I
Julia, when she came into the room, and sat down in the chair vacated by Letitia Blacklock, had an air of composure that Craddock for some reason found annoying. She fixed a limpid gaze on him and waited for his questions.
Miss Blacklock had tactfully left the room.
“Please tell me about last night, Miss Simmons.”
“Last night?” murmured Julia with a blank stare. “Oh, we all slept like logs. Reaction, I suppose.”
“I mean last night from six o’clock onwards.”
“Oh, I see. Well, a lot of tiresome people came—”
“They were?”
She gave him another limpid stare.
“Don’t you know all this already?”
“I’m asking the questions, Miss Simmons,” said Craddock pleasantly.
“My mistake. I always find repetitions so dreary. Apparently you don’t … Well, there was Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd, Mrs. Swettenham and Edmund Swettenham, and Mrs. Harmon, the Vicar’s wife. They arrived in that order. And if you want to know what they said—they all said the same thing in turn. ‘I see you’ve got your central heating on’ and ‘What lovely chrysanthemums!’”
Craddock bit his lip. The mimicry was good.
“The exception was Mrs. Harmon. She’s rather a pet. She came in with her hat falling off and her shoelaces untied and she asked straight out when the murder was going to happen. It embarrassed everybody because they’d all been pretending they’d dropped in by chance. Aunt Letty said in her dry way that it was due to happen quite soon. And then that clock chimed and just as it finished, the lights went out, the door was flung open and a masked figure said, ‘Stick ’em up, guys,’ or something like that. It was exactly like a bad film. Really quite ridiculous. And then he fired two shots at Aunt Letty and suddenly it wasn’t ridiculous any more.”
“Where was everybody when this happened?”
“When the lights went out? Well, just standing about, you know. Mrs. Harmon was sitting on the sofa—Hinch (that’s Miss Hinchcliffe) had taken up a manly stance in front of the fireplace.”
“You were all in this room, or the far room?”
“Mostly, I think, in this room. Patrick had gone into the other to get the sherry. I think Colonel Easterbrook went after him, but I don’t really know. We were—well—as I said, just standing about.”
“Where were you yourself?”
“I think I was over by the window. Aunt Letty went to get the cigarettes.”
“On that table by the archway?”
“Yes—and then the lights went out and the bad film started.”
“The man had a powerful torch. What did he do with it?”
“Well, he shone it on us. Horribly dazzling. It just made you blink.”
“I want you to answer this very carefully, Miss Simmons. Did he hold the torch steady, or did he move it about?”
Julia considered. Her manner was now definitely less weary.
“He moved it,” she said slowly. “Like a spotlight in a dance hall. It was full in my eyes and then it went on round the room and then the shots came. Two shots.”
“And then?”
“He whirled round—and Mitzi began to scream like a siren from somewhere and his torch went out and there was another shot. And then the door closed (it does, you know, slowly, with a whining noise—quite uncanny) and there we were all in the dark, not knowing what to do, and poor Bunny squealing like a rabbit and Mitzi going all out across the hall.”
“Would it be your opinion that the man shot himself deliberately, or do you think he stumbled and the revolver went off accidentally?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. The whole thing was so stagey. Actually I thought it was still some silly joke—until I saw the blood from Letty’s ear. But even if you were actually going to fire a revolver to make the thing more real, you’d be careful to fire it well above someone’s head, wouldn’t you?”
“You would indeed. Do you think he could see clearly who he was firing at? I mean, was Miss Blacklock clearly outlined in the light of the torch?”
“I’ve no idea. I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking at the man.”
“What I’m getting at is—do you think the man was deliberately aiming at her—at her in particular, I mean?”
Julia seemed a little startled by the idea.
“You mean deliberately picking on Aunt Letty? Oh, I shouldn’t think so … After all, if he wanted to take a pot shot at Aunt Letty, there would be heaps of more suitable opportunities. There would be no point in collecting all the friends and neighbours just to make it more difficult. He could have shot her from behind a hedge in the good old Irish fashion any day of the week, and probably got away with it.”
And that, thought Craddock, was a very complete reply to Dora Bunner’s suggestion of a deliberate attack on Letitia Blacklock.
He said with a sigh, “Thank you, Miss Simmons. I’d better go and see Mitzi now.”
“Mind her fingernails,” warned Julia. “She’s a tartar!”
II
Craddock, with Fletcher in attendance, found Mitzi in the kitchen. She was rolling pastry and looked up suspiciously as he entered.
Her black hair hung over her eyes; she looked sullen, and the purple jumper and brilliant green skirt she wore were not becoming to her pasty complexion.
“What do you come in my kitchen for, Mr. Policeman? You are police, yes? Always, always there is persecution—ah! I should be used to it by now. They say it is different here in England, but no, it is just the same. You come to torture me, yes, to make me say things, but I shall say nothing. You will tear off my fingernails, and put lighted matches on my skin—oh, yes, and worse than that. But I will not speak, do you hear? I shall say nothing—nothing at all. And you will send me away to a concentration camp, and I shall not care.”
Craddock looked at her thoughtfully, selecting what was likely to be the best method of attack. Finally he sighed and said:
“O.K., then, get your hat and coat.”
“What is that you say?” Mitzi looked startled.
“Get your hat and coat and come along. I haven’t got my nail-pulling apparatus and the rest of the bag of tricks with me. We keep all that down at the station. Got the handcuffs handy, Fletcher?”
“Sir!” said Sergeant Fletcher with appreciation.
“But I do not want to come,” screeched Mitzi, backing away from him.
“Then you’ll answer civil questions civilly. If you like, you can have a solicitor present.”
“A lawyer? I do not like a lawyer. I do not want a lawyer.”
She put the rolling pin down, dusted her hands on a cloth and sat down.
“What do you want to know?” she asked sulkily.
“I want your account of what happened here last night.”
“You know very well what happened.”
“I want your account of it.”
“I tried to go away. Did she tell you that? When I saw that in the paper saying about murder. I wanted to go away. She would not let me. She is very hard—not at all sympathetic. She made me stay. But I knew—I knew what would happen. I knew I should be murdered.”
“Well, you weren’t murdered, were you?”
“No,” admitted Mitzi grudgingly.
“Come now, tell me what happened.”
“I was nervous. Oh, I was nervous. All that evening. I hear things. People moving about. Once I think someone is in the hall moving stealthily—but it is only that Mrs. Haymes coming in through the side door (so as not to dirty the front steps, she says. Much she cares!). She is a Nazi herself, that one, with her fair hair and her blue eyes, so superior and looking at me and thinking that I—I am only dirt—”
“Never mind Mrs. Haymes.”
“Who does she think she is? Has she had expensive university education like I have? Has she a degree in Economics? No, she is just a paid labourer. She digs and mows grass and is paid so much every Saturday. Who is she to call herself a lady?”
“Never mind Mrs. Haymes, I said. Go on.”
“I take the sherry and the glasses, and the little pastries that I have made so nice into the drawing room. Then the bell rings and I answer the door. Again and again I answer the door. It is degrading—but I do it. And then I go back into the pantry and I start to polish the silver, and I think it will be very handy, that, because if someone comes to kill me, I have there close at hand the big carving knife, all sharp.”
“Very foresighted of you.”
“And then, suddenly—I hear shots. I think: ‘It has come—it is happening.’ I run through the dining room (the other door—it will not open). I stand a moment to listen and then there comes another shot and a big thud, out there in the hall, and I turn the door handle, but it is locked outside. I am shut in there like a rat in a trap. And I go mad with fear. I scream and I scream and I beat upon the door. And at last—at last—they turn the key and let me out. And then I bring candles, many many candles—and the lights go on, and I see blood—blood! Ach, Gott in Himmel, the blood! It is not the first time I have seen blood. My little brother—I see him killed before my eyes—I see blood in the street—people shot, dying—I—”
“Yes,” said Inspector Craddock. “Thank you very much.”
“And now,” said Mitzi dramatically, “you can arrest me and take me to prison!”
“Not today,” said Inspector Craddock.
III
As Craddock and Fletcher went through the hall to the front door it was flung open and a tall handsome young man almost collided with them.
“Sleuths as I live,” cried the young man.
“Mr. Patrick Simmons?”
“Quite right, Inspector. You’re the Inspector, aren’t you, and the other’s the Sergeant?”
“You are quite right, Mr. Simmons. Can I have a word with you, please?”
“I am innocent, Inspector. I swear I am innocent.”
“Now then, Mr. Simmons, don’t play the fool. I’ve a good many other people to see and I don’t want to waste time. What’s this room? Can we go in here?”
“It’s the so-called study—but nobody studies.”
“I was told that you were studying?” said Craddock.
“I found I couldn’t concentrate on mathematics, so I came home.”
In a businesslike manner Inspector Craddock demanded full name, age, details of war service.
“And now, Mr. Simmons, will you describe what happened last night?”
“We killed the fatted calf, Inspector. That is, Mitzi set her hand to making savoury pastries, Aunt Letty opened a new bottle of sherry—”
Craddock interrupted.
“A new bottle? Was there an old one?”
“Yes. Half full. But Aunt Letty didn’t seem to fancy it.”
“Was she nervous, then?”
“Oh, not really. She’s extremely sensible. It was old Bunny, I think, who had put the wind up her—prophesying disaster all day.”
“Miss Bunner was definitely apprehensive, then?”
“Oh, yes, she enjoyed herself thoroughly.”
“She took the advertisement seriously?”
“It scared her into fits.”
“Miss Blacklock seems to have thought, when she first read that advertisement, that you had had something to do with it. Why was that?”
“Ah, sure, I get blamed for everything round here!”
“You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you, Mr. Simmons?”
“Me? Never in the world.”
“Had you ever seen or spoken to this Rudi Scherz?”
“Never seen him in my life.”
“It was the kind of joke you might have played, though?”
“Who’s been telling you that? Just because I once made Bunny an apple pie bed—and sent Mitzi a postcard saying the Gestapo was on her track—”
“Just give me your account of what happened.”
“I’d just gone into the small drawing room to fetch the drinks when, Hey Presto, the lights went out. I turned round and there’s a fellow standing in the doorway saying, ‘Stick your hands up,’ and everybody gasping and squealing, and just when I’m thinking—can I rush him? he starts firing a revolver and then crash down he goes and his torch goes out and we’re in the dark again, and Colonel Easterbrook starts shouting orders in his barrack-room voice. ‘Lights,’ he says, and will my lighter go on? No, it won’t as is the way of those cussed inventions.”
“Did it seem to you that the intruder was definitely aiming at Miss Blacklock?”
“Ah, how could I tell? I should say he just loosed off his revolver for the fun of the thing—and then found, maybe, he’d gone too far.”
“And shot himself?”
“It could be. When I saw the face of him, he looked like the kind of little pasty thief who might easily lose his nerve.”
“And you’re sure you had never seen him before?”
“Never.”
“Thank you, Mr. Simmons. I shall want to interview the other people who were here last night. Which would be the best order in which to take them?”
“Well, our Phillipa—Mrs. Haymes—works at Dayas Hall. The gates of it are nearly opposite this gate. After that, the Swettenhams are the nearest. Anyone will tell you.”
Six. Julia, mitzi and patrick