Twenty-one

THREE WOMEN

Dinner was over at Little Paddocks. It had been a silent and uncomfort-able meal.

Patrick, uneasily aware of having fallen from grace, only made spas-modic attempts at conversation—and such as he did make were not wellreceived. Phillipa Haymes was sunk in abstraction. Miss Blacklock herselfhad abandoned the effort to behave with her normal cheerfulness. Shehad changed for dinner and had come down wearing her necklace ofcameos but for the first time fear showed from her darkly circled eyes,and betrayed itself by her twitching hands.

Julia, alone, had maintained her air of cynical detachment throughoutthe evening.

“I’m sorry, Letty,” she said, “that I can’t pack my bag and go. But I pre-sume the police wouldn’t allow it. I don’t suppose I’ll darken your roof—orwhatever the expression is — for long. I should imagine that InspectorCraddock will be round with a warrant and the handcuffs any moment. Infact I can’t imagine why something of the kind hasn’t happened already.”

“He’s looking for the old lady—for Miss Marple,” said Miss Blacklock.

“Do you think she’s been murdered, too?” Patrick asked with scientificcuriosity. “But why? What could she know?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Blacklock dully. “Perhaps Miss Murgatroydtold her something.”

“If she’s been murdered too,” said Patrick, “there seems to be logicallyonly one person who could have done it.”

“Who?”

“Hinchcliffe, of course,” said Patrick triumphantly. “That’s where shewas last seen alive—at Boulders. My solution would be that she never leftBoulders.”

“My head aches,” said Miss Blacklock in a dull voice. She pressed her fin-gers to her forehead. “Why should Hinch murder Miss Marple? It doesn’tmake sense.”

“It would if Hinch had really murdered Murgatroyd,” said Patrick tri-umphantly.

Phillipa came out of her apathy to say:

“Hinch wouldn’t murder Murgatroyd.”

“She might have if Murgatroyd had blundered on something to showthat she—Hinch—was the criminal.”

“Anyway, Hinch was at the station when Murgatroyd was killed.”

“She could have murdered Murgatroyd before she left.”

Startling them all, Letitia Blacklock suddenly screamed out:

“Murder, murder, murder —! Can’t you talk of anything else? I’mfrightened, don’t you understand? I’m frightened. I wasn’t before. Ithought I could take care of myself … But what can you do against a mur-derer who’s waiting—and watching—and biding his time! Oh, God!”

She dropped her head forward on her hands. A moment later shelooked up and apologized stiffly.

“I’m sorry. I—I lost control.”

“That’s all right, Aunt Letty,” said Patrick affectionately. “I’ll look afteryou.”

“You?” was all Letitia Blacklock said, but the disillusionment behind theword was almost an accusation.

That had been shortly before dinner, and Mitzi had then created a diver-sion by coming and declaring that she was not going to cook the dinner.

“I do not do anything more in this house. I go to my room. I lock myselfin. I stay there until it is daylight. I am afraid—people are being killed—that Miss Murgatroyd with her stupid English face—who would want tokill her? Only a maniac! Then it is a maniac that is about! And a maniacdoes not care who he kills. But me, I do not want to be killed. There areshadows in the kitchen—and I hear noises—I think there is someone outin the yard and then I think I see a shadow by the larder door and then itis footsteps I hear. So I go now to my room and I lock the door and per-haps even I put the chest of drawers against it. And in the morning I tellthat cruel hard policeman that I go away from here. And if he will not letme I say: ‘I scream and I scream and I scream until you have to let mego!’”

Everybody, with a vivid recollection of what Mitzi could do in thescreaming line, shuddered at the threat.

“So I go to my room,” said Mitzi, repeating the statement once more tomake her intentions quite clear. With a symbolic action she cast off thecretonne apron she had been wearing. “Good night, Miss Blacklock. Per-haps in the morning, you may not be alive. So in case that is so, I say good-bye.”

She departed abruptly and the door, with its usual gentle little whine,closed softly after her.

Julia got up.

“I’ll see to dinner,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “Rather a good ar-rangement—less embarrassing for you all than having me sit down attable with you. Patrick (since he’s constituted himself your protector, AuntLetty) had better taste every dish first. I don’t want to be accused of pois-oning you on top of everything else.”

So Julia had cooked and served a really excellent meal.

Phillipa had come out to the kitchen with an offer of assistance but Juliahad said firmly that she didn’t want any help.

“Julia, there’s something I want to say—”

“This is no time for girlish confidences,” said Julia firmly. “Go on back inthe dining room, Phillipa.”

Now dinner was over and they were in the drawing room with coffee onthe small table by the fire—and nobody seemed to have anything to say.

They were waiting—that was all.

At 8:30 Inspector Craddock rang up.

“I shall be with you in about a quarter of an hour’s time,” he announced.

“I’m bringing Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook and Mrs. Swettenham and herson with me.”

“But really, Inspector … I can’t cope with people tonight—”

Miss Blacklock’s voice sounded as though she were at the end of hertether.

“I know how you feel, Miss Blacklock. I’m sorry. But this is urgent.”

“Have you—found Miss Marple?”

“No,” said the Inspector, and rang off.

Julia took the coffee tray out to the kitchen where, to her surprise, shefound Mitzi contemplating the piled-up dishes and plates by the sink.

Mitzi burst into a torrent of words.

“See what you do in my so nice kitchen! That frying pan—only, only foromelettes do I use it! And you, what have you used it for?”

“Frying onions.”

“Ruined—ruined. It will have now to be washed and never—never—do Iwash my omelette pan. I rub it carefully over with a greasy newspaper,that is all. And this saucepan here that you have used—that one, I use himonly for milk—”

“Well, I don’t know what pans you use for what,” said Julia crossly. “Youchoose to go to bed and why on earth you’ve chosen to get up again, I can’timagine. Go away again and leave me to wash up in peace.”

“No, I will not let you use my kitchen.”

“Oh, Mitzi, you are impossible!”

Julia stalked angrily out of the kitchen and at that moment the doorbellrang.

“I do not go to the door,” Mitzi called from the kitchen. Julia muttered animpolite Continental expression under her breath and stalked to the frontdoor.

It was Miss Hinchcliffe.

“’Evening,” she said in her gruff voice. “Sorry to barge in. Inspector’srung up, I expect?”

“He didn’t tell us you were coming,” said Julia, leading the way to thedrawing room.

“He said I needn’t come unless I liked,” said Miss Hinchcliffe. “But I dolike.”

Nobody offered Miss Hinchcliffe sympathy or mentioned Miss Murga-troyd’s death. The ravaged face of the tall vigorous woman told its owntale, and would have made any expression of sympathy an impertinence.

“Turn all the lights on,” said Miss Blacklock. “And put more coal on thefire. I’m cold—horribly cold. Come and sit here by the fire, Miss Hinch-cliffe. The Inspector said he would be here in a quarter of an hour. It mustbe nearly that now.”

“Mitzi’s come down again,” said Julia.

“Has she? Sometimes I think that girl’s mad—quite mad. But then per-haps we’re all mad.”

“I’ve no patience with this saying that all people who commit crimes aremad,” barked Miss Hinchcliffe. “Horribly and intelligently sane — that’swhat I think a criminal is!”

The sound of a car was heard outside and presently Craddock came inwith Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook and Edmund and Mrs. Swettenham.

They were all curiously subdued.

Colonel Easterbrook said in a voice that was like an echo of his usualtones:

“Ha! A good fire.”

Mrs. Easterbrook wouldn’t take off her fur coat and sat down close toher husband. Her face, usually pretty and rather vapid, was like a littlepinched weasel face. Edmund was in one of his furious moods andscowled at everybody. Mrs. Swettenham made what was evidently a greateffort, and which resulted in a kind of parody of herself.

“It’s awful — isn’t it?” she said conversationally. “Everything, I mean.

And really the less one says, the better. Because one doesn’t know whonext—like the Plague. Dear Miss Blacklock, don’t you think you ought tohave a little brandy? Just half a wineglass even? I always think there’snothing like brandy—such a wonderful stimulant. I—it seems so terribleof us—forcing our way in here like this, but Inspector Craddock made uscome. And it seems so terrible—she hasn’t been found, you know. Thatpoor old thing from the Vicarage, I mean. Bunch Harmon is nearly frantic.

Nobody knows where she went instead of going home. She didn’t come tous. I’ve not even seen her today. And I should know if she had come to thehouse because I was in the drawing room—at the back, you know, and Ed-mund was in his study writing—and that’s at the front—so if she’d comeeither way we should have seen. And oh, I do hope and pray that nothinghas happened to that dear sweet old thing — all her faculties still andeverything.”

“Mother,” said Edmund in a voice of acute suffering, “can’t you shutup?”

“I’m sure, dear, I don’t want to say a word,” said Mrs. Swettenham, andsat down on the sofa by Julia.

Inspector Craddock stood near the door. Facing him, almost in a row,were the three women. Julia and Mrs. Swettenham on the sofa. Mrs. East-erbrook on the arm of her husband’s chair. He had not brought about thisarrangement, but it suited him very well.

Miss Blacklock and Miss Hinchcliffe were crouching over the fire. Ed-mund stood near them. Phillipa was far back in the shadows.

Craddock began without preamble.

“You all know that Miss Murgatroyd’s been killed,” he began. “We’vereason to believe that the person who killed her was a woman. And forcertain other reasons we can narrow it down still more. I’m about to askcertain ladies here to account for what they were doing between the hoursof four and four-twenty this afternoon. I have already had an account ofher movements from—from the young lady who has been calling herselfMiss Simmons. I will ask her to repeat that statement. At the same time,Miss Simmons, I must caution you that you need not answer if you thinkyour answers may incriminate you, and anything you say will be takendown by Constable Edwards and may be used as evidence in court.”

“You have to say that, don’t you?” said Julia. She was rather pale, butcomposed. “I repeat that between four and four-thirty I was walking alongthe field leading down to the brook by Compton Farm. I came back to theroad by that field with three poplars in it. I didn’t meet anyone as far as Ican remember. I did not go near Boulders.”

“Mrs. Swettenham?”

Edmund said, “Are you cautioning all of us?”

The Inspector turned to him.

“No. At the moment only Miss Simmons. I have no reason to believe thatany other statement made will be incriminating, but anyone, of course, isentitled to have a solicitor present and to refuse to answer questions un-less he is present.”

“Oh, but that would be very silly and a complete waste of time,” criedMrs. Swettenham. “I’m sure I can tell you at once exactly what I was do-ing. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Shall I begin now?”

“Yes, please, Mrs. Swettenham.”

“Now, let me see.” Mrs. Swettenham closed her eyes, opened themagain. “Of course I had nothing at all to do with killing Miss Murgatroyd.

I’m sure everybody here knows that. But I’m a woman of the world, I knowquite well that the police have to ask all the most unnecessary questionsand write the answers down very carefully, because it’s all for what theycall ‘the record.’ That’s it, isn’t it?” Mrs. Swettenham flashed the questionat the diligent Constable Edwards, and added graciously, “I’m not goingtoo fast for you, I hope?”

Constable Edwards, a good shorthand writer, but with little social savoirfaire, turned red to the ears and replied:

“It’s quite all right, madam. Well, perhaps a little slower would be bet-ter.”

Mrs. Swettenham resumed her discourse with emphatic pauses whereshe considered a comma or a full stop might be appropriate.

“Well, of course it’s difficult to say—exactly—because I’ve not got, really,a very good sense of time. And ever since the war quite half our clockshaven’t gone at all, and the ones that do go are often either fast or slow orstop because we haven’t wound them up.” Mrs. Swettenham paused to letthis picture of confused time sink in and then went on earnestly, “What Ithink I was doing at four o’clock was turning the heel of my sock (and forsome extraordinary reason I was going round the wrong way—in purl,you know, not plain) but if I wasn’t doing that, I must have been outsidesnipping off the dead chrysanthemums—no, that was earlier—before therain.”

“The rain,” said the Inspector, “started at 4:10 exactly.”

“Did it now? That helps a lot. Of course, I was upstairs putting a washbasin in the passage where the rain always comes through. And it wascoming through so fast that I guessed at once that the gutter was stoppedup again. So I came down and got my mackintosh and rubber boots. Icalled Edmund, but he didn’t answer, so I thought perhaps he’d got to avery important place in his novel and I wouldn’t disturb him, and I’vedone it quite often myself before. With the broom handle, you know, tiedon to that long thing you push up windows with.”

“You mean,” said Craddock, noting bewilderment on his subordinate’sface, “that you were cleaning out the gutter?”

“Yes, it was all choked up with leaves. It took a long time and I gotrather wet, but I got it clear at last. And then I went in and got changedand washed—so smelly, dead leaves—and then I went into the kitchen andput the kettle on. It was 6:15 by the kitchen clock.”

Constable Edwards blinked.

“Which means,” finished Mrs. Swettenham triumphantly, “that it wasexactly twenty minutes to five.”

“Or near enough,” she added.

“Did anybody see what you were doing whilst you were out cleaning thegutter?”

“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Swettenham. “I’d soon have roped them in tohelp if they had! It’s a most difficult thing to do single-handed.”

“So, by your own statement, you were outside, in a mackintosh andboots, at the time when the rain was coming down, and according to you,you were employed during that time in cleaning out a gutter but you haveno one who can substantiate that statement?”

“You can look at the gutter,” said Mrs. Swettenham. “It’s beautifullyclear.”

“Did you hear your mother call to you, Mr. Swettenham?”

“No,” said Edmund. “I was fast asleep.”

“Edmund,” said his mother reproachfully, “I thought you were writing.”

Inspector Craddock turned to Mrs. Easterbrook.

“Now, Mrs. Easterbrook?”

“I was sitting with Archie in his study,” said Mrs. Easterbrook, fixingwide innocent eyes on him. “We were listening to the wireless together,weren’t we, Archie?”

There was a pause. Colonel Easterbrook was very red in the face. Hetook his wife’s hand in his.

“You don’t understand these things, kitten,” he said. “I—well, I must say,Inspector, you’ve rather sprung this business on us. My wife, you know,has been terribly upset by all this. She’s nervous and highly strung anddoesn’t appreciate the importance of—of taking due consideration beforeshe makes a statement.”

“Archie,” cried Mrs. Easterbrook reproachfully, “are you going to sayyou weren’t with me?”

“Well, I wasn’t, was I, my dear? I mean one’s got to stick to the facts.

Very important in this sort of inquiry. I was talking to Lampson, thefarmer at Croft End, about some chicken netting. That was about a quarterto four. I didn’t get home until after the rain had stopped. Just before tea.

A quarter to five. Laura was toasting the scones.”

“And had you been out also, Mrs. Easterbrook?”

The pretty face looked more like a weasel’s than ever. Her eyes had atrapped look.

“No—no, I just sat listening to the wireless. I didn’t go out. Not then. I’dbeen out earlier. About—about half past three. Just for a little walk. Notfar.”

She looked as though she expected more questions, but Craddock saidquietly:

“That’s all, Mrs. Easterbrook.”

He went on: “These statements will be typed out. You can read them andsign them if they are substantially correct.”

Mrs. Easterbrook looked at him with sudden venom.

“Why don’t you ask the others where they were? That Haymes woman?

And Edmund Swettenham? How do you know he was asleep indoors?

Nobody saw him.”

Inspector Craddock said quietly:

“Miss Murgatroyd, before she died, made a certain statement. On thenight of the hold-up here, someone was absent from this room. Someonewho was supposed to have been in the room all the time. Miss Murgatroydtold her friend the names of the people she did see. By a process of elimin-ation, she made the discovery that there was someone she did not see.”

“Nobody could see anything,” said Julia.

“Murgatroyd could,” said Miss Hinchcliffe, speaking suddenly in herdeep voice. “She was over there behind the door, where Inspector Crad-dock is now. She was the only person who could see anything of what washappening.”

“Aha! That is what you think, is it!” demanded Mitzi.

She made one of her dramatic entrances, flinging open the door and al-most knocking Craddock sideways. She was in a frenzy of excitement.

“Ah, you do not ask Mitzi to come in here with the others, do you, youstiff policemen? I am only Mitzi! Mitzi in the kitchen! Let her stay in thekitchen where she belongs! But I tell you that Mitzi, as well as anyone else,and perhaps better, yes, better, can see things. Yes, I see things. I see some-thing the night of the burglary. I see something and I do not quite believeit, and I hold my tongue till now. I think to myself I will not tell what it is Ihave seen, not yet. I will wait.”

“And when everything had calmed down, you meant to ask for a littlemoney from a certain person, eh?” said Craddock.

Mitzi turned on him like an angry cat.

“And why not? Why look down your nose? Why should I not be paid forit if I have been so generous as to keep silence? Especially if some daythere will be money — much much money. Oh! I have heard things — Iknow what goes on. I know this Pippemmer—this secret society of whichshe”—she flung a dramatic finger towards Julia—“is an agent. Yes, I wouldhave waited and asked for money—but now I am afraid. I would rather besafe. For soon, perhaps, someone will kill me. So I will tell what I know.”

“All right then,” said the Inspector sceptically. “What do you know?”

“I tell you.” Mitzi spoke solemnly. “On that night I am not in the pantrycleaning silver as I say—I am already in the dining room when I hear thegun go off. I look through the keyhole. The hall it is black, but the gun gooff again and the torch it falls—and it swings round as it falls—and I seeher. I see her there close to him with the gun in her hand. I see Miss Black-lock.”

“Me?” Miss Blacklock sat up in astonishment. “You must be mad!”

“But that’s impossible,” cried Edmund. “Mitzi couldn’t have seen MissBlacklock.”

Craddock cut in and his voice had the corrosive quality of a deadly acid.

“Couldn’t she, Mr. Swettenham? And why not? Because it wasn’t MissBlacklock who was standing there with the gun? It was you, wasn’t it?”

“I—of course not—what the hell!”

“You took Colonel Easterbrook’s revolver. You fixed up the business withRudi Scherz—as a good joke. You had followed Patrick Simmons into thefar room and when the lights went out, you slipped out through the care-fully oiled door. You shot at Miss Blacklock and then you killed RudiScherz. A few seconds later you were back in the drawing room clickingyour lighter.”

For a moment Edmund seemed at a loss for words, then he splutteredout:

“The whole idea is monstrous. Why me? What earthly motive had I got?”

“If Miss Blacklock dies before Mrs. Goedler, two people inherit, remem-ber. The two we know of as Pip and Emma. Julia Simmons has turned outto be Emma—”

“And you think I’m Pip?” Edmund laughed. “Fantastic—absolutely fant-astic! I’m about the right age—nothing else. And I can prove to you, youdamned fool, that I am Edmund Swettenham. Birth certificate, schools,university—everything.”

“He isn’t Pip.” The voice came from the shadows in the corner. PhillipaHaymes came forward, her face pale. “I’m Pip, Inspector.”

“You, Mrs. Haymes?”

“Yes. Everybody seems to have assumed that Pip was a boy—Julia knew,of course, that her twin was another girl—I don’t know why she didn’t sayso this afternoon—”

“Family solidarity,” said Julia. “I suddenly realized who you were. I’dhad no idea till that moment.”

“I’d had the same idea as Julia did,” said Phillipa, her voice trembling alittle. “After I—lost my husband and the war was over, I wondered what Iwas going to do. My mother died many years ago. I found out about myGoedler relations. Mrs. Goedler was dying and at her death the moneywould go to a Miss Blacklock. I found out where Miss Blacklock lived and I—I came here. I took a job with Mrs. Lucas. I hoped that, since this MissBlacklock was an elderly woman without relatives, she might, perhaps, bewilling to help. Not me, because I could work, but help with Harry’s educa-tion. After all, it was Goedler money and she’d no one particular of herown to spend it on.

“And then,” Phillipa spoke faster, it was as though, now her long reservehad broken down, she couldn’t get the words out fast enough, “that hold-up happened and I began to be frightened. Because it seemed to me thatthe only possible person with a motive for killing Miss Blacklock was me. Ihadn’t the least idea who Julia was—we aren’t identical twins and we’renot much alike to look at. No, it seemed as though I was the only onebound to be suspected.”

She stopped and pushed her fair hair back from her face, and Craddocksuddenly realized that the faded snapshot in the box of letters must havebeen a photograph of Phillipa’s mother. The likeness was undeniable. Heknew too why that mention of closing and unclosing hands had seemed fa-miliar—Phillipa was doing it now.

“Miss Blacklock has been good to me. Very very good to me—I didn’t tryto kill her. I never thought of killing her. But all the same, I’m Pip.” She ad-ded, “You see, you needn’t suspect Edmund any more.”

“Needn’t I?” said Craddock. Again there was that acid biting tone in hisvoice. “Edmund Swettenham’s a young man who’s fond of money. Ayoung man, perhaps, who would like to marry a rich wife. But shewouldn’t be a rich wife unless Miss Blacklock died before Mrs. Goedler. Andsince it seemed almost certain that Mrs. Goedler would die before MissBlacklock, well—he had to do something about it—didn’t you, Mr. Swetten-ham?”

“It’s a damned lie!” Edmund shouted.

And then, suddenly, a sound rose on the air. It came from the kitchen—along unearthly shriek of terror.

“That isn’t Mitzi!” cried Julia.

“No,” said Inspector Craddock, “it’s someone who’s murdered threepeople….”