A Murder Is Announced - Christie Agatha (читать книги онлайн бесплатно серию книг TXT) 📗

‘You have to say that, don’t you?’ said Julia. She was rather pale, but composed. ‘I repeat that between four and four-thirty I was walking along the field leading down to the brook by Compton Farm. I came back to the road by that field with three poplars in it. I didn’t meet anyone as far as I can remember. I did not go near Boulders.’

‘Mrs Swettenham?’

Edmund said, ‘Are you cautioning all of us?’

The Inspector turned to him.

‘No. At the moment only Miss Simmons. I have no reason to believe that any other statement made will be incriminating, but anyone, of course, is entitled to have a solicitor present and to refuse to answer questions unless heis present.’

‘Oh, but that would be very silly and a complete waste of time,’ cried Mrs Swettenham. ‘I’m sure I can tell you at once exactly what I was doing. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Shall I begin now?’

‘Yes, please, Mrs Swettenham.’

‘Now, let me see.’ Mrs Swettenham closed her eyes, opened them again. ‘Of course I had nothingat all to do with killing Miss Murgatroyd. I’m sureeverybody here knowsthat. But I’m a woman of the world, I know quite well that the police have to ask all the most unnecessary questions and write the answers down very carefully, because it’s all for what they call “the record”. That’s it, isn’t it?’ Mrs Swettenham flashed the question at the diligent Constable Edwards, and added graciously, ‘I’m not going too fast for you, I hope?’

Constable Edwards, a good shorthand writer, but with little socialsavoir faire, turned red to the ears and replied:

‘It’s quite all right, madam. Well, perhaps alittle slower would be better.’

Mrs Swettenham resumed her discourse with emphatic pauses where she considered a comma or a full stop might be appropriate.

‘Well, of course it’s difficult to say-exactly-because I’ve not got, really, a very good sense of time. And ever since the war quite half our clocks haven’t gone at all, and the ones that do go are often either fast or slow or stop because we haven’t wound them up.’ Mrs Swettenham paused to let this picture of confused time sink in and then went on earnestly, ‘What Ithink I was doing at four o’clock was turning the heel of my sock (and for some extraordinary reason I was going round the wrong way-in purl, you know, not plain) but if Iwasn’t doing that, I must have been outside snipping off the dead chrysanthemums-no, that was earlier-before the rain.’

‘The rain,’ said the Inspector, ‘started at 4.10 exactly.’

‘Did it now? That helps a lot. Of course, I was upstairs putting a wash basin in the passage where the rain always comes through. And it was coming through so fast that I guessed at once that the gutter was stopped up again. So I came down and got my mackintosh and rubber boots. I called Edmund, but he didn’t answer, so I thought perhaps he’d got to a very important place in his novel and I wouldn’t disturb him, and I’ve done it quite often myself before. With the broom handle, you know, tied on to that long thing you push up windows with.’

‘You mean,’ said Craddock, noting bewilderment on his subordinate’s face, ‘that you were cleaning out the gutter?’

‘Yes, it was all choked up with leaves. It took a long time and I got rather wet, but I got it clear at last. And then I went in and got changed and washed-sosmelly, dead leaves-and then I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. It was 6.15 by the kitchen clock.’

Constable Edwards blinked.

‘Which means,’ finished Mrs Swettenham triumphantly, ‘that it was exactly twenty minutes to five.’

‘Or near enough,’ she added.

‘Did anybody see what you were doing whilst you were out cleaning the gutter?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Mrs Swettenham. ‘I’d soon have roped them in to help if they had! It’s a most difficult thing to do single-handed.’

‘So, by your own statement, you were outside, in a mackintosh and boots, at the time when the rain was coming down, and according to you, you were employed during that time in cleaning out a gutter but you have no one who can substantiate that statement?’

‘You can look at the gutter,’ said Mrs Swettenham. ‘It’s beautifully clear.’

‘Did you hear your mother call to you, Mr Swettenham?’

‘No,’ said Edmund. ‘I was fast asleep.’

‘Edmund,’ said his mother reproachfully, ‘I thought you werewriting.’

Inspector Craddock turned to Mrs Easterbrook.

‘Now, Mrs Easterbrook?’

‘I was sitting with Archie in his study,’ said Mrs Easterbrook, fixing wide innocent eyes on him. ‘We were listening to the wireless together, weren’t we, Archie?’

There was a pause. Colonel Easterbrook was very red in the face. He took his wife’s hand in his.

‘You don’t understand these things, kitten,’ he said. ‘I-well, I must say, Inspector, you’ve rather sprung this business on us. My wife, you know, has been terribly upset by all this. She’s nervous and highly strung and doesn’t appreciate the importance of-of taking due consideration before she makes a statement.’

‘Archie,’ cried Mrs Easterbrook reproachfully, ‘are you going to say you weren’t with me?’

‘Well, I wasn’t, was I, my dear? I mean one’s got to stick to the facts. Very important in this sort of inquiry. I was talking to Lampson, the farmer at Croft End, about some chicken netting. That was about a quarter to four. I didn’t get home until after the rain had stopped. Just before tea. A quarter to five. Laura was toasting the scones.’

‘And hadyou been out also, Mrs Easterbrook?’

The pretty face looked more like a weasel’s than ever. Her eyes had a trapped look.

‘No-no, I just sat listening to the wireless. I didn’t go out. Not then. I’d been out earlier. About-about half-past three. Just for a little walk. Not far.’

She looked as though she expected more questions, but Craddock said quietly:

‘That’s all, Mrs Easterbrook.’

He went on: ‘These statements will be typed out. You can read them and sign them if they are substantially correct.’

Mrs Easterbrook looked at him with sudden venom.

‘Why don’t you ask the others where they were? That Haymes woman? And Edmund Swettenham? How do you know hewas asleep indoors? Nobody saw him.’

Inspector Craddock said quietly:

‘Miss Murgatroyd, before she died, made a certain statement. On the night of the hold-up here,someone was absent from this room. Someone who was supposed to have been in the room all the time. Miss Murgatroyd told her friend the names of the people shedid see. By a process of elimination, she made the discovery that there was someone she didnot see.’

‘Nobody could see anything,’ said Julia.

‘Murgatroyd could,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe, speaking suddenly in her deep voice. ‘She was over there behind the door, where Inspector Craddock is now. She was the only person who could see anything of what was happening.’

‘Aha! That is what you think, is it!’ demanded Mitzi.

She made one of her dramatic entrances, flinging open the door and almost knocking Craddock sideways. She was in a frenzy of excitement.

‘Ah, you do not ask Mitzi to come in here with the others, do you, you stiff policemen? I am only Mitzi! Mitzi in the kitchen! Let her stay in the kitchen where she belongs! But I tell you that Mitzi, as well as anyone else, and perhaps better, yes, better, can see things. Yes, I see things. I see something the night of the burglary. I see something and I do not quite believe it, and I hold my tongue till now. I think to myself I will not tell what it is I have seen, not yet. I will wait.’

‘And when everything had calmed down, you meant to ask for a little money from a certain person, eh?’ said Craddock.

Mitzi turned on him like an angry cat.

‘And why not? Why look down your nose? Why should I not be paid for it if I have been so generous as to keep silence? Especially if some day there will be money-muchmuch money. Oh! I have heard things-I know what goes on. I know this Pippemmer-this secret society of whichshe ’-she flung a dramatic finger towards Julia-‘is an agent. Yes, I would have waited and asked for money-but now I am afraid. I would rather besafe. For soon, perhaps, someone will killme. So I will tell what I know.’

‘All right then,’ said the Inspector sceptically. ‘Whatdo you know?’

‘I tell you.’ Mitzi spoke solemnly. ‘On that night I amnot in the pantry cleaning silver as I say-I am already in the dining-room when I hear the gun go off. I look through the keyhole. The hall it is black, but the gun go off again and the torch it falls-and it swings round as it falls-and I seeher. I seeher there close to him with the gun in her hand. I see Miss Blacklock.’

‘Me?’ Miss Blacklock sat up in astonishment. ‘You must be mad!’

‘But that’s impossible,’ cried Edmund. ‘Mitzi couldn’t have seen Miss Blacklock.’

Craddock cut in and his voice had the corrosive quality of a deadly acid.

‘Couldn’t she, Mr Swettenham? And why not?Because itwasn’t Miss Blacklock who was standing there with the gun? It wasyou, wasn’t it?’

‘I-of course not-what thehell!’

‘Youtook Colonel Easterbrook’s revolver.You fixed up the business with Rudi Scherz-as a good joke. You had followed Patrick Simmons into the far room and when the lights went out, you slipped out through the carefully oiled door. You shot at Miss Blacklock and then you killed Rudi Scherz. A few seconds later you were back in the drawing-room clicking your lighter.’

For a moment Edmund seemed at a loss for words, then he spluttered out:

‘The whole idea ismonstrous. Whyme? What earthly motive hadI got?’

‘If Miss Blacklock dies before Mrs Goedler, two people inherit, remember. The two we know of as Pip and Emma. Julia Simmons has turned out to be Emma-’

‘And you think I’m Pip?’ Edmund laughed. ‘Fantastic-absolutelyfantastic! I’m about the right age-nothing else. And I can prove to you, you damned fool, that Iam Edmund Swettenham. Birth certificate, schools, university-everything.’

‘He isn’t Pip.’ The voice came from the shadows in the corner. Phillipa Haymes came forward, her face pale. ‘I’m Pip, Inspector.’

‘You, Mrs Haymes?’

‘Yes. Everybody seems to have assumed that Pip was a boy-Julia knew, of course, that her twin was another girl-I don’t know why she didn’t say so this afternoon-’