A Murder Is Announced

‘I do not do anything more in this house. I go to my room. I lock myself in. 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 to killher? Only a maniac! Then it is a maniac that is about! And a maniac does not carewho he kills. But me, I do not want to be killed. There are shadows in the kitchen-and I hear noises-I think there is someone out in the yard and then I think I see a shadow by the larder door and then it is footsteps I hear. So I go now to my room and I lock the door and perhaps even I put the chest of drawers against it. And in the morning I tell that cruel hard policeman that I go away from here. And if he will not let me I say: “I scream and I scream and I scream until you have to let me go!”’

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

‘So I go to my room,’ said Mitzi, repeating the statement once more to make her intentions quite clear. With a symbolic action she cast off the cretonne apron she had been wearing. ‘Goodnight, Miss Blacklock. Perhaps in the morning, you may not be alive. So in case that is so, I say goodbye.’

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 arrangement-less embarrassing for you all than having me sit down at table with you. Patrick (since he’s constituted himself your protector, Aunt Letty) had better taste every dish first. I don’t want to be accused of poisoning 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 Julia had 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 in the dining-room, Phillipa.’

Now dinner was over and they were in the drawing-room with coffee on the 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 her son 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 her tether.

‘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, she found 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 for omelettes do I use it! And you, what have you used it for?’

‘Frying onions.’

‘Ruined-ruined. It will have now to bewashed and never-never-doI wash 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 him only for milk-’

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

‘No, I will not let you use my kitchen.’

‘Oh, Mitzi, youare impossible!’

Julia stalked angrily out of the kitchen and at that moment the door-bell rang.

‘I do not go to the door,’ Mitzi called from the kitchen. Julia muttered an impolite Continental expression under her breath and stalked to the front door.

It was Miss Hinchcliffe.

‘’Evening,’ she said in her gruff voice. ‘Sorry to barge in. Inspector’s rung up, I expect?’

‘He didn’t tell us you were coming,’ said Julia, leading the way to the drawing-room.

‘He said I needn’t come unless I liked,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘But I do like.’

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

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

‘Mitzi’s come down again,’ said Julia.

‘Has she? Sometimes I think that girl’s mad-quite mad. But then perhaps we’re all mad.’

‘I’ve no patience with this saying that all people who commit crimes are mad,’ barked Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘Horribly and intelligently sane-that’s what I think a criminal is!’

The sound of a car was heard outside and presently Craddock came in with 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 usual tones:

‘Ha! A good fire.’