谋杀启事35

II

Sergeant Fletcher had the house at Little Paddocks to himself.

It was Mitzi’s day off. She always went by the eleven o’clock bus intoMedenham Wells. By arrangement with Miss Blacklock, Sergeant Fletcherhad the run of the house. She and Dora Bunner had gone down to the vil-lage.

Fletcher worked fast. Someone in the house had oiled and prepared thatdoor, and whoever had done it, had done it in order to be able to leave thedrawing room unnoticed as soon as the lights went out. That ruled outMitzi who wouldn’t have needed to use the door.

Who was left? The neighbours, Fletcher thought, might also be ruledout. He didn’t see how they could have found an opportunity to oil andprepare the door. That left Patrick and Julia Simmons, Phillipa Haymes,and possibly Dora Bunner. The young Simmonses were in Milchester. Phil-lipa Haymes was at work. Sergeant Fletcher was free to search out anysecrets he could. But the house was disappointingly innocent. Fletcher,who was an expert on electricity, could find nothing suggestive in the wir-ing or appurtenances of the electric fixtures to show how the lights hadbeen fused. Making a rapid survey of the household bedrooms he foundan irritating normality. In Phillipa Haymes’ room were photographs of asmall boy with serious eyes, an earlier photo of the same child, a pile ofschoolboy letters, a theatre programme or two. In Julia’s room there was adrawer full of snapshots of the South of France. Bathing photos, a villa setamidst mimosa. Patrick’s held some souvenirs of Naval days. DoraBunner’s held few personal possessions and they seemed innocentenough.

And yet, thought Fletcher, someone in the house must have oiled thatdoor.

His thoughts broke off at a sound below stairs. He went quickly to thetop of the staircase and looked down.

Mrs. Swettenham was crossing the hall. She had a basket on her arm.

She looked into the drawing room, crossed the hall and went into the din-ing room. She came out again without the basket.

Some faint sound that Fletcher made, a board that creaked unexpec-tedly under his feet, made her turn her head. She called up:

“Is that you, Miss Blacklock?”

“No, Mrs. Swettenham, it’s me,” said Fletcher.

Mrs. Swettenham gave a faint scream.

“Oh! how you startled me. I thought it might be another burglar.”

Fletcher came down the stairs.

“This house doesn’t seem very well protected against burglars,” he said.

“Can anybody always walk in and out just as they like?”

“I just brought up some of my quinces,” explained Mrs. Swettenham.

“Miss Blacklock wants to make quince jelly and she hasn’t got a quincetree here. I left them in the dining room.”

Then she smiled.

“Oh, I see, you mean how did I get in? Well, I just came in through theside door. We all walk in and out of each other’s houses, Sergeant. Nobodydreams of locking a door until it’s dark. I mean it would be so awkward,wouldn’t it, if you brought things and couldn’t get in to leave them? It’s notlike the old days when you rang a bell and a servant always came to an-swer it.” Mrs. Swettenham sighed. “In India, I remember,” she said mourn-fully, “we had eighteen servants—eighteen. Not counting the ayah. Just asa matter of course. And at home, when I was a girl, we always had three—though Mother always felt it was terribly poverty-stricken not to be able toafford a kitchen maid. I must say that I find life very odd nowadays, Ser-geant, though I know one mustn’t complain. So much worse for the minersalways getting psitticosis (or is that parrot disease?) and having to comeout of the mines and try to be gardeners though they don’t know weedsfrom spinach.”

She added, as she tripped towards the door, “I mustn’t keep you. I ex-pect you’re very busy. Nothing else is going to happen, is it?”

“Why should it, Mrs. Swettenham?”

“I just wondered, seeing you here. I thought it might be a gang. You’ll tellMiss Blacklock about the quinces, won’t you?”

Mrs. Swettenham departed. Fletcher felt like a man who has received anunexpected jolt. He had been assuming—erroneously, he now perceived—that it must have been someone in the house who had done the oiling ofthe door. He saw now that he was wrong. An outsider had only to wait un-til Mitzi had departed by bus and Letitia Blacklock and Dora Bunner wereboth out of the house. Such an opportunity must have been simplicity it-self. That meant that he couldn’t rule out anybody who had been in thedrawing room that night.

 

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