alpes at Montreux where my sister and I had stayed for nearly a year during the war.’
‘The Hotel des Alpes, Montreux,’ noted Craddock. ‘And did you remember him, Miss Blacklock?’
‘No, I didn’t. Actually I had no recollection of ever having seen him before. These boys at hotel reception desks all look exactly alike. We had had a very pleasant time at Montreux and the proprietor there had been extremely obliging, so I tried to be as civil as possible and said I hoped he was enjoying being in England, and he said, yes, that his father had sent him over for six months to learn the hotel business. It all seemed quite natural.’
‘And your next encounter?’
‘About—yes, it must have been ten days ago, he suddenly turned up here. I was very surprised to see him. He apologized for troubling me, but said I was the only person he knew in England. He told me that he urgently needed money to return to Switzerland as his mother was dangerously ill.’
‘But Letty didn’t give it to him,’ Miss Bunner put in breathlessly.
‘It was a thoroughly fishy story,’ said Miss Blacklock, with vigour. ‘I made up my mind that he was definitely a wrong ’un. That story about wanting the money to return to Switzerland was nonsense. His father could easily have wired for arrangements to have been made in this country. These hotel people are all in with each other. I suspected that he’d been embezzling money or something of that kind.’ She paused and said dryly: ‘In case you think I’m hardhearted, I was secretary for many years to a big financier and one becomes wary about appeals for money. I know simply all the hard-luck stories there are.
‘The only thing that did surprise me,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘was that he gave in so easily. He went away at once without any more argument. It’s as though he had never expected to get the money.’
‘Do you think now, looking back on it, that his coming was really by way of a pretext to spy out the land?’
Miss Blacklock nodded her head vigorously.
‘That’s exactly what I do think—now. He made certain remarks as I let him out—about the rooms. He said, “You have a very nice dining-room” (which of course it isn’t—it’s a horrid dark little room) just as an excuse to look inside. And then he sprang forward and unfastened the front door, said, “Let me.” I think now he wanted to have a look at the fastening. Actually, like most people round here, we never lock the front door until it gets dark. Anyone could walk in.’
‘And the side door? There is a side door to the garden, I understand?’
‘Yes. I went out through it to shut up the ducks not long before the people arrived.’
‘Was it locked when you went out?’
Miss Blacklock frowned.
‘I can’t remember … I think so. I certainly locked it when I came in.’
‘That would be about quarter-past six?’
‘Somewhere about then.’
‘And the front door?’
‘That’s not usually locked until later.’
‘Then Scherz could have walked in quite easily that way. Or he could have slipped in whilst you were out shutting up the ducks. He’d already spied out the lie of the land and had probably noted various places of concealment—cupboards, etc. Yes, that all seems quite clear.’
‘I beg your pardon, it isn’t at all clear,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘Why on earth should anyone take all that elaborate trouble to come and burgle this house and stage that silly sort of hold-up?’
‘Do you keep much money in the house, Miss Blacklock?’
‘About five pounds in that desk there, and perhaps a pound or two in my purse.’
‘Jewellery?’
‘A couple of rings and brooches, and the cameos I’m wearing. You must agree with me, Inspector, that the whole thing’s absurd.’
‘It wasn’t burglary at all,’ cried Miss Bunner. ‘I’ve told you so, Letty, all along. It was revenge! Because you wouldn’t give him that money! He deliberately shot at you—twice.’
‘Ah,’ said Craddock. ‘We’ll come now to last night. What happened exactly, Miss Blacklock? Tell me in your own words as nearly as you can remember.’
Miss Blacklock reflected a moment.
‘The clock struck,’ she said. ‘The one on the mantelpiece. I remember saying that if anything were going to happen it would have to happen soon. And then the clock struck. We all listened to it without saying anything. It chimes, you know. It chimed the two quarters and then, quite suddenly, the lights went out.’
‘What lights were on?’
‘The wall brackets in here and the further room. The standard lamp and the two small reading lamps weren’t on.’
‘Was there a flash first, or a noise when the lights went out?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’m sure there was a flash,’ said Dora Bunner. ‘And a cracking noise. Dangerous!’
‘And then, Miss Blacklock?’
‘The door opened—’
‘Which door? There are two in the room.’
‘Oh, this door in here. The one in the other room doesn’t open. It’s a dummy. The door opened and there he was—a masked man with a revolver. It just seemed too fantastic for words, but of course at the time I just thought it was a silly joke. He said something—I forget what—’
‘Hands up or I shoot!’ supplied Miss Bunner, dramatically.
‘Something like that,’ said Miss Blacklock, rather doubtfully.
‘And you all put your hands up?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Miss Bunner. ‘We all did. I mean, it was part of it.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Miss Blacklock crisply. ‘It seemed so utterly silly. And I was annoyed by the whole thing.’
‘And then?’
‘The flashlight was right in my eyes. It dazzled me. And then, quite incredibly, I heard a bullet whizz past me and hit the wall by my head. Somebody shrieked and then I felt a burning pain in my ear and heard the second report.’
‘It was terrifying,’ put in Miss Bunner.
‘And what happened next, Miss Blacklock?’
‘It’s difficult to say—I was so staggered by the pain and the surprise. The—the figure turned away and seemed to stumble and then there was another shot and his torch went out and everybody began pushing and calling out. All banging into each other.’
‘Where were you standing, Miss Blacklock?’
‘She was over by the table. She’d got that vase of violets in her hand,’ said Miss Bunner breathlessly.
‘I was over here.’ Miss Blacklock went over to the small table by the archway. ‘Actually it was the cigarette-box I’d got in my hand.’
Inspector Craddock examined the wall behind her. The two bullet holes showed plainly. The bullets themselves had been extracted and had been sent for comparison with the revolver.
He said quietly:
‘You had a very near escape, Miss Blacklock.’
‘He did shoot at her,’ said Miss Bunner. ‘Deliberately at her! I saw him. He turned the flash round on everybody until he found her and then he held it right at her and just fired at her. He meant to kill you, Letty.’
‘Dora dear, you’ve just got that into your head from mulling the whole thing over and over.’
‘He shot at you,’ repeated Dora stubbornly. ‘He meant to shoot you and when he’d missed, he shot himself. I’m certain that’s the way it was!’
‘I don’t think he meant to shoot himself for a minute,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘He wasn’t the kind of man who shoots himself.’
‘You tell me, Miss Blacklock, that until the revolver was fired you thought the whole business was a joke?’
‘Naturally. What else could I think it was?’
‘Who do you think was the author of this joke?’
‘You thought Patrick had done it at first,’ Dora Bunner reminded her.
‘Patrick?’ asked the Inspector sharply.
‘My young cousin, Patrick Simmons,’ Miss Blacklock continued sharply, annoyed with her friend. ‘It did occur to me when I saw this advertisement that it might be some attempt at humour on his part, but he denied it absolutely.’
‘And then you were worried, Letty,’ said Miss Bunner. ‘You were worried, although you pretended not to be. And you were quite right to be worried. It said a murder is announced—and it was announced—your murder! And if the man hadn’t missed, you would have been murdered. And then where should we all be?’
Dora Bunner was trembling as she spoke. Her face was puckered up and she looked as though she were going to cry.
Miss Blacklock patted her on the shoulder.
‘It’s all right, Dora dear—don’t get excited. It’s so bad for you. Everything’s quite all right. We’ve had a nasty experience, but it’s over now.’ She added, ‘You must pull yourself together for my sake, Dora. I rely on you, you know, to keep the house going. Isn’t it the day for the laundry to come?’
‘Oh, dear me, Letty, how fortunate you reminded me! I wonder if they’ll return that missing pillowcase. I must make a note in the book about it. I’ll go and see to it at once.’
‘And take those violets away,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘There’s nothing I hate more than dead flowers.’
‘What a pity. I picked them fresh yesterday. They haven’t lasted at all—oh, dear, I must have forgotten to put any water in the vase. Fancy that! I’m always forgetting things. Now I must go and see about the laundry. They might be here any moment.’
She bustled away, looking quite happy again.
‘She’s not very strong,’ said Miss Blacklock, ‘and excitements are bad for her. Is there anything more you want to know, Inspector?’
‘I just want to know exactly how many people make up your household here and something about them.’
‘Yes, well in addition to myself and Dora Bunner, I have two young cousins living here at present, Patrick and Julia Simmons.’
‘Cousins? Not a nephew and niece?’
‘No. They call me Aunt Letty, but actually they are distant cousins. Their mother was my second cousin.’
