Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

‘You can look at the gutter,’ said Mrs Swettenham. ‘It’s beautifully clear.’

‘Did you hear your mother call to you, Mr Swettenham?’

‘No,’ said Edmund. ‘I was fast asleep.’

‘Edmund,’ said his mother reproachfully, ‘I thought you were writing.’

Inspector Craddock turned to Mrs Easterbrook.

‘Now, Mrs Easterbrook?’

‘I was sitting with Archie in his study,’ said Mrs Easterbrook, fixing wide innocent eyes on him. ‘We were listening to the wireless together, weren’t we, Archie?’

There was a pause. Colonel Easterbrook was very red in the face. He took his wife’s hand in his.

‘You don’t understand these things, kitten,’ he said. ‘I—well, I must say, Inspector, you’ve rather sprung this business on us. My wife, you know, has been terribly upset by all this. She’s nervous and highly strung and doesn’t appreciate the importance of—of taking due consideration before she makes a statement.’

‘Archie,’ cried Mrs Easterbrook reproachfully, ‘are you going to say you weren’t with me?’

‘Well, I wasn’t, was I, my dear? I mean one’s got to stick to the facts. Very important in this sort of inquiry. I was talking to Lampson, the farmer at Croft End, about some chicken netting. That was about a quarter to four. I didn’t get home until after the rain had stopped. Just before tea. A quarter to five. Laura was toasting the scones.’

‘And had you been out also, Mrs Easterbrook?’

The pretty face looked more like a weasel’s than ever. Her eyes had a trapped look.

‘No—no, I just sat listening to the wireless. I didn’t go out. Not then. I’d been out earlier. About—about half-past three. Just for a little walk. Not far.’

She looked as though she expected more questions, but Craddock said quietly:

‘That’s all, Mrs Easterbrook.’

He went on: ‘These statements will be typed out. You can read them and sign them if they are substantially correct.’

Mrs Easterbrook looked at him with sudden venom.

‘Why don’t you ask the others where they were? That Haymes woman? And Edmund Swettenham? How do you know he was asleep indoors? Nobody saw him.’

Inspector Craddock said quietly:

‘Miss Murgatroyd, before she died, made a certain statement. On the night of the hold-up here, someone was absent from this room. Someone who was supposed to have been in the room all the time. Miss Murgatroyd told her friend the names of the people she did see. By a process of elimination, she made the discovery that there was someone she did not see.’

‘Nobody could see anything,’ said Julia.

‘Murgatroyd could,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe, speaking suddenly in her deep voice. ‘She was over there behind the door, where Inspector Craddock is now. She was the only person who could see anything of what was happening.’

‘Aha! That is what you think, is it!’ demanded Mitzi.

She made one of her dramatic entrances, flinging open the door and almost knocking Craddock sideways. She was in a frenzy of excitement.

‘Ah, you do not ask Mitzi to come in here with the others, do you, you stiff policemen? I am only Mitzi! Mitzi in the kitchen! Let her stay in the kitchen where she belongs! But I tell you that Mitzi, as well as anyone else, and perhaps better, yes, better, can see things. Yes, I see things. I see something the night of the burglary. I see something and I do not quite believe it, and I hold my tongue till now. I think to myself I will not tell what it is I have seen, not yet. I will wait.’

‘And when everything had calmed down, you meant to ask for a little money from a certain person, eh?’ said Craddock.

Mitzi turned on him like an angry cat.

‘And why not? Why look down your nose? Why should I not be paid for it if I have been so generous as to keep silence? Especially if some day there will be money—much much money. Oh! I have heard things—I know what goes on. I know this Pippemmer—this secret society of which she’—she flung a dramatic finger towards Julia—‘is an agent. Yes, I would have waited and asked for money—but now I am afraid. I would rather be safe. For soon, perhaps, someone will kill me. So I will tell what I know.’