She ended up by saying anyway she didn’t
know anything at all.”
“You don’t think,” Lance hesitated, “that
she was just making herself important?”
“No, I don’t. I think she was scared. I think
she saw something or heard something that’s
given her some idea about the whole thing. It
may be important, or it mayn’t be of the least
consequence.”
“You don’t think she herself could’ve had a
grudge against Father and—-” Lance hesitated.
Miss Ramsbottom was shaking her head
decidedly.
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“She’s not the kind of girl your father
would have taken the least notice of. No man
ever will take much notice other, poor girl.
Ah, well, it’s all the better for her soul, that, I
dare say.”
Lance took no interest in Gladys’s soul. He
asked:
“You think she may have run along to the
police station?”
Aunt Effie nodded vigorously.
“Yes. I think she mayn’t like to’ve said anything
to them in this house in case somebody
overheard her.”
Lance asked, “Do you think she may have
seen someone tampering with the food?”
Aunt Effie threw him a sharp glance.
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes, I suppose so.” Then he added apologetically.
“The whole thing still seems so
wildly improbable. Like a detective story.”
“Percival’s wife is a hospital nurse,” said
Miss Ramsbottom.
The remark seemed so unconnected with
what had gone before that Lance looked at
her in a puzzled fashion.
“Hospital nurses are used to handling
drugs,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance looked doubtful.
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“This stuff–taxine–is it ever used in
medicine?”
“They get it from yewberries, I gather.
Children eat yewberries sometimes,” said
Miss Ramsbottom. “Makes them very ill,
too. I remember a case when I was a child. It
made a great impression on me. I never forgot
it. Things you remember come in useful
sometimes.”
Lance raised his head sharply and stared at
her.
“Natural affection is one thing,” said Miss
Ramsbottom, “and I hope I’ve got as much of
it as anyone. But I won’t stand for wickedness.
Wickedness has to be destroyed.”
II
“Went off without a word to me,” said Mrs.
Crump, raising her red, wrathful face from
the pastry she was now rolling out on the
board. “Slipped out without a word to anybody.
Sly, that’s what it is. Sly! Afraid she’d
be stopped and I would have stopped her if I’d
caught her! The idea! There’s the master
dead, Mr. Lance coming home that hasn’t
been home for years and I said to Crump, I
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said, ‘Day out or no day out, I know my duty.
There’s not going to be cold supper tonight
as is usual on a Thursday, but a proper
dinner. A gentleman coming home from
abroad with his wife, what was formerly
married in the aristocracy, things must be
properly done.’ You know me, miss, you
know I take a pride in my work.”
Mary Dove, the recipient of these confidences, nodded her head gently.
“And what does Crump say?” Mrs.
Crump’s voice rose angrily. ” ‘It’s my day off
and I’m goin’ off,’ that’s what he says. ‘And a
fig for the aristocracy,’ he says. No pride in
his work. Crump hasn’t. So off he goes and I
tell Gladys she’ll have to manage alone tonight.
She just says. ‘Alright, Mrs. Crump,’
then, when my back’s turned out she sneaks.
It wasn’t her day out, anyway. Friday’s her day. How we’re going to manage now, I don’t
know! Thank goodness, Mr. Lance hasn’t
brought his wife here with him today.”
“We shall manage, Mrs. Crump,” Mary’s
voice was both soothing and authoritative, “if
we just simplify the menu a little.” She
outlined a few suggestions. Mrs. Crump
nodded unwilling acquiescence. “I shall be
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able to serve that quite easily,” Mary
concluded.
“You mean you’ll wait at table yourself,
Miss?” Mrs. Crump sounded doubtful.
“If Gladys doesn’t come back in time.”
“She won’t come back,” said Mrs. Crump.
“Gallivanting off, wasting her money somewhere
in the shops. She’s got a young man,
you know, miss, though you wouldn’t think it
to look at her. Albert his name is. Going to
get married next spring, so she tells me.
Don’t know what the married state’s like, these girls don’t. What I’ve been through