A quiet voice spoke softly beside them:
“Your tea is all ready in the library, Mrs.
Val.”
Mrs. Val jumped.
“Oh thank you. Miss Dove. Yes, I could do
79
with a cup of tea. Really, I feel quite bowled
over. What about you, Mr.—Inspector——”
“Thank you, not just now.”
The plump figure hesitated and then went
slowly away.
As she disappeared through a doorway,
Mary Dove murmured softly:
“I don’t think she’s ever heard of the term
slander.”
Inspector Neele did not reply.
Mary Dove went on:
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Where can I find the housemaid, Ellen?”
“I will take you to her. She’s just gone
upstairs.”
II
Ellen proved to be grim but unafraid. Her
sour old face looked triumphantly at the
Inspector.
“It’s a shocking business, sir. And I never
thought I’d live to find myself in a house
where that sort of thing has been going on.
But in a way I can’t say that it surprises me. I
ought to have given my notice in long ago and
that’s a fact. I don’t like the language that’s
80
used in this house, and I don’t like the
amount of drink that’s taken, and I don’t
approve of the goings on there’ve been. I’ve
nothing against Mrs. Crump, but Crump and
that girl Gladys just don’t know what proper
service is. But it’s the goings on that I mind
about most.”
“What goings on do you mean exactly?”
“You’ll soon hear about them if you don’t
know already. It’s common talk all over the
place. They’ve been seen here there and
everywhere. All this pretending to play
golf—or tennis—— And I’ve seen things—with my own eyes—in this house. The library
door was open and there they were, kissing
and canoodling.”
The venom of the spinster was deadly.
Neele really felt it unnecessary to say “Whom
do you mean?” but he said it nevertheless.
“Who should I mean? The mistress—and
that man. No shame about it, they hadn’t.
But if you ask me, the master had got wise to
it. Put someone on to watch them, he had.
Divorce, that’s what it would have come to.
Instead, it’s come to this.”
“When you say this, you mean——”
“You’ve been asking questions, sir, about
what the master ate and drank and who gave
81
it to him. They’re in it together, sir, that’s
what I’d say. He got the stuff from
somewhere and she gave it to the master, that
was the way of it, I’ve no doubt.”
“Have you ever seen any yew berries in the
house—or thrown away anywhere.”
The small eyes glinted curiously.
“Yew? Nasty poisonous stuff. Never you
touch those berries, my mother said to me
when I was a child. Was that what was used,
sir?”
“We don’t know yet what was used.”
“I’ve never seen her fiddling about with
yew.” Ellen sounded disappointed. “No, I
can’t say I’ve seen anything of that kind.”
Neele questioned her about the grain found
in Fortescue’s pocket but here again he drew
a blank.
“No, sir. I know nothing about that.”
He went on to further questions, but with
no gainful result. Finally he asked if he could
see Miss Ramsbottom.
Ellen looked doubtful.
“I could ask her, but it’s not everyone she’ll
see. She’s a very old lady, you know, and
she’s a bit odd.”
The Inspector pressed his demand, and
rather unwillingly Ellen led him along a
82
passage and up a short flight of stairs to what
he thought had probably been designed as a
nursery suite.
He glanced out of a passage window as he
followed her and saw Sergeant Hay standing
by the yew tree talking to a man who was
evidently a gardener.
Ellen tapped on a door, and when she
received an answer, opened it and said:
“There’s a police gentleman here who
would like to speak to you, miss.”
The answer was apparently in the
affirmative for she drew back and motioned
Neele to go in.
The room he entered was almost
fantastically over-furnished. The Inspector
felt rather as though he had taken a step
backward into not merely Edwardian but
Victorian times. At a table drawn up to a gas