A Murder Is Announced Read online

“Oh, yes, I am sure. Oh, yes, I am very sure. She is a thief, that Mrs. Haymes. A thief and the associate of thieves. What she gets for working in the garden, it is not enough for such a fine lady, no. She has to rob Miss Blacklock who has been kind to her. Oh, she is bad, bad, bad, that one!”

  “Supposing,” said the Inspector, watching her closely, “that someone was to say that you had been seen talking to Rudi Scherz?”

  The suggestion had less effect than he had hoped for. Mitzi merely snorted and tossed her head.

  “If anyone say they see me talking to him, that is lies, lies, lies, lies,” she said contemptuously. “To tell lies about anyone, that is easy, but in England you have to prove them true. Miss Blacklock tells me that, and it is true, is it not? I do not speak with murderers and thieves. And no English policeman shall say I do. And how can I do cooking for lunch if you are here, talk, talk, talk? Go out of my kitchens, please. I want now to make a very careful sauce.”

  Craddock went obediently. He was a little shaken in his suspicions of Mitzi. Her story about Phillipa Haymes had been told with great conviction. Mitzi might be a liar (he thought she was), but he fancied that there might be some substratum of truth in this particular tale. He resolved to speak to Phillipa on the subject. She had seemed to him when he questioned her a quiet, well-bred young woman. He had had no suspicion of her.

  Crossing the hall, in his abstraction, he tried to open the wrong door. Miss Bunner, descending the staircase, hastily put him right.

  “Not that door,” she said. “It doesn’t open. The next one to the left. Very confusing, isn’t it? So many doors.”

  “There are a good many,” said Craddock, looking up and down the narrow hall.

  Miss Bunner amiably enumerated them for him.

  “First the door to the cloakroom, and then the cloaks cupboard door and then the dining room—that’s on that side. And on this side, the dummy door that you were trying to get through and then there’s the drawing room door proper, and then the china cupboard and the door of the little flower room, and at the end the side door. Most confusing. Especially these two being so near together. I’ve often tried the wrong one by mistake. We used to have the hall table against it, as a matter of fact, but then we moved it along against the wall there.”

  Craddock had noted, almost mechanically, a thin line horizontally across the panels of the door he had been trying to open. He realized now it was the mark where the table had been. Something stirred vaguely in his mind as he asked, “Moved? How long ago?”

  In questioning Dora Bunner there was fortunately no need to give a reason for any question. Any query on any subject seemed perfectly natural to the garrulous Miss Bunner who delighted in the giving of information, however trivial.

  “Now let me see, really quite recently—ten days or a fortnight ago.”

  “Why was it moved?”

  “I really can’t remember. Something to do with the flowers. I think Phillipa did a big vase—she arranges flowers quite beautifully—all autumn colouring and twigs and branches, and it was so big it caught your hair as you went past, and so Phillipa said, ‘Why not move the table along and anyway the flowers would look much better against the bare wall than against the panels of the door.’ Only we had to take down Wellington at Waterloo. Not a print I’m really very fond of. We put it under the stairs.”

  “It’s not really a dummy, then?” Craddock asked, looking at the door.”

  “Oh, no, it’s a real door, if that’s what you mean. It’s the door of the small drawing room, but when the rooms were thrown into one, one didn’t need two doors, so this one was fastened up.”

  “Fastened up?” Craddock tried it again, gently. “You mean it’s nailed up? Or just locked?”

  “Oh, locked, I think, and bolted too.”

  He saw the bolt at the top and tried it. The bolt slid back easily—too easily….

  “When was it last open?” he asked Miss Bunner.

  “Oh, years and years ago, I imagine. It’s never been opened since I’ve been here, I know that.”

  “You don’t know where the key is?”

  “There are a lot of keys in the hall drawer. It’s probably among those.”

  Craddock followed her and looked at a rusty assortment of old keys pushed far back in the drawer. He scanned them and selected one that looked different from the rest and went back to the door. The key fitted and turned easily. He pushed and the door slid open noiselessly.

  “Oh, do be careful,” cried Miss Bunner. “There may be something resting against it inside. We never open it.”

  “Don’t you?” said the Inspector.

  His face now was grim. He said with emphasis:

  “This door’s been opened quite recently, Miss Bunner. The lock’s been oiled and the hinges.”

  She stared at him, her foolish face agape.

  “But who could have done that?” she asked.

  “That’s what I mean to find out,” said Craddock grimly. He thought—“X from outside? No—X was here—in this house—X was in the drawing room that night….”

  Ten

  PIP AND EMMA

  I

  Miss Blacklock listened to him this time with more attention. She was an intelligent woman, as he had known, and she grasped the implications of what he had to tell her.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “That does alter things … No one had any right to meddle with that door. Nobody has meddled with it to my knowledge.”

  “You see what it means,” the Inspector urged. “When the lights went out, anybody in this room the other night could have slipped out of that door, come up behind Rudi Scherz and fired at you.”

  “Without being seen or heard or noticed?”

  “Without being seen or heard or noticed. Remember when the lights went out people moved, exclaimed, bumped into each other. And after that all that could be seen was the blinding light of the electric torch.”

  Miss Blacklock said slowly, “And you believe that one of those people—one of my nice commonplace neighbours—slipped out and tried to murder me? Me? But why? For goodness’ sake, why?”

  “I’ve a feeling that you must know the answer to that question, Miss Blacklock.”

  “But I don’t, Inspector. I can assure you, I don’t.”

  “Well, let’s make a start. Who gets your money if you were to die?”

  Miss Blacklock said rather reluctantly:

  “Patrick and Julia. I’ve left the furniture in this house and a small annuity to Bunny. Really, I’ve not much to leave. I had holdings in German and Italian securities which became worthless, and what with taxation, and the lower percentages that are now paid on invested capital, I can assure you I’m not worth murdering—I put most of my money into an annuity about a year ago.”

  “Still, you have some income, Miss Blacklock, and your nephew and niece would come into it.”

  “And so Patrick and Julia would plan to murder me? I simply don’t believe it. They’re not desperately hard up or anything like that.”

  “Do you know that for a fact?”

  “No. I suppose I only know it from what they’ve told me … But I really refuse to suspect them. Some day I might be worth murdering, but not now.”

  “What do you mean by some day you might be worth murdering, Miss Blacklock?” Inspector Craddock pounced on the statement.

  “Simply that one day—possibly quite soon—I may be a very rich woman.”

  “That sounds interesting. Will you explain?”

  “Certainly. You may not know it, but for more than twenty years I was secretary to and closely associated with Randall Goedler.”

  Craddock was interested. Randall Goedler had been a big name in the world of finance. His daring speculations and the rather theatrical publicity with which he surrounded himself had made him a personality not quickly forgotten. He had died, if Craddock remembered rightly, in 1937 or 1938.

  “He’s rather before your time, I expect,” said Miss Blacklock. “But
you’ve probably heard of him.”

  “Oh, yes. He was a millionaire, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh, several times over—though his finances fluctuated. He always risked most of what he made on some new coup.”

  She spoke with a certain animation, her eyes brightened by memory.

  “Anyway he died a very rich man. He had no children. He left his fortune in trust for his wife during her lifetime and after death to me absolutely.”

  A vague memory stirred in the Inspector’s mind.

  IMMENSE FORTUNE TO COME TO FAITHFUL SECRETARY

  —something of that kind.

  “For the last twelve years or so,” said Miss Blacklock with a slight twinkle, “I’ve had an excellent motive for murdering Mrs. Goedler—but that doesn’t help you, does it?”

  “Did—excuse me for asking this—did Mrs. Goedler resent her husband’s disposition of his fortune?”

  Miss Blacklock was now looking frankly amused.

  “You needn’t be so very discreet. What you really mean is, was I Randall Goedler’s mistress? No, I wasn’t. I don’t think Randall ever gave me a sentimental thought, and I certainly didn’t give him one. He was in love with Belle (his wife), and remained in love with her until he died. I think in all probability it was gratitude on his part that prompted his making his will. You see, Inspector, in the very early days, when Randall was still on an insecure footing, he came very near to disaster. It was a question of just a few thousands of actual cash. It was a big coup, and a very exciting one; daring, as all his schemes were; but he just hadn’t got that little bit of cash to tide him over. I came to the rescue. I had a little money of my own. I believed in Randall. I sold every penny I had out and gave it to him. It did the trick. A week later he was an immensely wealthy man.

  “After that, he treated me more or less as a junior partner. Oh! they were exciting days.” She sighed. “I enjoyed it all thoroughly. Then my father died, and my only sister was left a hopeless invalid. I had to give it all up and go and look after her. Randall died a couple of years later. I had made quite a lot of money during our association and I didn’t really expect him to leave me anything, but I was very touched, yes, and very proud to find that if Belle predeceased me (and she was one of those delicate creatures whom everyone always says won’t live long) I was to inherit his entire fortune. I think really the poor man didn’t know who to leave it to. Belle’s a dear, and she was delighted about it. She’s really a very sweet person. She lives up in Scotland. I haven’t seen her for years—we just write at Christmas. You see, I went with my sister to a sanatorium in Switzerland just before the war. She died of consumption out there.”

  She was silent for a moment or two, then said:

  “I only came back to England just over a year ago.”

  “You said you might be a rich woman very soon … How soon?”

  “I heard from the nurse attendant who looks after Belle Goedler that Belle is sinking rapidly. It may be—only a few weeks.”

  She added sadly:

  “The money won’t mean much to me now. I’ve got quite enough for my rather simple needs. Once I should have enjoyed playing the markets again—but now … Oh, well, one grows old. Still, you do see, Inspector, don’t you, that if Patrick and Julia wanted to kill me for a financial reason they’d be crazy not to wait for another few weeks.”

  “Yes, Miss Blacklock, but what happens if you should predecease Mrs. Goedler? Who does the money go to then?”

  “D’you know, I’ve never really thought. Pip and Emma, I suppose….”

  Craddock stared and Miss Blacklock smiled.

  “Does that sound rather crazy? I believe, if I predecease Belle, the money would go to the legal offspring—or whatever the term is—of Randall’s only sister, Sonia. Randall had quarrelled with his sister. She married a man whom he considered a crook and worse.”

  “And was he a crook?”

  “Oh, definitely, I should say. But I believe a very attractive person to women. He was a Greek or a Roumanian or something—what was his name now—Stamfordis, Dmitri Stamfordis.”

  “Randall Goedler cut his sister out of his will when she married this man?”

  “Oh, Sonia was a very wealthy woman in her own right. Randall had already settled packets of money on her, as far as possible in a way so that her husband couldn’t touch it. But I believe that when the lawyers urged him to put in someone in case I predeceased Belle, he reluctantly put down Sonia’s offspring, simply because he couldn’t think of anyone else and he wasn’t the sort of man to leave money to charities.”

  “And there were children of the marriage?”

  “Well, there are Pip and Emma.” She laughed. “I know it sounds ridiculous. All I know is that Sonia wrote once to Belle after her marriage, telling her to tell Randall that she was extremely happy and that she had just had twins and was calling them Pip and Emma. As far as I know she never wrote again. But Belle, of course, may be able to tell you more.”

  Miss Blacklock had been amused by her own recital. The Inspector did not look amused.

  “It comes to this,” he said. “If you had been killed the other night, there are presumably at least two people in the world who would have come into a very large fortune. You are wrong, Miss Blacklock, when you say that there is no one who has a motive for desiring your death. There are two people, at least, who are vitally interested. How old would this brother and sister be?”

  Miss Blacklock frowned.

  “Let me see … 1922… no—it’s difficult to remember … I suppose about twenty-five or twenty-six.” Her face had sobered. “But you surely don’t think—?”

  “I think somebody shot at you with the intent to kill you. I think it possible that that same person or persons might try again. I would like you, if you will, to be very very careful, Miss Blacklock. One murder has been arranged and did not come off. I think it possible that another murder may be arranged very soon.”

  II

  Phillipa Haymes straightened her back and pushed back a tendril of hair from her damp forehead. She was cleaning a flower border.

  “Yes, Inspector?”

  She looked at him inquiringly. In return he gave her a rather closer scrutiny than he had done before. Yes, a good-looking girl, a very English type with her pale ash-blonde hair and her rather long face. An obstinate chin and mouth. Something of repression—of tautness about her. The eyes were blue, very steady in their glance, and told you nothing at all. The sort of girl, he thought, who would keep a secret well.

  “I’m sorry always to bother you when you’re at work, Mrs. Haymes,” he said, “but I didn’t want to wait until you came back for lunch. Besides, I thought it might be easier to talk to you here, away from Little Paddocks.”

  “Yes, Inspector?”

  No emotion and little interest in her voice. But was there a note of wariness—or did he imagine it?

  “A certain statement has been made to me this morning. This statement concerns you.”

  Phillipa raised her eyebrows very slightly.

  “You told me, Mrs. Haymes, that this man, Rudi Scherz, was quite unknown to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That when you saw him there, dead, it was the first time you had set eyes on him. Is that so?”

  “Certainly. I had never seen him before.”

  “You did not, for instance, have a conversation with him in the summerhouse of Little Paddocks?”

  “In the summerhouse?”

  He was almost sure he caught a note of fear in her voice.

  “Yes, Mrs. Haymes.”

  “Who says so?”

  “I am told that you had a conversation with this man, Rudi Scherz, and that he asked you where he could hide and you replied that you would show him, and that a time, a quarter past six, was definitely mentioned. It would be a quarter past six, roughly, when Scherz would get here from the bus stop on the evening of the hold-up.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Phillipa gave a short
scornful laugh. She looked amused.

  “I don’t know who told you that,” she said. “At least I can guess. It’s a very silly, clumsy story—spiteful, of course. For some reason Mitzi dislikes me even more than she dislikes the rest of us.”

  “You deny it?”

  “Of course it’s not true … I never met or saw Rudi Scherz in my life, and I was nowhere near the house that morning. I was over here, working.”

  Inspector Craddock said very gently:

  “Which morning?”

  There was a momentary pause. Her eyelids flickered.

  “Every morning. I’m here every morning. I don’t get away until one o’clock.”

  She added scornfully:

  “It’s no good listening to what Mitzi tells you. She tells lies all the time.”

  III

  “And that’s that,” said Craddock when he was walking away with Sergeant Fletcher. “Two young women whose stories flatly contradict each other. Which one am I to believe?”

  “Everyone seems to agree that this foreign girl tells whoppers,” said Fletcher. “It’s been my experience in dealing with aliens that lying comes more easy than truth-telling. Seems to be clear she’s got a spite against this Mrs. Haymes.”

  “So, if you were me, you’d believe Mrs. Haymes?”

  “Unless you’ve got reason to think otherwise, sir.”

  And Craddock hadn’t, not really—only the remembrance of a pair of oversteady blue eyes and the glib enunciation of the words that morning. For to the best of his recollection he hadn’t said whether the interview in the summerhouse had taken place in the morning or the afternoon.

  Still, Miss Blacklock, or if not Miss Blacklock, certainly Miss Bunner, might have mentioned the visit of the young foreigner who had come to cadge his fare back to Switzerland. And Phillipa Haymes might have therefore assumed that the conversation was supposed to have taken place on that particular morning.

  But Craddock still thought that there had been a note of fear in her voice as she asked:

  “In the summerhouse?”

  He decided to keep an open mind on the subject.

  IV