Seven

Mr. Waterhouse, hovering uncertainly on the steps of 18, Wilbraham Cres-cent, looked back nervously at his sister.

“You’re quite sure you’ll be all right?” said Mr. Waterhouse.

Miss Waterhouse snorted with some indignation.

“I really don’t know what you mean, James.”

Mr. Waterhouse looked apologetic. He had to look apologetic so oftenthat it was practically his prevailing cast of countenance.

“Well, I just meant, my dear, considering what happened next door yes-terday….”

Mr. Waterhouse was prepared for departure to the solicitors’ officewhere he worked. He was a neat, grey-haired man with slightly stoopingshoulders and a face that was also grey rather than pink, though not in theleast unhealthy looking.

Miss Waterhouse was tall, angular, and the kind of woman with no non-sense about her who is extremely intolerant of nonsense in others.

“Is there any reason, James, because someone was murdered in the nextdoor house that I shall be murdered today?”

“Well, Edith,” said Mr. Waterhouse, “it depends so much, does it not, bywhom the murder was committed?”

“You think, in fact, that there’s someone going up and down WilbrahamCrescent selecting a victim from every house? Really, James, that is almostblasphemous.”

“Blasphemous, Edith?” said Mr. Waterhouse in lively surprise. Such anaspect of his remark would never have occurred to him.

“Reminiscent of the Passover,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Which, let me re-mind you, is Holy Writ.”

“That is a little farfetched I think, Edith,” said Mr. Waterhouse.

“I should like to see anyone coming here, trying to murder me,” saidMiss Waterhouse with spirit.

Her brother reflected to himself that it did seem highly unlikely. If hehimself had been choosing a victim he would not have chosen his sister. Ifanyone were to attempt such a thing it was far more likely that the at-tacker would be knocked out by a poker or a lead doorstop and deliveredover to the police in a bleeding and humiliated condition.

“I just meant,” he said, the apologetic air deepening, “that there are—well—clearly undesirable characters about.”

“We don’t know very much about what did happen yet,” said Miss Wa-terhouse. “All sorts of rumours are going about. Mrs. Head had some ex-traordinary stories this morning.”

“I expect so, I expect so,” said Mr. Waterhouse. He looked at his watch.

He had no real desire to hear the stories brought in by their loquaciousdaily help. His sister never lost time in debunking these lurid flights offancy, but nevertheless enjoyed them.

“Some people are saying,” said Miss Waterhouse, “that this man was thetreasurer or a trustee of the Aaronberg Institute and that there is some-thing wrong in the accounts, and that he came to Miss Pebmarsh to in-quire about it.”

“And that Miss Pebmarsh murdered him?” Mr. Waterhouse lookedmildly amused. “A blind woman? Surely—”

“Slipped a piece of wire round his neck and strangled him,” said MissWaterhouse. “He wouldn’t be on his guard, you see. Who would be withanyone blind? Not that I believe it myself,” she added. “I’m sure Miss Peb-marsh is a person of excellent character. If I do not see eye to eye with heron various subjects, that is not because I impute anything of a criminalnature to her. I merely think that her views are bigoted and extravagant.

After all, there are other things besides education. All these new peculiarlooking grammar schools, practically built of glass. You might think theywere meant to grow cucumbers in, or tomatoes. I’m sure very prejudicialto children in the summer months. Mrs. Head herself told me that herSusan didn’t like their new classrooms. Said it was impossible to attend toyour lessons because with all those windows you couldn’t help looking outof them all the time.”

“Dear, dear,” said Mr. Waterhouse, looking at his watch again. “Well,well, I’m going to be very late, I’m afraid. Good-bye, my dear. Look afteryourself. Better keep the door on the chain perhaps?”

Miss Waterhouse snorted again. Having shut the door behind herbrother she was about to retire upstairs when she paused thoughtfully,went to her golf bag, removed a niblick, and placed it in a strategic posi-tion near the front door. “There,” said Miss Waterhouse, with some satis-faction. Of course James talked nonsense. Still it was always as well to beprepared. The way they let mental cases out of nursing homes nowadays,urging them to lead a normal life, was in her view fraught with danger toall sorts of innocent people.

Miss Waterhouse was in her bedroom when Mrs. Head came bustlingup the stairs. Mrs. Head was small and round and very like a rubber ball—she enjoyed practically everything that happened.

“A couple of gentlemen want to see you,” said Mrs. Head with avidity.

“Leastways,” she added, “they aren’t really gentlemen—it’s the police.”

She shoved forward a card. Miss Waterhouse took it.

“Detective Inspector Hardcastle,” she read. “Did you show them into thedrawing room?”

“No. I put ’em in the dinin’ room. I’d cleared away breakfast and Ithought that that would be more proper a place. I mean, they’re only thepolice after all.”

Miss Waterhouse did not quite follow this reasoning. However she said,“I’ll come down.”

“I expect they’ll want to ask you about Miss Pebmarsh,” said Mrs. Head.

“Want to know whether you’ve noticed anything funny in her manner.

They say these manias come on very sudden sometimes and there’s verylittle to show beforehand. But there’s usually something, some way ofspeaking, you know. You can tell by their eyes, they say. But then thatwouldn’t hold with a blind woman, would it? Ah—” she shook her head.

Miss Waterhouse marched downstairs and entered the dining roomwith a certain amount of pleasurable curiosity masked by her usual air ofbelligerence.

“Detective Inspector Hardcastle?”

“Good morning, Miss Waterhouse.” Hardcastle had risen. He had withhim a tall, dark young man whom Miss Waterhouse did not bother togreet. She paid no attention to a faint murmur of “Sergeant Lamb.”

“I hope I have not called at too early an hour,” said Hardcastle, “but Iimagine you know what it is about. You’ve heard what happened nextdoor yesterday.”

“Murder in one’s next door neighbour’s house does not usually go unno-ticed,” said Miss Waterhouse. “I even had to turn away one or two report-ers who came here asking if I had observed anything.”

“You turned them away?”

“Naturally.”

“You were quite right,” said Hardcastle. “Of course they like to wormtheir way in anywhere but I’m sure you are quite capable of dealing withanything of that kind.”

Miss Waterhouse allowed herself to show a faintly pleasurable reactionto this compliment.

“I hope you won’t mind us asking you the same kind of questions,” saidHardcastle, “but if you did see anything at all that could be of interest tous, I can assure you we should be only too grateful. You were here in thehouse at the time, I gather?”

“I don’t know when the murder was committed,” said Miss Waterhouse.

“We think between half past one and half past two.”

“I was here then, yes, certainly.”

“And your brother?”

“He does not come home to lunch. Who exactly was murdered? Itdoesn’t seem to say in the short account there was in the local morning pa-per.”

“We don’t yet know who he was,” said Hardcastle.

“A stranger?”

“So it seems.”

“You don’t mean he was a stranger to Miss Pebmarsh also?”

“Miss Pebmarsh assures us that she was not expecting this particularguest and that she has no idea who he was.”

“She can’t be sure of that,” said Miss Waterhouse. “She can’t see.”

“We gave her a very careful description.”

“What kind of man was he?”

Hardcastle took a rough print from an envelope and handed it to her.

“This is the man,” he said. “Have you any idea who he can be?”

Miss Waterhouse looked at the print. “No. No … I’m certain I’ve neverseen him before. Dear me. He looks quite a respectable man.”

“He was a most respectable-looking man,” said the inspector. “He lookslike a lawyer or a business man of some kind.”

“Indeed. This photograph is not at all distressing. He just looks asthough he might be asleep.”

Hardcastle did not tell her that of the various police photographs of thecorpse this one had been selected as the least disturbing to the eye.

“Death can be a peaceful business,” he said. “I don’t think this particularman had any idea that it was coming to him when it did.”

“What does Miss Pebmarsh say about it all?” demanded Miss Water-house.

“She is quite at a loss.”

“Extraordinary,” commented Miss Waterhouse.

“Now, can you help us in any way, Miss Waterhouse? If you cast yourmind back to yesterday, were you looking out of the window at all, or didyou happen to be in your garden, say any time between half past twelveand three o’clock?”

Miss Waterhouse reflected.

“Yes, I was in the garden … Now let me see. It must have been before oneo’clock. I came in about ten to one from the garden, washed my hands andsat down to lunch.”

“Did you see Miss Pebmarsh enter or leave the house?”

“I think she came in—I heard the gate squeak—yes, some time after halfpast twelve.”

“You didn’t speak to her?”

“Oh no. It was just the squeak of the gate made me look up. It is herusual time for returning. She finishes her classes then, I believe. Sheteaches at the Disabled Children as probably you know.”

“According to her own statement, Miss Pebmarsh went out again abouthalf past one. Would you agree to that?”

“Well, I couldn’t tell you the exact time but—yes, I do remember herpassing the gate.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Waterhouse, you said ‘passing the gate.’”

“Certainly. I was in my sitting room. That gives on the street, whereasthe dining room, where we are sitting now, gives as you can see, on theback garden. But I took my coffee into the sitting room after lunch and Iwas sitting with it in a chair near the window. I was reading The Times,and I think it was when I was turning the sheet that I noticed Miss Peb-marsh passing the front gate. Is there anything extraordinary about that,Inspector?”

“Not extraordinary, no,” said the inspector, smiling. “Only I understoodthat Miss Pebmarsh was going out to do a little shopping and to the postoffice, and I had an idea that the nearest way to the shops and the post of-fice would be to go the other way along the crescent.”

“Depends on which shops you are going to,” said Miss Waterhouse. “Ofcourse the shops are nearer that way, and there’s a post office in AlbanyRoad—”

“But perhaps Miss Pebmarsh usually passed your gate about that time?”

“Well, really, I don’t know what time Miss Pebmarsh usually went out,or in which direction. I’m not really given to watching my neighbours inany way, Inspector. I’m a busy woman and have far too much to do withmy own affairs. Some people I know spend their entire time looking out ofthe window and noticing who passes and who calls on whom. That ismore a habit of invalids or of people who’ve got nothing better to do thanto speculate and gossip about their neighbours’ affairs.”

Miss Waterhouse spoke with such acerbity that the inspector felt surethat she had some one particular person in mind. He said hastily, “Quiteso. Quite so.” He added, “Since Miss Pebmarsh passed your front gate, shemight have been going to telephone, might she not? That is where the pub-lic telephone box is situated?”

“Yes. It’s opposite Number 15.”

“The important question I have to ask you, Miss Waterhouse, is if yousaw the arrival of this man—the mystery man as I’m afraid the morningpapers have called him.”

Miss Waterhouse shook her head. “No, I didn’t see him or any othercaller.”

“What were you doing between half past one and three o’clock?”

“I spent about half an hour doing the crossword in The Times, or asmuch of it as I could, then I went out to the kitchen and washed up thelunch. Let me see. I wrote a couple of letters, made some cheques out forbills, then I went upstairs and sorted out some things I wanted to take tothe cleaners. I think it was from my bedroom that I noticed a certainamount of commotion next door. I distinctly heard someone screaming, sonaturally I went to the window. There was a young man and a girl at thegate. He seemed to be embracing her.”

Sergeant Lamb shifted his feet but Miss Waterhouse was not looking athim and clearly had no idea that he had been that particular young manin question.

“I could only see the back of the young man’s head. He seemed to be ar-guing with the girl. Finally he sat her down against the gatepost. An ex-traordinary thing to do. And he strode off and went into the house.”

“You had not seen Miss Pebmarsh return to the house a short time be-fore?”

Miss Waterhouse shook her head. “No. I don’t really think I had lookedout the window at all until I heard this extraordinary screaming. How-ever, I didn’t pay much attention to all this. Young girls and men are al-ways doing such extraordinary things—screaming, pushing each other,giggling or making some kind of noise—that I had no idea it was anythingserious. Not until some cars drove up with policemen did I realize any-thing out of the ordinary had occurred.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, naturally I went out of the house, stood on the steps and then Iwalked round to the back garden. I wondered what had happened butthere didn’t seem to be anything much to see from that side. When I gotback again there was quite a little crowd gathering. Somebody told methere’d been a murder in the house. It seemed to me most extraordinary.

Most extraordinary!” said Miss Waterhouse with a great deal of disap-proval.

“There is nothing else you can think of? That you can tell us?”

“Really, I’m afraid not.”

“Has anybody recently written to you suggesting insurance, or has any-body called upon you or proposed calling upon you?”

“No. Nothing of the kind. Both James and I have taken out insurancepolicies with the Mutual Help Assurance Society. Of course one is alwaysgetting letters which are really circulars or advertisements of some kindbut I don’t recall anything of that kind recently.”

“No letters signed by anybody called Curry?”

“Curry? No, certainly not.”

“And the name of Curry means nothing to you in any way?”

“No. Should it?”

Hardcastle smiled. “No. I really don’t think it should,” he said. “It justhappens to be the name that the man who was murdered was calling him-self by.”

“It wasn’t his real name?”

“We have some reason to think that it was not his real name.”

“A swindler of some kind, eh?” said Miss Waterhouse.

“We can’t say that till we have evidence to prove it.”

“Of course not, of course not. You’ve got to be careful. I know that,” saidMiss Waterhouse. “Not like some of the people around here. They’d sayanything. I wonder some aren’t had up for libel all the time.”

“Slander,” corrected Sergeant Lamb, speaking for the first time.

Miss Waterhouse looked at him in some surprise, as though not awarebefore that he had an entity of his own and was anything other than a ne-cessary appendage to Inspector Hardcastle.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you, I really am,” said Miss Waterhouse.

“I’m sorry too,” said Hardcastle. “A person of your intelligence andjudgement with a faculty of observation would have been a very usefulwitness to have.”

“I wish I had seen something,” said Miss Waterhouse.

For a moment her tone was as wistful as a young girl’s.

“Your brother, Mr. James Waterhouse?”

“James wouldn’t know anything,” said Miss Waterhouse scornfully. “Henever does. And anyway he was at Gainsford and Swettenhams in theHigh Street. Oh no, James wouldn’t be able to help you. As I say, he doesn’tcome back to lunch.”

“Where does he lunch usually?”

“He usually has sandwiches and coffee at the Three Feathers. A verynice respectable house. They specialize in quick lunches for professionalpeople.”

“Thank you, Miss Waterhouse. Well, we mustn’t keep you any longer.”

He rose and went out into the hall. Miss Waterhouse accompaniedthem. Colin Lamb picked up the golf club by the door.

“Nice club, this,” he said. “Plenty of weight in the head.” He weighed itup and down in his hand. “I see you are prepared, Miss Waterhouse, forany eventualities.”

Miss Waterhouse was slightly taken aback.

“Really,” she said, “I can’t imagine how that club came to be there.”

She snatched it from him and replaced it in the golf bag.

“A very wise precaution to take,” said Hardcastle.

Miss Waterhouse opened the door and let them out.

“Well,” said Colin Lamb, with a sigh, “we didn’t get much out of her, inspite of you buttering her up so nicely all the time. Is that your invariablemethod?”

“It gets good results sometimes with a person of her type. The toughkind always respond to flattery.”

“She was purring like a cat that has been offered a saucer of cream inthe end,” said Colin. “Unfortunately, it didn’t disclose anything of interest.”

“No?” said Hardcastle.

Colin looked at him quickly. “What’s on your mind?”

“A very slight and possibly unimportant point. Miss Pebmarsh went outto the post office and the shops but she turned left instead of right, andthat telephone call, according to Miss Martindale, was put through aboutten minutes to two.”

Colin looked at him curiously.

“You still think that in spite of her denial she might have made it? Shewas very positive.”

“Yes,” said Hardcastle. “She was very positive.”

His tone was noncommittal.

“But if she did make it, why?”

“Oh, it’s all why,” said Hardcastle impatiently. “Why, why? Why all thisrigmarole? If Miss Pebmarsh made that call, why did she want to get thegirl there? If it was someone else, why did they want to involve Miss Peb-marsh? We don’t know anything yet. If that Martindale woman hadknown Miss Pebmarsh personally, she’d have known whether it was hervoice or not, or at any rate whether it was reasonably like Miss Peb-marsh’s. Oh well, we haven’t got much from Number 18. Let’s see whetherNumber 20 will do us any better.”