The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

‘Gone to his dinner as likely as not. What time is it?’

Lou glanced at her watch.

‘Twenty-five past twelve.’

‘He's not supposed to go until half-past, but he sneaks off earlier whenever he can.’

‘Do you think — do you think —’

Lou meant to ask, ‘Do you think she's dead?’ but the words stuck in her throat.

There was nothing to do but wait. She sat down on the window sill. It seemed an eternity before the stolid helmeted figure of a police constable came round the corner of the house. She leaned out of the window and he looked up at her, shading his eyes with his hand. When he spoke his voice held reproof.

‘What's going on here?’ he asked disapprovingly.

From their respective windows, Lou and Mrs Cresswell poured a flood of excited information down on him.

The constable produced a note-book and pencil. ‘You ladies ran upstairs and locked yourselves in? Can I have your names, please?’

‘No. Somebody else locked us in. Come and let us out.’

The constable said reprovingly, ‘All in good time,’ and disappeared through the window below.

Once again time seemed infinite. Lou heard the sound of a car arriving, and, after what seemed an hour, but was actually three minutes, first Mrs Cresswell and then Lou, were released by a police sergeant more alert than the original constable.

‘Miss Greenshaw?’ Lou's voice faltered. ‘What — what's happened?’

The sergeant cleared his throat.

‘I'm sorry to have to tell you, madam,’ he said, ‘what I've already told Mrs Cresswell here. Miss Greenshaw is dead.’

‘Murdered,’ said Mrs Cresswell. ‘That's what it is — murder’

The sergeant said dubiously:

‘Could have been an accident — some country lads shooting with bows and arrows.’

Again there was the sound of a car arriving. The sergeant said:

‘That'll be the MO,’ and he started downstairs.

But it was not the MO. As Lou and Mrs Cresswell came down the stairs a young man stepped hesitatingly through the front door and paused, looking around him with a somewhat bewildered air.

Then, speaking in a pleasant voice that in some way seemed familiar to Lou — perhaps it reminded her of Miss Greenshaw's — he asked:

‘Excuse me, does — er — does Miss Greenshaw live here?’

‘May I have your name if you please?’ said the sergeant advancing upon him.

‘Fletcher,’ said the young man. ‘Nat Fletcher. I'm Miss Greenshaw's nephew, as a matter of fact.’

‘Indeed, sir, well — I'm sorry — I'm sure —’

‘Has anything happened?’ asked Nat Fletcher.

‘There's been an — accident — your aunt was shot with an arrow — penetrated the jugular vein —’

Mrs Cresswell spoke hysterically and without her usual refinement:

‘Your h'aunts been murdered, that's what's happened. Your h'aunts been murdered.’

III

Inspector Welch drew his chair a little nearer to the table and let his gaze wander from one to the other of the four people in the room. It was evening of the same day. He had called at the Wests' house to take Lou Oxley once more over her statement.

‘You are sure of the exact words? Shot — he shot me — with an arrow — get help?’

Lou nodded.

‘And the time?’

‘I looked at my watch a minute or two later — it was then twelve twenty-five.’

‘Your watch keeps good time?’

‘I looked at the clock as well.’

The inspector turned to Raymond West.

‘It appears, sir, that about a week ago you and a Mr Horace Bindler were witnesses to Miss Greenshaw's will?’

Briefly Raymond recounted the events of the afternoon visit he and Horace Bindler had paid to Greenshaw's Folly.

‘This testimony of yours may be important,’ said Welch. ‘Miss Greenshaw distinctly told you, did she, that her will was being made in favour of Mrs Cresswell, the housekeeper, that she was not paying Mrs Cresswell any wages in view of the expectations Mrs Cresswell had of profiting by her death?’

‘That is what she told me — yes.’

‘Would you say that Mrs Cresswell was definitely aware of these facts?’

‘I should say undoubtedly. Miss Greenshaw made a reference in my presence to beneficiaries not being able to witness a will and Mrs Creswell clearly understood what she meant by it. Moreover, Miss Greenshaw herself told me that she had come to this arrangement with Mrs Cresswell.’

‘So Mrs Cresswell had reason to believe she was an interested party. Motive's clear enough in her case, and I daresay she'd be our chief suspect now if it wasn't for the fact that she was securely locked in her room like Mrs Oxley here, and also that Miss Greenshaw definitely said a man shot her —’

‘She definitely was locked in her room?’

‘Oh yes. Sergeant Cayley let her out. It's a big old-fashioned lock with a big old-fashioned key. The key was in the lock and there's not a chance that it could have been turned from inside or any hanky-panky of that kind. No, you can take it definitely that Mrs Cresswell was locked inside that room and couldn't get out. And there were no bows and arrows in the room and Miss Greenshaw couldn't in any case have been shot from a window — the angle forbids it — no, Mrs Cresswell's out of it.’

He paused and then went on: