A Murder Is Announced

Miss Blacklock had responded impulsively. Poor Dora, poor pretty silly fluffy Dora. She had swooped down upon Dora, had carried her off, had installed her at Little Paddocks with the comforting fiction that ‘the housework is getting too much for me. I need someone to help me run the house.’ It was not for long-the doctor had told her that-but sometimes she found poor old Dora a sad trial. She muddled everything, upset the temperamental foreign ‘help’, miscounted the laundry, lost bills and letters-and sometimes reduced the competent Miss Blacklock to an agony of exasperation. Poor old muddle-headed Dora, so loyal, so anxious to help, so pleased and proud to think she was of assistance-and, alas, so completely unreliable.

She said sharply:

‘Don’t, Dora. You know I asked you-’

‘Oh,’ Miss Bunner looked guilty. ‘I know. I forgot. But-but youare, aren’t you?’

‘Worried? No. At least,’ she added truthfully, ‘not exactly. You mean about that silly notice in theGazette?’

‘Yes-even if it’s a joke, it seems to me it’s a-a spiteful sort of joke.’

‘Spiteful?’

‘Yes. It seems to me there’sspite there somewhere. I mean-it’s not anice kind of joke.’

Miss Blacklock looked at her friend. The mild eyes, the long obstinate mouth, the slightly upturned nose. Poor Dora, so maddening, so muddle-headed, so devoted and such a problem. A dear fussy old idiot and yet, in a queer way, with an instinctive sense of value.

‘I think you’re right, Dora,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘It’s not a nice joke.’

‘I don’t like it at all,’ said Dora Bunner with unsuspected vigour. ‘It frightens me.’ She added, suddenly: ‘And it frightensyou, Letitia.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Miss Blacklock with spirit.

‘It’sdangerous. I’m sure it is. Like those people who send you bombs done up in parcels.’

‘My dear, it’s just some silly idiot trying to be funny.’

‘But itisn’t funny.’

It wasn’t really very funny…Miss Blacklock’s face betrayed her thoughts, and Dora cried triumphantly, ‘You see. You think so, too!’

‘But Dora, my dear-’

She broke off. Through the door there surged a tempestuous young woman with a well-developed bosom heaving under a tight jersey. She had on a dirndl skirt of a bright colour and had greasy dark plaits wound round and round her head. Her eyes were dark and flashing.

She said gustily:

‘I can speak to you, yes, please, no?’

Miss Blacklock sighed.

‘Of course, Mitzi, what is it?’

Sometimes she thought it would be preferable to do the entire work of the house as well as the cooking rather than be bothered with the eternal nerve storms of her refugee ‘lady help’.

‘I tell you at once-it is in order, I hope? I give you my notices and Igo -I go atonce!’

‘For what reason? Has somebody upset you?’

‘Yes, I am upset,’ said Mitzi dramatically. ‘I do not wish to die! Already in Europe I escape. My family they all die-they are all killed-my mother, my little brother, my so sweet little niece-all, all they are killed. But me I run away-I hide. I get to England. I work. I do work that never-never would I do in my own country-I-’

‘I know all that,’ said Miss Blacklock crisply. It was, indeed, a constant refrain on Mitzi’s lips. ‘But why do you want to leavenow?’

‘Because again they come to kill me!’

‘Who do?’

‘My enemies. The Nazis! Or perhaps this time it is the Bolsheviks. They find out I am here. They come to kill me. I have read it-yes-it is in the newspaper!’

‘Oh, you mean in theGazette?’

‘Here, it is writtenhere.’ Mitzi produced theGazette from where she had been holding it behind her back. ‘See-here it says amurder. At Little Paddocks. That is here, is it not? This evening at 6.30. Ah! I do not wait to be murdered-no.’

‘But why should this apply toyou? It’s-we think it is a joke.’

‘Ajoke? It is not a joke to murder someone.’

‘No, of course not. But my dear child, if anyone wanted to murder you, they wouldn’t advertise the fact in the paper, would they?’

‘You do not think they would?’ Mitzi seemed a little shaken. ‘You think, perhaps, they do not mean to murder anyone at all? Perhaps it isyou they mean to murder, Miss Blacklock.’

‘I certainly can’t believe anyone wants to murder me,’ said Miss Blacklock lightly. ‘And really, Mitzi, I don’t see why anyone should want to murder you. After all, why should they?’

‘Because they are bad peoples…Very bad peoples. I tell you, my mother, my little brother, my so sweet niece…’

‘Yes, yes.’ Miss Blacklock stemmed the flow, adroitly. ‘But I cannot really believeanyone wants to murder you, Mitzi. Of course, if you want to go off like this at a moment’s notice, I can’t possibly stop you. But I think you will be very silly if you do.’

She added firmly, as Mitzi looked doubtful:

‘We’ll have that beef the butcher sent stewed for lunch. It looks very tough.’

‘I make you a goulash, a special goulash.’

‘If you prefer to call it that, certainly. And perhaps you could use up that rather hard bit of cheese in making some cheese straws. I think some people may come in this evening for drinks.’

‘This evening? What do you mean, this evening?’

‘At half-past six.’