Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

“You’ve come to see me first?” Her voice was soft, lilting, very Irish. She had a photograph of the Pope on her mantlepiece and wound a rosary around her wrist, clinging to it like a comfort blanket.

“It’s the way my boss likes to work.” King returned her smile. “He likes to be on firm ground before he moves. He thinks that that is better than jumping in with both feet. And in this case, we are not under a deal of pressure.”

“He’s probably right.” Mrs. O’Sullivan warmed to the chubby, bearded cop who sat in her living room. “There’s much to be said for caution. So you’re interested in Mr. and Mrs. Minto?”

“Yes. Particularly Mrs. Minto.”

“Why, have you found his body?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Which can only mean you have. Don’t worry, son, I won’t be tipping Mrs. Minto, or whatever her name is now.”

“She married again?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“You seem not to like her?”

“I didn’t. Still don’t. I try not to think bad things about folk, but I didn’t take to Mrs. Minto.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to Mr. Minto?”

“I have no proof, but you see things if you clean in a house. It’s the part of my job which is interesting. It’s the people in the house. I’ve been a housekeeper all my days, son, no two houses are ever the same. It’s what makes you stay, the people, I mean, and it’s also what makes you leave.”

“So tell me about the Minto house, as you knew it?”

“A poisonous house. He was all right, Mr. Minto, a calm man, unnatural that. He was self-made but had a calmness about him which I’ve always associated with professional men. Other self-made men I’ve cleaned for all seem to have been angry, bitter, they’re driven, driving themselves hard. Mr. Minto had the manner of a doctor, but he’d made his money at a string of clothing shops.”

“What was she like?”

“Feisty. A wee feisty woman. I’ve heard that there is a chemistry which works between large, calm, biddable men and feisty wee women and I suppose that is what made their marriage work. But it was one of the households which made me pleased I never remarried. My husband was killed when he was young, we were not long married.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I never wanted another man. I was happy on my own. The Minto household made me realise how the two golden years I had as a marriage were better than the twenty-odd they had. I couldn’t live with that woman, but like I said, he seemed to be able to. Are you married, son?”

“Yes. One child. A boy.”

“Nice.”

“So, twelve years ago? The Minto household?”

“It was my second-last job before I hung up my dusters for good. The reason that I carried on was that I didn’t want to end my working days in the Minto household. So I went to do for Mr. McMillan, retired bank manager and widower.”

“What made the Minto house poisonous?”

“She did, at all times, but especially from the day she let the young man in the house, and his Landrover parked in the driveway.”

“She let a young man in the house?”

“Practically. She was in her forties, he was a student in his twenties. Clean-cut, handsome, slim. He’d be in the house when Mr. Minto was at work. I was supposed to dust and clean and vacuum and not realise what was going on.”

“But you knew?”

“Of course I knew. It made it difficult for me. I liked Mr. Minto. He’d pay me each week and there was always this voice inside me saying ‘your wife... your wife...’ but I could never say anything, but I couldn’t stay either so I went to do for Mr. McMillan. I wasn’t surprised when Mr. Minto disappeared. He didn’t disappear, she did away with him and put his body under the cellar steps.”

“Under the cellar steps?”

“Well, isn’t that where you put your dead bodies?”

King raised an eyebrow.

“The police searched the house, they questioned me. I was with Mr. McMillan by then, but I’d only left the Minto home a day or two earlier so I was questioned. But I couldn’t tell them anything. I said that I thought, but only thought, that Mrs. Minto had a thing going with the young man and Mrs. Minto, for all that she was a feisty wee thing, knew how to keep her head. Maybe the police should have questioned the young man a bit more — he wasn’t as hard-nosed as she was. He would have cracked.”

“You think so?”

“Cleaning women work with people as much as anyone. A cleaner sees how a house functions. Don’t see a cleaner as just a woman fussing over the brass. She’s a woman with eyes and ears.”

“What do you know of the young man?”

“Durham, David Durham was his name, but you’ll have a record of that.”

“We do.”

“He was a student. Wanted to be a schoolteacher. Pleasant lad by his manner, but what he was doing behind Mr. Minto’s back made him unpleasant, and Mrs. Minto, looking so smug and pleased with herself. It was then that in the middle of polishing I just downed tools and left.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”