谋杀启事14

III

Myrna Harris was a pretty girl with a glorious head of red hair and a pertnose.

She was alarmed and wary, and deeply conscious of the indignity of be-ing interviewed by the police.

“I don’t know a thing about it, sir. Not a thing,” she protested. “If I’dknown what he was like I’d never have gone out with Rudi at all. Natur-ally, seeing as he worked in Reception here, I thought he was all right. Nat-urally I did. What I say is the hotel ought to be more careful when theyemploy people — especially foreigners. Because you never know whereyou are with foreigners. I suppose he might have been in with one of thesegangs 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. Thoughthere have been things missed—now I come to think of it. A diamondbrooch—and a little gold locket, I believe. But I never dreamed that itcould 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 waywith them, but you never know, do you? Some of those Poles during thewar! And even some of the Americans! Never let on they’re married menuntil it’s too late. Rudi talked big and all that—but I always took it with agrain of salt.”

Craddock seized on the phrase.

“Talked big, did he? That’s very interesting, Miss Harris. I can see you’regoing 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 import-ant. But that didn’t go with his being as short of money as he was. He al-ways said that because of the money regulation he couldn’t get moneyfrom Switzerland over here. That might be, I suppose, but his thingsweren’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. Aboutclimbing 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 howto—to look after a girl. The best seats at the pictures always. And evenflowers 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’sstayed here once. No, I don’t think Rudi ever mentioned her. I didn’t knowhe knew her.”

“Did he mention Chipping Cleghorn?”

He thought a faintly wary look came into Myrna Harris’s eyes but hecouldn’t be sure.

“I don’t think so … I think he did once ask about buses—what time theywent—but I can’t remember if that was Chipping Cleghorn or somewhereelse. 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—shestressed the point, that Rudi Scherz was a crook.

And probably, Craddock thought, that was quite true.

 

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