Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

‘What you mean is, that that’s the story she’s told you. You don’t, as we say in the Courts, know it of your own knowledge, do you?’

‘No,’ said Miss Blacklock slowly. ‘When you put it like that, I don’t…But Mrs Swettenham? Oh, it’s absurd!’

‘Did Sonia Goedler ever do any acting? Amateur theatricals?’

‘Oh, yes. She was good.’

‘There you are! Another thing, Mrs Swettenham wears a wig. At least,’ the Inspector corrected himself, ‘Mrs Harmon says she does.’

‘Yes—yes, I suppose it might be a wig. All those little grey curls. But I still think it’s absurd. She’s really very nice and exceedingly funny sometimes.’

‘Thenthere’s Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd. Could either of them be Sonia Goedler?’

‘Miss Hinchcliffe is too tall. She’s as tall as a man.’

‘Miss Murgatroyd then?’

‘Oh, but—oh no, I’m sure Miss Murgatroyd couldn’t be Sonia.’

‘You don’t see very well, do you, Miss Blacklock?’

‘I’m shortsighted; is that what you mean?’

‘Yes. What I’d like to see is a snapshot of this Sonia Goedler, even if it’s a long time ago and not a good likeness. We’re trained, you know, to pick out resemblances, in a way no amateur can ever do.’

‘I’ll try and find it for you.’

‘Now?’

‘What, at once?’

‘I’d prefer it.’

‘Very well. Now, let me see. I saw that album when we were tidying a lot of books out of the cupboard. Julia was helping me. She laughed, I remember, at the clothes we used to wear in those days…The books we put in the shelf in the drawing-room. Where did we put the albums and the big bound volumes of the Art Journal? What a wretched memory I have! Perhaps Julia will remember. She’s at home today.’

‘I’ll find her.’

The Inspector departed on his quest. He did not find Julia in any of the downstairs rooms. Mitzi, asked where Miss Simmons was, said crossly that it was not her affair.

‘Me! I stay in my kitchen and concern myself with the lunch. And nothing do I eat that I have not cooked myself. Nothing, do you hear?’

The Inspector called up the stairs ‘Miss Simmons,’ and getting no response, went up.

He met Julia face to face just as he turned the corner of the landing. She had just emerged from a door that showed behind it a small twisty staircase.

‘I was up in the attic,’ she explained. ‘What is it?’

Inspector Craddock explained.

‘Those old photograph albums? Yes, I remember them quite well. We put them in the big cupboard in the study, I think. I’ll find them for you.’

She led the way downstairs and pushed open the study door. Near the window there was a large cupboard. Julia pulled it open and disclosed a heterogenous mass of objects.

‘Junk,’ said Julia. ‘All junk. But elderly people simply will not throw things away.’

The Inspector knelt down and took a couple of old-fashioned albums from the bottom shelf.

‘Are these they?’

‘Yes.’

Miss Blacklock came in and joined them.

‘Oh, so that’s where we put them. I couldn’t remember.’

Craddock had the books on the table and was turning the pages.

Women in large cartwheel hats, women with dresses tapering down to their feet so that they could hardly walk. The photos had captions neatly printed underneath them, but the ink was old and faded.

‘It would be in this one,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘On about the second or third page. The other book is after Sonia had married and gone away.’ She turned a page. ‘It ought to be here.’ She stopped.

There were several empty spaces on the page. Craddock bent down and deciphered the faded writing. ‘Sonia…Self…R.G.’ A little further along, ‘Sonia and Belle on beach’. And again on the opposite page, ‘Picnic at Skeyne’. He turned over another page, ‘Charlotte, Self, Sonia, R.G.’

Craddock stood up. His lips were grim.

‘Somebody has removed these photographs—not long ago, I should say.’

‘There weren’t any blank spaces when we looked at them the other day. Were there, Julia?’

‘I didn’t look very closely—only at some of the dresses. But no…you’re right, Aunt Letty, there weren’t any blank spaces.’

Craddock looked grimmer still.