A Murder Is Announced

‘Well, I can’t! That’s flat. I’ve no enemies. As far as I’m aware I’ve always lived on perfectly good terms with my neighbours. I don’t know any guilty secrets about anyone. The whole idea is ridiculous! And if what you’re hinting is that Mitzi has something to do with this, that’s absurd, too. As Miss Bunner has just told you she was frightened to death when she saw that advertisement in theGazette. She actually wanted to pack up and leave the house then and there.’

‘That may have been a clever move on her part. She may have known you’d press her to stay.’

‘Of course, if you’ve made up your mind about it, you’ll find an answer to everything. But I can assure you that if Mitzi had taken an unreasoning dislike to me, she might conceivably poison my food, but I’m sure she wouldn’t go in for all this elaborate rigmarole.

‘The whole idea’s absurd. I believe you police have got an anti-foreigner complex. Mitzi may be a liar but she’snot a cold-blooded murderer. Go and bully her if you must. But when she’s departed in a whirl of indignation, or shut herself up howling in her room, I’ve a good mind to makeyou cook the dinner. Mrs Harmon is bringing some old lady who is staying with her to tea this afternoon and I wanted Mitzi to make some little cakes-but I suppose you’ll upset her completely. Can’t youpossibly go and suspect somebody else?’

***

Craddock went out to the kitchen. He asked Mitzi questions that he had asked her before and received the same answers.

Yes, she had locked the front door soon after four o’clock. No, she did not always do so, but that afternoon she had been nervous because of ‘that dreadful advertisement’. It was no good locking the side door because Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner went out that way to shut up the ducks and feed the chickens and Mrs Haymes usually came in that way from work.

‘Mrs Haymes says she locked the door when she came in at 5.30.’

‘Ah, and you believe her-oh, yes, you believe her…’

‘Do you think we shouldn’t believe her?’

‘What does it matter what I think? You will not believeme.’

‘Supposing you give us a chance. You think Mrs Haymes didn’t lock that door?’

‘I thinking she was very careful not to lock it.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Craddock.

‘That young man, he does not work alone. No, he knowswhere to come, he knows thatwhen he comes a door will be left open for him-oh, very conveniently open!’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘What is the use of what I say? You will not listen. You say I am a poor refugee girl who tells lies. You say that a fair-haired English lady, oh, no,she does not tell lies-she is so British-so honest. So you believe her and not me. But I could tell you. Oh, yes, I could tell you!’

She banged down a saucepan on the stove.

Craddock was in two minds whether to take notice of what might be only a stream of spite.

‘We note everything we are told,’ he said.

‘I shall not tell you anything at all. Why should I? You are all alike. You persecute and despise poor refugees. If I say to you that when, a week before, that young man come to ask Miss Blacklock for money and she sends him away, as you say, with a flea in the ear-if I tell you that after that I hear him talking with Mrs Haymes-yes, out there in the summerhouse-all you say is that I make it up!’

And so you probably are making it up, thought Craddock. But he said aloud:

‘You couldn’t hear what was said out in the summerhouse.’

‘There you are wrong,’ screamed Mitzi triumphantly. ‘I go out to get nettles-it makes very nice vegetables, nettles. They do not think so, but I cook it and not tell them. And I hear them talking in there. He say to her “But where can I hide?” And she say “I will show you”-and then she say, “At a quarter-past six,” and I think, “Ach so! That is how you behave, my fine lady! After you come back from work, you go out to meet a man. You bring him into the house.” Miss Blacklock, I think, she will not like that. She will turn you out. I will watch, I think, and listen and then I will tell Miss Blacklock. But I understand now I was wrong. It was not love she planned with him, it was to rob and to murder. But you will say I make all this up. Wicked Mitzi, you will say. I will take her to prison.’

Craddock wondered. She might be making it up. But possibly she might not. He asked cautiously:

‘You are sure it was this Rudi Scherz she was talking to?’

‘Of course I am sure. He just leave and I see him go from the drive across to the summerhouse. And presently,’ said Mitzi defiantly, ‘I go out to see if there are any nice young green nettles.’

Would there, the Inspector wondered, be any nice young green nettles in October? But he appreciated that Mitzi had had to produce a hurried reason for what had undoubtedly been nothing more than plain snooping.

‘You didn’t hear any more than what you have told me?’

Mitzi looked aggrieved.