谋杀启事23

VI

Inspector Craddock looked round the big shabby room with a sense ofpleasure. It reminded him a little of his own Cumberland home. Fadedchintz, big shabby chairs, flowers and books strewn about, and a spanielin a basket. Mrs. Harmon, too, with her distraught air, and her general dis-array and her eager face he found sympathetic.

But she said at once, frankly, “I shan’t be any help to you. Because I shutmy eyes. I hate being dazzled. And then there were shots and I screwedthem up tighter than ever. And I did wish, oh, I did wish, that it had been aquiet murder. I don’t like bangs.”

“So you didn’t see anything.” The Inspector smiled at her. “But youheard—?”

“Oh, my goodness, yes, there was plenty to hear. Doors opening andshutting, and people saying silly things and gasping and old Mitzi scream-ing like a steam engine—and poor Bunny squealing like a trapped rabbit.

And everyone pushing and falling over everyone else. However, whenthere really didn’t seem to be any more bangs coming, I opened my eyes.

Everyone was out in the hall then, with candles. And then the lights cameon and suddenly it was all as usual—I don’t mean really as usual, but wewere ourselves again, not just—people in the dark. People in the dark arequite different, aren’t they?”

“I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Harmon.”

Mrs. Harmon smiled at him.

“And there he was,” she said. “A rather weaselly-looking foreigner—allpink and surprised-looking—lying there dead—with a revolver besidehim. It didn’t—oh, it didn’t seem to make sense, somehow.”

It did not make sense to the Inspector, either.

The whole business worried him.

 

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