Julia stalked angrily out of the kitchen and at that moment the door-bell rang.
‘I do not go to the door,’ Mitzi called from the kitchen. Julia muttered an impolite Continental expression under her breath and stalked to the front door.
It was Miss Hinchcliffe.
‘’Evening,’ she said in her gruff voice. ‘Sorry to barge in. Inspector’s rung up, I expect?’
‘He didn’t tell us you were coming,’ said Julia, leading the way to the drawing-room.
‘He said I needn’t come unless I liked,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘But I do like.’
Nobody offered Miss Hinchcliffe sympathy or mentioned Miss Murgatroyd’s death. The ravaged face of the tall vigorous woman told its own tale, and would have made any expression of sympathy an impertinence.
‘Turn all the lights on,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘And put more coal on the fire. I’m cold—horribly cold. Come and sit here by the fire, Miss Hinchcliffe. The Inspector said he would be here in a quarter of an hour. It must be nearly that now.’
‘Mitzi’s come down again,’ said Julia.
‘Has she? Sometimes I think that girl’s mad—quite mad. But then perhaps we’re all mad.’
‘I’ve no patience with this saying that all people who commit crimes are mad,’ barked Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘Horribly and intelligently sane—that’s what I think a criminal is!’
The sound of a car was heard outside and presently Craddock came in with Colonel and Mrs Easterbrook and Edmund and Mrs Swettenham.
They were all curiously subdued.
Colonel Easterbrook said in a voice that was like an echo of his usual tones:
‘Ha! A good fire.’
Mrs Easterbrook wouldn’t take off her fur coat and sat down close to her husband. Her face, usually pretty and rather vapid, was like a little pinched weasel face. Edmund was in one of his furious moods and scowled at everybody. Mrs Swettenham made what was evidently a great effort, and which resulted in a kind of parody of herself.
‘It’s awful—isn’t it?’ she said conversationally. ‘Everything, I mean. And really the less one says, the better. Because one doesn’t know who next—like the Plague. Dear Miss Blacklock, don’t you think you ought to have a little brandy? Just half a wineglass even? I always think there’s nothing like brandy—such a wonderful stimulant. I—it seems so terrible of us—forcing our way in here like this, but Inspector Craddock made us come. And it seems to terrible—she hasn’t been found, you know. That poor old thing from the Vicarage, I mean. Bunch Harmon is nearly frantic. Nobody knows where she went instead of going home. She didn’t come to us. I’ve not even seen her today. And I should know if she had come to the house because I was in the drawing-room—at the back, you know, and Edmund was in his study writing—and that’s at the front—so if she’d come either way we should have seen. And oh, I do hope and pray that nothing has happened to that dear sweet old thing—all her faculties still and everything.’
‘Mother,’ said Edmund in a voice of acute suffering, ‘can’t you shut up?’
‘I’m sure, dear, I don’t want to say a word,’ said Mrs Swettenham, and sat down on the sofa by Julia.
Inspector Craddock stood near the door. Facing him, almost in a row, were the three women. Julia and Mrs Swettenham on the sofa. Mrs Easterbrook on the arm of her husband’s chair. He had not brought about this arrangement, but it suited him very well.
Miss Blacklock and Miss Hinchcliffe were crouching over the fire. Edmund stood near them. Phillipa was far back in the shadows.
Craddock began without preamble.
‘You all know that Miss Murgatroyd’s been killed,’ he began. ‘We’ve reason to believe that the person who killed her was a woman. And for certain other reasons we can narrow it down still more. I’m about to ask certain ladies here to account for what they were doing between the hours of four and four-twenty this afternoon. I have already had an account of her movements from—from the young lady who has been calling herself Miss Simmons. I will ask her to repeat that statement. At the same time, Miss Simmons, I must caution you that you need not answer if you think your answers may incriminate you, and anything you say will be taken down by Constable Edwards and may be used as evidence in court.’