Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

Myrna Harris was a pretty girl with a glorious head of red hair and a pert nose.

She was alarmed and wary, and deeply conscious of the indignity of being interviewed by the police.

‘I don’t know a thing about it, sir. Not a thing,’ she protested. ‘If I’d known what he was like I’d never have gone out with Rudi at all. Naturally, seeing as he worked in Reception here, I thought he was all right. Naturally I did. What I say is the hotel ought to be more careful when they employ people—especially foreigners. Because you never know where you are with foreigners. I suppose he might have been in with one of these gangs you read about?’

‘We think,’ said Craddock, ‘that he was working quite on his own.’

‘Fancy—and him so quiet and respectable. You’d never think. Though there have been things missed—now I come to think of it. A diamond brooch—and a little gold locket, I believe. But I never dreamed that it could have been Rudi.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Craddock. ‘Anyone might have been taken in. You knew him fairly well?’

‘I don’t know that I’d say well.’

‘But you were friendly?’

‘Oh, we were friendly—that’s all, just friendly. Nothing serious at all. I’m always on my guard with foreigners, anyway. They’ve often got a way with them, but you never know, do you? Some of those Poles during the war! And even some of the Americans! Never let on they’re married men until it’s too late. Rudi talked big and all that—but I always took it with a grain of salt.’

Craddock seized on the phrase.

‘Talked big, did he? That’s very interesting, Miss Harris. I can see you’re going to be a lot of help to us. In what way did he talk big?’

‘Well, about how rich his people were in Switzerland—and how important. But that didn’t go with his being as short of money as he was. He always said that because of the money regulation he couldn’t get money from Switzerland over here. That might be, I suppose, but his things weren’t expensive. His clothes, I mean. They weren’t really class. I think, too, that a lot of the stories he used to tell me were so much hot air. About climbing in the Alps, and saving people’s lives on the edge of a glacier. Why, he turned quite giddy just going along the edge of Boulter’s Gorge. Alps, indeed!’

‘You went out with him a good deal?’

‘Yes—well—yes, I did. He had awfully good manners and he knew how to—to look after a girl. The best seats at the pictures always. And even flowers he’d buy me, sometimes. And he was just a lovely dancer—lovely.’

‘Did he mention this Miss Blacklock to you at all?’

‘She comes in and lunches here sometimes, doesn’t she? And she’s stayed here once. No, I don’t think Rudi ever mentioned her. I didn’t know he knew her.’

‘Did he mention Chipping Cleghorn?’

He thought a faintly wary look came into Myrna Harris’s eyes but he couldn’t be sure.

‘I don’t think so…I think he did once ask about buses—what time they went—but I can’t remember if that was Chipping Cleghorn or somewhere else. It wasn’t just lately.’

He couldn’t get more out of her. Rudi Scherz had seemed just as usual. She hadn’t seen him the evening before. She’d no idea—no idea at all—she stressed the point, that Rudi Scherz was a crook.

And probably, Craddock thought, that was quite true.

Chapter 5

Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner

Little Paddocks was very much as Detective-Inspector Craddock had imagined it to be. He noted ducks and chickens and what had been until lately an attractive herbaceous border and in which a few late Michaelmas daisies showed a last dying splash of purple beauty. The lawn and the paths showed signs of neglect.

Summing up, Detective-Inspector Craddock thought: ‘Probably not much money to spend on gardeners—fond of flowers and a good eye for planning and massing a border. House needs painting. Most houses do, nowadays. Pleasant little property.’

As Craddock’s car stopped before the front door, Sergeant Fletcher came round the side of the house. Sergeant Fletcher looked like a guardsman, with an erect military bearing, and was able to impart several different meanings to the one monosyllable: ‘Sir.’