After the Funeral

‘Oh yes, indeed. I did most of the cooking – I quite enjoy cooking – and did some dusting and light housework. None of the rough, of course.’ Miss Gilchrist’s tone expressed a firm principle. Mr Entwhistle, who had no idea what ‘the rough’ was, made a soothing murmur.

‘Mrs Panter from the village came in for that. Twice a week regularly. You see, Mr Entwhistle, I could not have contemplated being in any way a servant. When my little tea-shop failed – such a disaster – it was the war, you know. A delightful place. I called it the Willow Tree and all the china was blue willow pattern – sweetly pretty – and the cakes really good – I’ve always had a hand with cakes and scones. Yes, I was doing really well and then the war came and supplies were cut down and the whole thing went bankrupt – a war casualty, that is what I always say, and I try to think of it like that. I lost the little money my father left me that I had invested in it, and of course I had to look round for something to do. I’d never been trained for anything. So I went to one lady but it didn’t answer at all – she was so rude and overbearing – and then I did some office work – but I didn’t like that at all, and then I came to Mrs Lansquenet and we suited each other from the start – her husband being an artist and everything.’ Miss Gilchrist came to a breathless stop and added mournfully: ‘But how I loved my dear, dear little tea-shop. Such nice people used to come to it!’

Looking at Miss Gilchrist, Mr Entwhistle felt a sudden stab of recognition – a composite picture of hundreds of ladylike figures approaching him in numerous Bay Trees, Ginger Cats, Blue Parrots, Willow Trees and Cosy Corners, all chastely encased in blue or pink or orange overalls and taking orders for pots of china tea and cakes. Miss Gilchrist had a Spiritual Home – a lady-like tea-shop of Ye Olde Worlde variety with a suitable genteel clientèle. There must, he thought, be large numbers of Miss Gilchrists all over the country, all looking much alike with mild patient faces and obstinate upper lips and slightly wispy grey hair.

Miss Gilchrist went on:

‘But really I must not talk about myself. The police have been very kind and considerate. Very kind indeed. An Inspector Morton came over from headquarters and he was most understanding. He even arranged for me to go and spend the night at Mrs Lake’s down the lane but I said “No.” I felt it my duty to stay here with all Mrs Lansquenet’s nice things in the house. They took the – the –’ Miss Gilchrist gulped a little – ‘the body away, of course, and locked up the room, and the Inspector told me there would be a constable on duty in the kitchen all night – because of the broken window – it has been reglazed this morning, I am glad to say – where was I? Oh yes, so I said I should be quite all right in my own room, though I must confess I did pull the chest of drawers across the door and put a big jug of water on the window-sill. One never knows – and if by any chance it was a maniac – one does hear of such things . . .’

Here Miss Gilchrist ran down. Mr Entwhistle said quickly:

‘I am in possession of all the main facts. Inspector Morton gave them to me. But if it would not distress you too much to give me your own account –?’

‘Of course, Mr Entwhistle. I know just what you feel. The police are so impersonal, are they not? Rightly so, of course.’

‘Mrs Lansquenet got back from the funeral the night before last,’ Mr Entwhistle prompted.

‘Yes, her train didn’t get in until quite late. I had ordered a taxi to meet it as she told me to. She was very tired, poor dear – as was only natural – but on the whole she was in quite good spirits.’

‘Yes, yes. Did she talk about the funeral at all?’

‘Just a little. I gave her a cup of hot milk – she didn’t want anything else – and she told me that the church had been quite full and lots and lots of flowers – oh! and she said that she was sorry not to have seen her other brother – Timothy – was it?’

‘Yes, Timothy.’

‘She said it was over twenty years since she had seen him and that she hoped he would have been there, but she quite realized he would have thought it better not to come under the circumstances, but that his wife was there and that she’d never been able to stand Maude – oh dear, I do beg your pardon, Mr Entwhistle – it just slipped out – I never meant –’

‘Not at all. Not at all,’ said Mr Entwhistle encouragingly. ‘I am no relation, you know. And I believe that Cora and her sister-in-law never hit it off very well.’

‘Well, she almost said as much. “I always knew Maude would grow into one of those bossy interfering women,” is what she said. And then she was very tired and said she’d go to bed at once – I’d got her hot-water bottle in all ready – and she went up.’

‘She said nothing else that you can remember specially?’

‘She had no premonition, Mr Entwhistle, if that is what you mean. I’m sure of that. She was really, you know, in remarkably good spirits – apart from tiredness and the – the sad occasion. She asked me how I’d like to go to Capri. To Capri! Of course I said it would be too wonderful – it’s a thing I’d never dreamed I’d ever do – and she said, “We’ll go!” Just like that. I gathered – of course it wasn’t actually mentioned – that her brother had left her an annuity or something of the kind.’

Mr Entwhistle nodded. ‘Poor dear. Well, I’m glad she had the pleasure of planning – at all events.’ Miss Gilchrist sighed and murmured wistfully, ‘I don’t suppose I shall ever go to Capri now . . .’

‘And the next morning?’ Mr Entwhistle prompted, oblivious of Miss Gilchrist’s disappointments.

‘The next morning Mrs Lansquenet wasn’t at all well. Really, she looked dreadful. She’d hardly slept at all, she told me. Nightmares. “It’s because you were overtired yesterday,” I told her, and she said maybe it was. She had her breakfast in bed, and she didn’t get up all the morning, but at lunch-time she told me that she still hadn’t been able to sleep. “I feel so restless,” she said. “I keep thinking of things and wondering.” And then she said she’d take some sleeping tablets and try and get a good sleep in the afternoon. And she wanted me to go over by bus to Reading and change her two library books, because she’d finished them both on the train journey and she hadn’t got anything to read. Usually two books lasted her nearly a week. So I went off just after two and that – and that – was the last time –’ Miss Gilchrist began to sniff. ‘She must have been asleep, you know. She wouldn’t have heard anything and the Inspector assures me that she didn’t suffer . . . He thinks the first blow killed her. Oh dear, it makes me quite sick even to think of it!’

‘Please, please. I’ve no wish to take you any further over what happened. All I wanted was to hear what you could tell me about Mrs Lansquenet before the tragedy.’

‘Very natural, I’m sure. Do tell her relations that apart from having such a bad night she was really very happy and looking forward to the future.’

Mr Entwhistle paused before asking his next question. He wanted to be careful not to lead the witness.

‘She did not mention any of her relations in particular?’

‘No, no, I don’t think so.’ Miss Gilchrist considered. ‘Except what she said about being sorry not to see her brother Timothy.’

‘She did not speak at all about her brother’s decease? The – er – cause of it? Anything like that?’

‘No.’

There was no sign of alertness in Miss Gilchrist’s face. Mr Entwhistle felt certain there would have been if Cora had plumped out her verdict of murder.

‘He’d been ill for some time, I think,’ said Miss Gilchrist vaguely, ‘though I must say I was surprised to hear it. He looked so very vigorous.’

Mr Entwhistle said quickly:

‘You saw him – when?’

‘When he came down here to see Mrs Lansquenet. Let me see – that was about three weeks ago.’

‘Did he stay here?’

‘Oh – no – just came for luncheon. It was quite a surprise. Mrs Lansquenet hadn’t expected him. I gather there had been some family disagreement. She hadn’t seen him for years, she told me.’

‘Yes, that is so.’

‘It quite upset her – seeing him again – and probably realizing how ill he was –’

‘She knew he was ill?’

‘Oh yes, I remember quite well. Because I wondered – only in my own mind, you understand – if perhaps Mr Abernethie might be suffering from softening of the brain. An aunt of mine –’

Mr Entwhistle deftly side-tracked the aunt. ‘Something Mrs Lansquenet said caused you to think of softening of the brain?’

‘Yes. Mrs Lansquenet said something like “Poor Richard. Mortimer’s death must have aged him a lot. He sounds quite senile. All these fancies about persecution and that someone is poisoning him. Old people get like that.” And of course, as I knew, that is only too true. This aunt that I was telling you about – was convinced the servants were trying to poison her in her food and at last would eat only boiled eggs – because, she said, you couldn’t get inside a boiled egg to poison it. We humoured her, but if it had been nowadays I don’t know what we should have done. With eggs so scarce and mostly foreign at that, so that boiling is always risky.’

Mr Entwhistle listened to the saga of Miss Gilchrist’s aunt with deaf ears. He was very much disturbed.

He said at last, when Miss Gilchrist had twittered into silence:

‘I suppose Mrs Lansquenet didn’t take all this too seriously?’

‘Oh no, Mr Entwhistle, she quite understood.’

Mr Entwhistle found that remark disturbing too, though not quite in the sense in which Miss Gilchrist had used it.

Had Cora Lansquenet understood? Not then, perhaps, but later. Had she understood only too well?

Mr Entwhistle knew that there had been no senility about Richard Abernethie. Richard had been in full possession of his faculties. He was not the man to have persecution mania in any form. He was, as he always had been, a hard-headed business man – and his illness made no difference in that respect.

It seemed extraordinary that he should have spoken to his sister in the terms that he had. But perhaps Cora, with her odd childlike shrewdness, had read between the lines, and had crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s of what Richard Abernethie had actually said.

In most ways, thought Mr Entwhistle, Cora had been a complete fool. She had no judgement, no balance, and a crude childish point of view, but she had also the child’s uncanny knack of sometimes hitting the nail on the head in a way that seemed quite startling.