A Murder is Announced

‘Well, here we are, all set,’ said Miss Blacklock. She looked round the double drawing-room with an appraising eye. The rose-patterned chintzes—the two bowls of bronze chrysanthemums, the small vase of violets and the silver cigarette-box on a table by the wall, the tray of drinks on the centre table.

Little Paddocks was a medium-sized house built in the early Victorian style. It had a long shallow veranda and green shuttered windows. The long, narrow drawing-room which lost a good deal of light owing to the veranda roof had originally had double doors at one end leading into a small room with a bay window. A former generation had removed the double doors and replaced them with portieres of velvet. Miss Blacklock had dispensed with the portieres so that the two rooms had become definitely one. There was a fireplace each end, but neither fire was lit although a gentle warmth pervaded the room.

‘You’ve had the central heating lit,’ said Patrick.

Miss Blacklock nodded.

‘It’s been so misty and damp lately. The whole house felt clammy. I got Evans to light it before he went.’

‘The precious precious coke?’ said Patrick mockingly.

‘As you say, the precious coke. But otherwise there would have been the even more precious coal. You know the Fuel Office won’t even let us have the little bit that’s due to us each week—not unless we can say definitely that we haven’t got any other means of cooking.’

‘I suppose there was once heaps of coke and coal for everybody?’ said Julia with the interest of one hearing about an unknown country.

‘Yes, and cheap, too.’

‘And anyone could go and buy as much as they wanted, without filling in anything, and there wasn’t any shortage? There was lots of it there?’

‘All kinds and qualities—and not all stones and slates like what we get nowadays.’

‘It must have been a wonderful world,’ said Julia, with awe in her voice.

Miss Blacklock smiled. ‘Looking back on it, I certainly think so. But then I’m an old woman. It’s natural for me to prefer my own times. But you young things oughtn’t to think so.’

‘I needn’t have had a job then,’ said Julia. ‘I could just have stayed at home and done the flowers, and written notes … Why did one write notes and who were they to?’

‘All the people that you now ring up on the telephone,’ said Miss Blacklock with a twinkle. ‘I don’t believe you even know how to write, Julia.’

‘Not in the style of that delicious “Complete Letter Writer” I found the other day. Heavenly! It told you the correct way of refusing a proposal of marriage from a widower.’

‘I doubt if you would have enjoyed staying at home as much as you think,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘There were duties, you know.’ Her voice was dry. ‘However, I don’t really know much about it. Bunny and I,’ she smiled affectionately at Dora Bunner, ‘went into the labour market early.’

‘Oh, we did, we did indeed,’ agreed Miss Bunner. ‘Those naughty, naughty children. I’ll never forget them. Of course, Letty was clever. She was a business woman, secretary to a big financier.’

The door opened and Phillipa Haymes came in. She was tall and fair and placid-looking. She looked round the room in surprise.

‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘Is it a party? Nobody told me.’

‘Of course,’ cried Patrick. ‘Our Phillipa doesn’t know. The only woman in Chipping Cleghorn who doesn’t, I bet.’

Phillipa looked at him inquiringly.

‘Here you behold,’ said Patrick dramatically, waving a hand, ‘the scene of a murder!’

Phillipa Haymes looked faintly puzzled.

‘Here,’ Patrick indicated the two big bowls of chrysanthemums, ‘are the funeral wreaths and these dishes of cheese straws and olives represent the funeral baked meats.’

Phillipa looked inquiringly at Miss Blacklock.

‘Is it a joke?’ she asked. ‘I’m always terribly stupid at seeing jokes.’

‘It’s a very nasty joke,’ said Dora Bunner with energy. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

‘Show her the advertisement,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘I must go and shut up the ducks. It’s dark. They’ll be in by now.’

‘Let me do it,’ said Phillipa.

‘Certainly not, my dear. You’ve finished your day’s work.’

‘I’ll do it, Aunt Letty,’ offered Patrick.

‘No, you won’t,’ said Miss Blacklock with energy. ‘Last time you didn’t latch the door properly.’

‘I’ll do it, Letty dear,’ cried Miss Bunner. ‘Indeed, I should love to. I’ll just slip on my goloshes—and now where did I put my cardigan?’

But Miss Blacklock, with a smile, had already left the room.

‘It’s no good, Bunny,’ said Patrick. ‘Aunt Letty’s so efficient that she can never bear anybody else to do things for her. She really much prefers to do everything herself.’

‘She loves it,’ said Julia.

‘I didn’t notice you making any offers of assistance,’ said her brother.

Julia smiled lazily.

‘You’ve just said Aunt Letty likes to do things herself,’ she pointed out. ‘Besides,’ she held out a well-shaped leg in a sheer stocking, ‘I’ve got my best stockings on.’

‘Death in silk stockings!’ declaimed Patrick.

‘Not silk—nylons, you idiot.’

‘That’s not nearly such a good title.’

‘Won’t somebody please tell me,’ cried Phillipa plaintively, ‘why there is all this insistence on death?’

Everybody tried to tell her at once—nobody could find the Gazette to show her because Mitzi had taken it into the kitchen.

Miss Blacklock returned a few minutes later.

‘There,’ she said briskly, ‘that’s done.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Twenty-past six. Somebody ought to be here soon—unless I’m entirely wrong in my estimate of my neighbours.’

‘I don’t see why anybody should come,’ said Phillipa, looking bewildered.

‘Don’t you, dear?… I dare say you wouldn’t. But most people are rather more inquisitive than you are.’

‘Phillipa’s attitude to life is that she just isn’t interested,’ said Julia, rather nastily.