A Murder is Announced

‘I’m asking the questions, Miss Simmons,’ said Craddock pleasantly.

‘My mistake. I always find repetitions so dreary. Apparently you don’t … Well, there was Colonel and Mrs Easterbrook, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd, Mrs Swettenham and Edmund Swettenham, and Mrs Harmon, the Vicar’s wife. They arrived in that order. And if you want to know what they said—they all said the same thing in turn. “I see you’ve got your central heating on” and “What lovely chrysanthemums!”’

Craddock bit his lip. The mimicry was good.

‘The exception was Mrs Harmon. She’s rather a pet. She came in with her hat falling off and her shoelaces untied and she asked straight out when the murder was going to happen. It embarrassed everybody because they’d all been pretending they’d dropped in by chance. Aunt Letty said in her dry way that it was due to happen quite soon. And then that clock chimed and just as it finished, the lights went out, the door was flung open and a masked figure said, “Stick ’em up, guys,” or something like that. It was exactly like a bad film. Really quite ridiculous. And then he fired two shots at Aunt Letty and suddenly it wasn’t ridiculous any more.’

‘Where was everybody when this happened?’

‘When the lights went out? Well, just standing about, you know. Mrs Harmon was sitting on the sofa—Hinch (that’s Miss Hinchcliffe) had taken up a manly stance in front of the fireplace.’

‘You were all in this room, or the far room?’

‘Mostly, I think, in this room. Patrick had gone into the other to get the sherry. I think Colonel Easterbrook went after him, but I don’t really know. We were—well—as I said, just standing about.’

‘Where were you yourself?’

‘I think I was over by the window. Aunt Letty went to get the cigarettes.’

‘On that table by the archway?’

‘Yes—and then the lights went out and the bad film started.’

‘The man had a powerful torch. What did he do with it?’

‘Well, he shone it on us. Horribly dazzling. It just made you blink.’

‘I want you to answer this very carefully, Miss Simmons. Did he hold the torch steady, or did he move it about?’

Julia considered. Her manner was now definitely less weary.

‘He moved it,’ she said slowly. ‘Like a spotlight in a dance hall. It was full in my eyes and then it went on round the room and then the shots came. Two shots.’

‘And then?’

‘He whirled round—and Mitzi began to scream like a siren from somewhere and his torch went out and there was another shot. And then the door closed (it does, you know, slowly, with a whining noise—quite uncanny) and there we were all in the dark, not knowing what to do, and poor Bunny squealing like a rabbit and Mitzi going all out across the hall.’

‘Would it be your opinion that the man shot himself deliberately, or do you think he stumbled and the revolver went off accidentally?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. The whole thing was so stagey. Actually I thought it was still some silly joke—until I saw the blood from Letty’s ear. But even if you were actually going to fire a revolver to make the thing more real, you’d be careful to fire it well above someone’s head, wouldn’t you?’

‘You would indeed. Do you think he could see clearly who he was firing at? I mean, was Miss Blacklock clearly outlined in the light of the torch?’

‘I’ve no idea. I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking at the man.’

‘What I’m getting at is—do you think the man was deliberately aiming at her—at her in particular, I mean?’

Julia seemed a little startled by the idea.

‘You mean deliberately picking on Aunt Letty? Oh, I shouldn’t think so … After all, if he wanted to take a pot shot at Aunt Letty, there would be heaps of more suitable opportunities. There would be no point in collecting all the friends and neighbours just to make it more difficult. He could have shot her from behind a hedge in the good old Irish fashion any day of the week, and probably got away with it.’

And that, thought Craddock, was a very complete reply to Dora Bunner’s suggestion of a deliberate attack on Letitia Blacklock.

He said with a sigh, ‘Thank you, Miss Simmons. I’d better go and see Mitzi now.’

‘Mind her fingernails,’ warned Julia. ‘She’s a tartar!’

Craddock, with Fletcher in attendance, found Mitzi in the kitchen. She was rolling pastry and looked up suspiciously as he entered.

Her black hair hung over her eyes; she looked sullen, and the purple jumper and brilliant green skirt she wore were not becoming to her pasty complexion.

‘What do you come in my kitchen for, Mr Policeman? You are police, yes? Always, always there is persecution—ah! I should be used to it by now. They say it is different here in England, but no, it is just the same. You come to torture me, yes, to make me say things, but I shall say nothing. You will tear off my fingernails, and put lighted matches on my skin—oh, yes, and worse than that. But I will not speak, do you hear? I shall say nothing—nothing at all. And you will send me away to a concentration camp, and I shall not care.’

Craddock looked at her thoughtfully, selecting what was likely to be the best method of attack. Finally he sighed and said:

‘O.K., then, get your hat and coat.’

‘What is that you say?’ Mitzi looked startled.

‘Get your hat and coat and come along. I haven’t got my nail-pulling apparatus and the rest of the bag of tricks with me. We keep all that down at the station. Got the handcuffs handy, Fletcher?’

‘Sir!’ said Sergeant Fletcher with appreciation.

‘But I do not want to come,’ screeched Mitzi, backing away from him.

‘Then you’ll answer civil questions civilly. If you like, you can have a solicitor present.’

‘A lawyer? I do not like a lawyer. I do not want a lawyer.’

She put the rolling pin down, dusted her hands on a cloth and sat down.

‘What do you want to know?’ she asked sulkily.

‘I want your account of what happened here last night.’

‘You know very well what happened.’

‘I want your account of it.’

‘I tried to go away. Did she tell you that? When I saw that in the paper saying about murder. I wanted to go away. She would not let me. She is very hard—not at all sympathetic. She made me stay. But I knew—I knew what would happen. I knew I should be murdered.’

‘Well, you weren’t murdered, were you?’

‘No,’ admitted Mitzi grudgingly.

‘Come now, tell me what happened.’

‘I was nervous. Oh, I was nervous. All that evening. I hear things. People moving about. Once I think someone is in the hall moving stealthily—but it is only that Mrs Haymes coming in through the side door (so as not to dirty the front steps, she says. Much she cares!). She is a Nazi herself, that one, with her fair hair and her blue eyes, so superior and looking at me and thinking that I—I am only dirt—’