A Murder Is Announced

Who was left? The neighbours, Fletcher thought, might also be ruled out. He didn’t see how they could have found an opportunity to oil and prepare the door. That left Patrick and Julia Simmons, Phillipa Haymes, and possibly Dora Bunner. The young Simmonses were in Milchester. Phillipa Haymes was at work. Sergeant Fletcher was free to search out any secrets he could. But the house was disappointingly innocent. Fletcher, who was an expert on electricity, could find nothing suggestive in the wiring or appurtenances of the electric fixtures to show how the lights had been fused. Making a rapid survey of the household bedrooms he found an irritating normality. In Phillipa Haymes’ room were photographs of a small boy with serious eyes, an earlier photo of the same child, a pile of schoolboy letters, a theatre programme or two. In Julia’s room there was a drawer full of snapshots of the South of France. Bathing photos, a villa set amidst mimosa. Patrick’s held some souvenirs of Naval days. Dora Bunner’s held few personal possessions and they seemed innocent enough.

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

His thoughts broke off at a sound below stairs. He went quickly to the top 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 dining-room. She came out again without the basket.

Some faint sound that Fletcher made, a board that creaked unexpectedly 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 quince tree 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 the side door. We all walk in and out of each other’s houses, Sergeant. Nobody dreams 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 not like the old days when you rang a bell and a servant always came to answer it.’ Mrs Swettenham sighed. ‘In India, I remember,’ she said mournfully, ‘we had eighteen servants-eighteen. Not counting the ayah. Just as a 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 to afford a kitchen-maid. I must say that I find life very odd nowadays, Sergeant, though I know one mustn’t complain. So much worse for the miners always getting psitticosis (or is that parrot disease?) and having to come out of the mines and try to be gardeners though they don’t know weeds from spinach.’

She added, as she tripped towards the door, ‘I mustn’t keep you. I expect 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 agang. You’ll tell Miss Blacklock about the quinces, won’t you?’

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

***

‘Murgatroyd!’

‘Yes, Hinch?’

‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking.’

‘Have you, Hinch?’

‘Yes, the great brain has been working. You know, Murgatroyd, the whole set-up the other evening was decidedly fishy.’

‘Fishy?’

‘Yes. Tuck your hair up, Murgatroyd, and take this trowel. Pretend it’s a revolver.’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Murgatroyd, nervously.

‘All right. It won’t bite you. Now come along to the kitchen door. You’re going to be the burglar. You standhere. Now you’re going into the kitchen to hold up a lot of nit-wits. Take the torch. Switch it on.’

‘But it’s broad daylight!’

‘Use your imagination, Murgatroyd. Switch it on.’

Miss Murgatroyd did so, rather clumsily, shifting the trowel under one arm while she did so.

‘Now then,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe, ‘off you go. Remember the time you played Hermia inA Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Women’s Institute? Act. Give it all you’ve got. “Stick ’em up!” Those are your lines-and don’t ruin them by saying “Please.”’

Obediently Miss Murgatroyd raised her torch, flourished the trowel and advanced on the kitchen door.