第 13 页

Miss Gilchrist displayed an unexpected Victorian reaction to this.

"Oh, but Mrs Lansquenet would have wished you to take a good tea. You've got to keep your strength up."

"Yes, yes, perhaps you are right. The fact is, you know, that one cannot really bring oneself to believe that someone you knew - actually knew - can have been murdered!"

"I agree," said Susan. "It just seems - fantastic."

"And certainly not by some casual tramp who broke in and attacked her. I can imagine, you know, reasons why Cora might have been murdered."

Susan said quickly, "Can you? What reasons?"

"Well, she wasn't discreet," said Mr Guthrie. "Cora was never discreet. And she enjoyed - how shaw I put it - showing how sharp she could be? Like a child who's got hold of somebody's secret. If Cora got hold of a secret she'd want to talk about it. Even if she promised not to, she'd still do it. She wouldn't be able to help herself."

Susan did not speak. Miss Gilchrist did not either. She looked worried. Mr Guthrie went on:

"Yes, a little dose of arsenic in a cup of tea - that would not have surprised me, or a box of chocolates by post. But sordid robbery and assault - that seems highly incongruous. I may be wrong but I should have thought she had very little to take that would be worth a burglar's while. She didn't keep much money in the house, did she?"

Miss Gilchrist said, "Very little."

Mr Guthrie sighed and rose to his feet.

"Ah! well, there's a lot of lawlessness about since the war. Times have changed."

Thanking them for the tea he took a polite farewell of the two women. Miss Gilchrist saw him out and helped him on with his overcoat. From the window of the sitting-room, Susan watched him trot briskly down the front path to the gate.

Miss Gilchrist came back into the room with a small parcel in her hand.

"The postman must have been while we were at the inquest. He pushed it through the letter-box and it had fallen in the corner behind the door. Now I wonder - why, of course, it must be wedding cake."

Happily Miss Gilchrist ripped off the paper. Inside was a small white box tied with silver ribbon.

"It is!" She pulled off the ribbon, inside was a modest wedge of rich cake with almond paste and white icing. "How nice! Now who -" She consulted the card attached. "John and Mary. Now who can that be? How silly to put no surname."

Susan, rousing herself from contemplation, said vaguely:

"It's quite difficult sometimes with people just using Christian names. I got a postcard the other day signed Joan. I counted up I knew eight Joans - and with telephoning so much, one often doesn't know their handwriting."

Miss Gilchrist was happily going over the possible Johns or Marys of her acquaintance.

"It might be Dorothy's daughter - her name was Mary, but I hadn't heard of an engagement, still less of a marriage. Then there's little John Banfield - I suppose he's grown up and old enough to be married - or the Enfield girl - no, her name was Margaret. No address or anything. Oh well, I dare say it will come to me..."

She picked up the tray and went out to the kitchen.

Susan roused herself and said:

"Well - I suppose I'd better go and put the car somewhere."

Chapter 10

Susan retrieved the car from the quarry where she had left it and drove it into the village. There was a petrol pump but no garage and she was advised to take it to the King's Arms. They had room for it there and she left it by a big Daimler which was preparing to go out. It was chauffeur driven and inside it, very much muffled up, was an elderly foreign gentleman with a large moustache.

The boy to whom Susan was talking about the car was staring at her with such rapt attention the he did not seem to be taking in half of what she said.

Finally he said in an awe-stricken voice:

"You're her niece, aren't you?"

"What?"

"You're the victim's niece," the boy repeated with relish.

"Oh - yes - yes, I am."

"Ar! Wondered where I'd seen you before."

"Ghoul," thought Susan as she retraced her steps to the cottage.

Miss Gilchrist greeted her with:

"Oh, you're safely back," in tones of relief which further annoyed her. Miss Gilchrist added anxiously:

"You can eat spaghetti, can't you? I thought for tonight -"

"Oh yes, anything. I don't want much."

"I really flatter myself that I can make a very tasty spaghetti au gratin."

The boast was not an idle one. Miss Gilchrist, Susan reflected, was really an excellent cook. Susan offered to help wash up but Miss Gilchrist, though clearly gratified by the offer, assured Susan that there was very little to do.

She came in a little while later with coffee. The coffee was less excellent, being decidedly weak. Miss Gilchrist offered Susan a piece of the wedding cake which Susan refused.

"It's really very good cake," Miss Gilchrist insisted, tasting it. She had settled to her own satisfaction that it must have been sent by someone whom she alluded to as "dear Ellen's daughter who I know was engaged to be married but I can't remember her name."

Susan let Miss Gilchrist chirrup away into silence before starting her own subject of conversation. This moment, after supper, sitting before the fire, was a companionable one.

She said at last:

"My Uncle Richard came down here before he died, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

"When was that exactly?"

"Let me see - it must have been one, two - nearly three weeks before his death was announced."

"Did he seem - ill?"

"Well, no, I wouldn't say he seemed exactly ill. He had a very hearty vigorous manner. Mrs Lansquenet was very surprised to see him. She said, 'Well, really, Richard, after all these years!' And he said, 'I came to see for myself exactly how things are with you.' And Mrs Lansquenet said, 'I'm all right.' I think, you know, she was a teeny bit offended by his turning up so casually - after the long break. Anyway Mr Abernethie said, 'No use keeping up old grievances. You and I and Timothy are the only ones left - and nobody can talk to Timothy except about his own health.' And he said, 'Pierre seems to have made you happy, so it seems I was in the wrong. There, will that content you?' Very nicely he said it. A handsome man, though elderly, of course."

"How long was he here?"

"He stayed for lunch. Beef olives, I made. Fortunately it was the day the butcher called."

Miss Gilchrist's memory seemed to be almost wholly culinary.

"They seemed to be getting on well together?"

"Oh, yes."

Susan paused and then said:

"Was Aunt Cora surprised when - he died?"

"Oh yes, it was quite sudden, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was sudden... I meant - she was surprised. He hadn't given her any indication how ill he was."

"Oh - I see what you mean." Miss Gilchrist paused a moment. "No, no, I think perhaps you are right. She did say that he had got very old - I think she said senile..."

"But you didn't think he was senile?"

"Well, not to look at. But I didn't talk to him much, naturally I left them alone together."

Susan looked at Miss Gilchrist speculatively. Was Miss Gilchrist the kind of woman who listened at doors? She was honest, Susan felt sure, she wouldn't ever pilfer, or cheat over the housekeeping, or open letters. But inquisitiveness can drape itself in a mantle of rectitude. Miss Gilchrist might have found it necessary to garden near an open window, or to dust the hall... That would be within the permitted lengths. And then, of course, she could not have helped hearing something...

"You didn't hear any of their conversation?" Susan asked.

Too abrupt. Miss Gilchrist flushed angrily.

"No, indeed, Mrs Banks. It has never been my custom to listen at doors!"

That means she does, thought Susan, otherwise she'd just say "No."

Aloud she said: "I'm so sorry, Miss Gilchrist. I didn't mean it that way. But sometimes, in these small flimsily built cottages, one simply can't help hearing nearly everything that goes on, and now that they are both dead, it's really rather important to the family to know just what was said at that meeting between them."

The cottage was anything but flimsily built - it dated from a sturdier era of building, but Miss Gilchrist accepted the bait, and rose to the suggestion held out.

"Of course what you say is quite true, Mrs Banks - this is a very small place and I do appreciate that you would want to know what passed between them, but really I'm afraid I can't help very much. I think they were talking about Mr Abernethie's health - and certain - well, fancies he had. He didn't look it, but he must have been a sick man and as is so often the case, he put his ill-health down to outside agencies. A common symptom, I believe. My aunt -"

Miss Gilchrist described her aunt.

Susan, like Mr Entwhistle, side-tracked the aunt.

"Yes," she said. "That is just what we thought. My uncle's servants were all very attached to him and naturally they are upset by his thinking -" She paused.

"Oh, of course! Servants are very touchy, about anything of that kind. I remember that my aunt -"

Again Susan interrupted.

"It was the servants he suspected, I suppose? Of poisoning him, I mean?"

"I don't know... I - really -"

Susan noted her confusion.

"It wasn't the servants. Was it one particular person?"

"I don't know, Mrs Banks. Really I don't know -"

But her eye avoided Susan's. Susan thought to herself that Miss Gilchrist knew more than she was willing to admit.

It was possible that Miss Gilchrist knew a good deal...

Deciding not to press the point for the moment, Susan said:

"What are your own plans for the future, Miss Gilchrist?"

"Well, really, I was going to speak to you about that, Mrs Banks. I told Mr Entwhistle I would be willing to stay on until everything here was cleared up."

"I know. I'm very grateful."

"And I wanted to ask you how long that was likely to be, because, of course, I must start looking about for another post."

Susan considered.

"There's really not very much to be done here. In a couple of days I can get things sorted and notifiy the auctioneer."

"You have decided to sell up everything, then?"

"Yes. I don't suppose there will be any difficulty in letting the cottage?"

"Oh, no - people will queue up for it, I'm sure. There are so few cottages to rent. One nearly always has to buy."

"So it's all very simple, you see." Susan hesitated a moment before saying, "I wanted to tell you - that I hope you'll accept three months' salary."

"That's very generous of you, I'm sure, Mrs Banks. I do appreciate it. And you would be prepared to - I mean I could ask you - if necessary - to - to recommend me? To say that I had been with a relation of yours and that I had - proved satisfactory?"

"Oh, of course."

"I don't know whether I ought to ask it." Miss Gilchrist's hands began to shake and she tried to steady her voice. "But would it be possible not to - to mention the circumstances - or even the name?"

Susan stared.

"I don't understand."

"That's because you haven't thought, Mrs Banks. It's murder. A murder that's been in the papers and that everybody has read about. Don't you see? People might think. 'Two women living together, and one of them is killed - and perhaps the companion did it.' Don't you see, Mrs Banks? I'm sure that if I was looking for someone, I'd - well, I'd think twice before engaging myself - if you understand what I mean. Because one never knows! It's been worrying me dreadfully, Mrs Banks; I've been lying awake at night thinking that perhaps I'll never get another job - not of this kind. And what else is there that I can do?"

The question came out with unconscious pathos. Susan felt suddenly stricken. She realised the desperation of this pleasant-spoken commonplace woman who was dependent for existence on the fears and whims of employers. And there was a lot of truth in what Miss Gilchrist had said. You wouldn't, if you could help it, engage a woman to share domestic intimacy who had figured, however innocently, in a murder case.

Susan said: "But if they find the man who did it -"

"Oh then, of course, it will be quite all right. But will they find him? I don't think, myself, the police have the least idea. And if he's not caught - well, that leaves me as - as not quite the most likely person, but as a person who could have done it."

Susan nodded thoughtfully. It was true that Miss Gilchrist did not benefit from Cora Lansquenet's death but who was to know that? And besides, there were so many tales - ugly tales - of animosity arising between women who lived together - strange pathological motives for sudden violence. Someone who had not known them might imagine that Cora Lansquenet and Miss Gilchrist had lived on those terms...

Susan spoke with her usual decision.

"Don't worry, Miss Gilchrist," she said, speaking briskly and cheerfully. "I'm sure I can find you a post amongst my friends. There won't be the least difficulty."

"I'm afraid, said Miss Gilchrist, regaining some of her customary manner, "that I couldn't undertake any really rough work. Just a little plain cooking and housework -"

The telephone rang and Miss Gilchrist jumped.

"Dear me, I wonder who that can be."

"I expect it's my husband," said Susan, jumping up. "He said he'd ring me tonight."

She went to the telephone.

"Yes? - yes, this is Mrs Banks speaking personally..."

There was a pause and then her voice changed. It became soft and warm. "Hallo, darling - yes, it's me... Oh, quite well... Murder by someone unknown... the usual thing... Only Mr Entwhistle... What?... it's difficult to say, but I think so... Yes, just as we thought... Absolutely according to plan... I shall sell the stuff. There's nothing we'd want... Not for a day or two... Absolutely frightful... Don't fuss. I know what I'm doing... Greg, you didn't... You were careful to... No, it's nothing. Nothing at all. Good night, darling."