“Murder, murder, murder—! Can’t you talk of anything else? I’m frightened, don’t you understand? I’m frightened. I wasn’t before. I thought I could take care of myself … But what can you do against a murderer who’s waiting—and watching—and biding his time! Oh, God!”
She dropped her head forward on her hands. A moment later she looked up and apologized stiffly.
“I’m sorry. I—I lost control.”
“That’s all right, Aunt Letty,” said Patrick affectionately. “I’ll look after you.”
“You?” was all Letitia Blacklock said, but the disillusionment behind the word was almost an accusation.
That had been shortly before dinner, and Mitzi had then created a diversion by coming and declaring that she was not going to cook the dinner.
“I do not do anything more in this house. I go to my room. I lock myself in. I stay there until it is daylight. I am afraid—people are being killed—that Miss Murgatroyd with her stupid English face—who would want to kill her? Only a maniac! Then it is a maniac that is about! And a maniac does not care who he kills. But me, I do not want to be killed. There are shadows in the kitchen—and I hear noises—I think there is someone out in the yard and then I think I see a shadow by the larder door and then it is footsteps I hear. So I go now to my room and I lock the door and perhaps even I put the chest of drawers against it. And in the morning I tell that cruel hard policeman that I go away from here. And if he will not let me I say: ‘I scream and I scream and I scream until you have to let me go!’”
Everybody, with a vivid recollection of what Mitzi could do in the screaming line, shuddered at the threat.
“So I go to my room,” said Mitzi, repeating the statement once more to make her intentions quite clear. With a symbolic action she cast off the cretonne apron she had been wearing. “Good night, Miss Blacklock. Perhaps in the morning, you may not be alive. So in case that is so, I say good-bye.”
She departed abruptly and the door, with its usual gentle little whine, closed softly after her.
Julia got up.
“I’ll see to dinner,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “Rather a good arrangement—less embarrassing for you all than having me sit down at table with you. Patrick (since he’s constituted himself your protector, Aunt Letty) had better taste every dish first. I don’t want to be accused of poisoning you on top of everything else.”
So Julia had cooked and served a really excellent meal.
Phillipa had come out to the kitchen with an offer of assistance but Julia had said firmly that she didn’t want any help.
“Julia, there’s something I want to say—”
“This is no time for girlish confidences,” said Julia firmly. “Go on back in the dining room, Phillipa.”
Now dinner was over and they were in the drawing room with coffee on the small table by the fire—and nobody seemed to have anything to say. They were waiting—that was all.
At 8:30 Inspector Craddock rang up.
“I shall be with you in about a quarter of an hour’s time,” he announced. “I’m bringing Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook and Mrs. Swettenham and her son with me.”
“But really, Inspector … I can’t cope with people tonight—”
Miss Blacklock’s voice sounded as though she were at the end of her tether.
“I know how you feel, Miss Blacklock. I’m sorry. But this is urgent.”
“Have you—found Miss Marple?”
“No,” said the Inspector, and rang off.
Julia took the coffee tray out to the kitchen where, to her surprise, she found Mitzi contemplating the piled-up dishes and plates by the sink.
Mitzi burst into a torrent of words.
“See what you do in my so nice kitchen! That frying pan—only, only for omelettes do I use it! And you, what have you used it for?”
“Frying onions.”
“Ruined—ruined. It will have now to be washed and never—never—do I wash my omelette pan. I rub it carefully over with a greasy newspaper, that is all. And this saucepan here that you have used—that one, I use him only for milk—”
“Well, I don’t know what pans you use for what,” said Julia crossly. “You choose to go to bed and why on earth you’ve chosen to get up again, I can’t imagine. Go away again and leave me to wash up in peace.”
“No, I will not let you use my kitchen.”
“Oh, Mitzi, you are impossible!”
Julia stalked angrily out of the kitchen and at that moment the doorbell rang.
“I do not go to the door,” Mitzi called from the kitchen. Julia muttered an impolite Continental expression under her breath and stalked to the front door.
It was Miss Hinchcliffe.
“’Evening,” she said in her gruff voice. “Sorry to barge in. Inspector’s rung up, I expect?”
“He didn’t tell us you were coming,” said Julia, leading the way to the drawing room.
“He said I needn’t come unless I liked,” said Miss Hinchcliffe. “But I do like.”
Nobody offered Miss Hinchcliffe sympathy or mentioned Miss Murgatroyd’s death. The ravaged face of the tall vigorous woman told its own tale, and would have made any expression of sympathy an impertinence.
“Turn all the lights on,” said Miss Blacklock. “And put more coal on the fire. I’m cold—horribly cold. Come and sit here by the fire, Miss Hinchcliffe. The Inspector said he would be here in a quarter of an hour. It must be nearly that now.”
“Mitzi’s come down again,” said Julia.
“Has she? Sometimes I think that girl’s mad—quite mad. But then perhaps we’re all mad.”
“I’ve no patience with this saying that all people who commit crimes are mad,” barked Miss Hinchcliffe. “Horribly and intelligently sane—that’s what I think a criminal is!”
The sound of a car was heard outside and presently Craddock came in with Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook and Edmund and Mrs. Swettenham.
They were all curiously subdued.
Colonel Easterbrook said in a voice that was like an echo of his usual tones:
“Ha! A good fire.”
Mrs. Easterbrook wouldn’t take off her fur coat and sat down close to her husband. Her face, usually pretty and rather vapid, was like a little pinched weasel face. Edmund was in one of his furious moods and scowled at everybody. Mrs. Swettenham made what was evidently a great effort, and which resulted in a kind of parody of herself.
“It’s awful—isn’t it?” she said conversationally. “Everything, I mean. And really the less one says, the better. Because one doesn’t know who next—like the Plague. Dear Miss Blacklock, don’t you think you ought to have a little brandy? Just half a wineglass even? I always think there’s nothing like brandy—such a wonderful stimulant. I—it seems so terrible of us—forcing our way in here like this, but Inspector Craddock made us come. And it seems so terrible—she hasn’t been found, you know. That poor old thing from the Vicarage, I mean. Bunch Harmon is nearly frantic. Nobody knows where she went instead of going home. She didn’t come to us. I’ve not even seen her today. And I should know if she had come to the house because I was in the drawing room—at the back, you know, and Edmund was in his study writing—and that’s at the front—so if she’d come either way we should have seen. And oh, I do hope and pray that nothing has happened to that dear sweet old thing—all her faculties still and everything.”
“Mother,” said Edmund in a voice of acute suffering, “can’t you shut up?”
“I’m sure, dear, I don’t want to say a word,” said Mrs. Swettenham, and sat down on the sofa by Julia.
Inspector Craddock stood near the door. Facing him, almost in a row, were the three women. Julia and Mrs. Swettenham on the sofa. Mrs. Easterbrook on the arm of her husband’s chair. He had not brought about this arrangement, but it suited him very well.
Miss Blacklock and Miss Hinchcliffe were crouching over the fire. Edmund stood near them. Phillipa was far back in the shadows.
; Craddock began without preamble.
“You all know that Miss Murgatroyd’s been killed,” he began. “We’ve reason to believe that the person who killed her was a woman. And for certain other reasons we can narrow it down still more. I’m about to ask certain ladies here to account for what they were doing between the hours of four and four-twenty this afternoon. I have already had an account of her movements from—from the young lady who has been calling herself Miss Simmons. I will ask her to repeat that statement. At the same time, Miss Simmons, I must caution you that you need not answer if you think your answers may incriminate you, and anything you say will be taken down by Constable Edwards and may be used as evidence in court.”
“You have to say that, don’t you?” said Julia. She was rather pale, but composed. “I repeat that between four and four-thirty I was walking along the field leading down to the brook by Compton Farm. I came back to the road by that field with three poplars in it. I didn’t meet anyone as far as I can remember. I did not go near Boulders.”
“Mrs. Swettenham?”
Edmund said, “Are you cautioning all of us?”
The Inspector turned to him.
“No. At the moment only Miss Simmons. I have no reason to believe that any other statement made will be incriminating, but anyone, of course, is entitled to have a solicitor present and to refuse to answer questions unless he is present.”
“Oh, but that would be very silly and a complete waste of time,” cried Mrs. Swettenham. “I’m sure I can tell you at once exactly what I was doing. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Shall I begin now?”
“Yes, please, Mrs. Swettenham.”
“Now, let me see.” Mrs. Swettenham closed her eyes, opened them again. “Of course I had nothing at all to do with killing Miss Murgatroyd. I’m sure everybody here knows that. But I’m a woman of the world, I know quite well that the police have to ask all the most unnecessary questions and write the answers down very carefully, because it’s all for what they call ‘the record.’ That’s it, isn’t it?” Mrs. Swettenham flashed the question at the diligent Constable Edwards, and added graciously, “I’m not going too fast for you, I hope?”
Constable Edwards, a good shorthand writer, but with little social savoir faire, turned red to the ears and replied:
“It’s quite all right, madam. Well, perhaps a little slower would be better.”
Mrs. Swettenham resumed her discourse with emphatic pauses where she considered a comma or a full stop might be appropriate.
“Well, of course it’s difficult to say—exactly—because I’ve not got, really, a very good sense of time. And ever since the war quite half our clocks haven’t gone at all, and the ones that do go are often either fast or slow or stop because we haven’t wound them up.” Mrs. Swettenham paused to let this picture of confused time sink in and then went on earnestly, “What I think I was doing at four o’clock was turning the heel of my sock (and for some extraordinary reason I was going round the wrong way—in purl, you know, not plain) but if I wasn’t doing that, I must have been outside snipping off the dead chrysanthemums—no, that was earlier—before the rain.”
“The rain,” said the Inspector, “started at 4:10 exactly.”
“Did it now? That helps a lot. Of course, I was upstairs putting a wash basin in the passage where the rain always comes through. And it was coming through so fast that I guessed at once that the gutter was stopped up again. So I came down and got my mackintosh and rubber boots. I called Edmund, but he didn’t answer, so I thought perhaps he’d got to a very important place in his novel and I wouldn’t disturb him, and I’ve done it quite often myself before. With the broom handle, you know, tied on to that long thing you push up windows with.”
“You mean,” said Craddock, noting bewilderment on his subordinate’s face, “that you were cleaning out the gutter?”
“Yes, it was all choked up with leaves. It took a long time and I got rather wet, but I got it clear at last. And then I went in and got changed and washed—so smelly, dead leaves—and then I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. It was 6:15 by the kitchen clock.”
Constable Edwards blinked.
“Which means,” finished Mrs. Swettenham triumphantly, “that it was exactly twenty minutes to five.”
“Or near enough,” she added.
“Did anybody see what you were doing whilst you were out cleaning the gutter?”
“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Swettenham. “I’d soon have roped them in to help if they had! It’s a most difficult thing to do single-handed.”
“So, by your own statement, you were outside, in a mackintosh and boots, at the time when the rain was coming down, and according to you, you were employed during that time in cleaning out a gutter but you have no one who can substantiate that statement?”
“You can look at the gutter,” said Mrs. Swettenham. “It’s beautifully clear.”
“Did you hear your mother call to you, Mr. Swettenham?”
“No,” said Edmund. “I was fast asleep.”
“Edmund,” said his mother reproachfully, “I thought you were writing.”
Inspector Craddock turned to Mrs. Easterbrook.
“Now, Mrs. Easterbrook?”
“I was sitting with Archie in his study,” said Mrs. Easterbrook, fixing wide innocent eyes on him. “We were listening to the wireless together, weren’t we, Archie?”
There was a pause. Colonel Easterbrook was very red in the face. He took his wife’s hand in his.
“You don’t understand these things, kitten,” he said. “I—well, I must say, Inspector, you’ve rather sprung this business on us. My wife, you know, has been terribly upset by all this. She’s nervous and highly strung and doesn’t appreciate the importance of—of taking due consideration before she makes a statement.”
“Archie,” cried Mrs. Easterbrook reproachfully, “are you going to say you weren’t with me?”
“Well, I wasn’t, was I, my dear? I mean one’s got to stick to the facts. Very important in this sort of inquiry. I was talking to Lampson, the farmer at Croft End, about some chicken netting. That was about a quarter to four. I didn’t get home until after the rain had stopped. Just before tea. A quarter to five. Laura was toasting the scones.”
“And had you been out also, Mrs. Easterbrook?”
The pretty face looked more like a weasel’s than ever. Her eyes had a trapped look.
“No—no, I just sat listening to the wireless. I didn’t go out. Not then. I’d been out earlier. About—about half past three. Just for a little walk. Not far.”
She looked as though she expected more questions, but Craddock said quietly:
“That’s all, Mrs. Easterbrook.”
He went on: “These statements will be typed out. You can read them and sign them if they are substantially correct.”
Mrs. Easterbrook looked at him with sudden venom.
“Why don’t you ask the others where they were? That Haymes woman? And Edmund Swettenham? How do you know he was asleep indoors? Nobody saw him.”
Inspector Craddock said quietly:
“Miss Murgatroyd, before she died, made a certain statement. On the night of the hold-up here, someone was absent from this room. Someone who was supposed to have been in the room all the time. Miss Murgatroyd told her friend the names of the people she did see. By a process of elimination, she made the discovery that there was someone she did not see.”
“Nobody could see anything,” said Julia.
“Murgatroyd could,” said Miss Hinchcliffe, speaking suddenly in her deep voice. “She was over there behind the door, where Inspector Craddock is now. She was the only person who could see anything of what was happening.”
“Aha! That is what you think, is it!” demanded Mitzi.
She made one of her dramatic entrances, flinging open the door and almost knocking Craddock sideways. She was in a frenzy of excitement.
“Ah, you do not ask Mitzi to come in here with the others, do you, you
stiff policemen? I am only Mitzi! Mitzi in the kitchen! Let her stay in the kitchen where she belongs! But I tell you that Mitzi, as well as anyone else, and perhaps better, yes, better, can see things. Yes, I see things. I see something the night of the burglary. I see something and I do not quite believe it, and I hold my tongue till now. I think to myself I will not tell what it is I have seen, not yet. I will wait.”
“And when everything had calmed down, you meant to ask for a little money from a certain person, eh?” said Craddock.
Mitzi turned on him like an angry cat.
“And why not? Why look down your nose? Why should I not be paid for it if I have been so generous as to keep silence? Especially if some day there will be money—much much money. Oh! I have heard things—I know what goes on. I know this Pippemmer—this secret society of which she”—she flung a dramatic finger towards Julia—“is an agent. Yes, I would have waited and asked for money—but now I am afraid. I would rather be safe. For soon, perhaps, someone will kill me. So I will tell what I know.”
“All right then,” said the Inspector sceptically. “What do you know?”
“I tell you.” Mitzi spoke solemnly. “On that night I am not in the pantry cleaning silver as I say—I am already in the dining room when I hear the gun go off. I look through the keyhole. The hall it is black, but the gun go off again and the torch it falls—and it swings round as it falls—and I see her. I see her there close to him with the gun in her hand. I see Miss Blacklock.”
“Me?” Miss Blacklock sat up in astonishment. “You must be mad!”
“But that’s impossible,” cried Edmund. “Mitzi couldn’t have seen Miss Blacklock.”
Craddock cut in and his voice had the corrosive quality of a deadly acid.
“Couldn’t she, Mr. Swettenham? And why not? Because it wasn’t Miss Blacklock who was standing there with the gun? It was you, wasn’t it?”
“I—of course not—what the hell!”
“You took Colonel Easterbrook’s revolver. You fixed up the business with Rudi Scherz—as a good joke. You had followed Patrick Simmons into the far room and when the lights went out, you slipped out through the carefully oiled door. You shot at Miss Blacklock and then you killed Rudi Scherz. A few seconds later you were back in the drawing room clicking your lighter.”
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 79
