谋杀启事16

Six

JULIA, MITZI AND PATRICK

I
Julia, when she came into the room, and sat down in the chair vacated byLetitia Blacklock, had an air of composure that Craddock for some reasonfound annoying. She fixed a limpid gaze on him and waited for his ques-tions.

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 likelogs. 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 andMiss Murgatroyd, Mrs. Swettenham and Edmund Swettenham, and Mrs.

Harmon, the Vicar’s wife. They arrived in that order. And if you want toknow what they said—they all said the same thing in turn. ‘I see you’ve gotyour 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 withher hat falling off and her shoelaces untied and she asked straight outwhen the murder was going to happen. It embarrassed everybody be-cause they’d all been pretending they’d dropped in by chance. Aunt Lettysaid in her dry way that it was due to happen quite soon. And then thatclock chimed and just as it finished, the lights went out, the door was flungopen 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 firedtwo 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 takenup 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 thesherry. I think Colonel Easterbrook went after him, but I don’t reallyknow. 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 cigar-ettes.”

“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 holdthe 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 wasfull in my eyes and then it went on round the room and then the shotscame. Two shots.”

“And then?”

“He whirled round—and Mitzi began to scream like a siren from some-where and his torch went out and there was another shot. And then thedoor closed (it does, you know, slowly, with a whining noise—quite un-canny) and there we were all in the dark, not knowing what to do, andpoor 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 doyou think he stumbled and the revolver went off accidentally?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. The whole thing was so stagey. Actually Ithought 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 thingmore real, you’d be careful to fire it well above someone’s head, wouldn’tyou?”

“You would indeed. Do you think he could see clearly who he was firingat? 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 aimingat 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 beheaps of more suitable opportunities. There would be no point in collect-ing all the friends and neighbours just to make it more difficult. He couldhave shot her from behind a hedge in the good old Irish fashion any day ofthe week, and probably got away with it.”

And that, thought Craddock, was a very complete reply to Dora Bunner’ssuggestion of a deliberate attack on Letitia Blacklock.

He said with a sigh, “Thank you, Miss Simmons. I’d better go and seeMitzi now.”

“Mind her fingernails,” warned Julia. “She’s a tartar!”

 

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