Agatha Christie – A Murder Is Announced

‘But she couldn’t hope to get away with that? She’d have been suspected at once.’

‘Oh, my dear, she was past reasoning. She was just a snapping terrified cornered rat. Think what had happened that day. The scene between Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd. Miss Hinchcliffe driving off to the station. As soon as she comes back Miss Murgatroyd will explain that Letitia Blacklock wasn’t in the room that night. There’s just a few minutes in which to make sure Miss Murgatroyd can’t tell anything. No time to make a plan or set a stage. Just crude murder. She greets the poor woman and strangles her. Then a quick rush home, to change, to be sitting by the fire when the others come in, as though she’d never been out.

‘And then came the revelation of Julia’s identity. She breaks her pearls and is terrified they may notice her scar. Later, the Inspector telephones that he’s bringing everyone there. No time to think, to rest. Up to her neck in murder now, no mercy killing—or undesirable young man to be put out of the way. Crude plain murder. Is she safe? Yes, so far. And then comes Mitzi—yet another danger. Kill Mitzi, stop her tongue! She’s beside herself with fear. Not human any longer. Just a dangerous animal.’

‘But why were you in the broom cupboard, Aunt Jane?’ asked Bunch. ‘Couldn’t you have left it to Sergeant Fletcher?’

‘It was safer with two of us, my dear. And besides, I knew I could mimic Dora Bunner’s voice. If anything could break Charlotte Blacklock down—that would.’

‘And it did…!’

‘Yes…She went to pieces.’

There was a long silence as memory laid hold of them and then, speaking with determined lightness, to ease the strain, Julia said:

‘It’s made a wonderful difference to Mitzi. She told me yesterday that she was taking a post near Southampton. And she said (Julia produced a very good imitation of Mitzi’s accent):

‘“I go there and if they say to me you have to register with the police—you are an alien, I say to them, ‘Yes, Iwill register! The police, they know me very well. I assist the police! Without me the police never would they have made the arrest of a very dangerous criminal. I risked my life because I am brave—brave like a lion—I do not care about risks.’ ‘Mitzi,’ they say to me, ‘you are a heroine, you are superb.’ ‘Ach, it is nothing, I say.’”’

Julia stopped.

‘And a great deal more,’ she added.

‘I think,’ said Edmund thoughtfully, ‘that soon Mitzi will have assisted the police in not one but hundreds of cases!’

‘She’s softened towards me,’ said Phillipa. ‘She actually presented me with the recipe for Delicious Death as a kind of wedding present. She added that I was on no account to divulge the secret to Julia, because Julia had ruined her omelette pan.’

‘Mrs Lucas,’ said Edmund, ‘is all over Phillipa now that since Belle Goedler’s death Phillipa and Julia have inherited the Goedler millions. She sent us some silver asparagus tongs as a wedding present. I shall have enormous pleasure in not asking her to the wedding!’

‘And so they lived happily ever after,’ said Patrick. ‘Edmund and Phillipa—and Julia and Patrick?’ he added tentatively.

‘Not with me, you won’t live happily ever after,’ said Julia. ‘The remarks that Inspector Craddock improvised to address to Edmund apply far more aptly to you. You are the sort of soft young man who would like a rich wife. Nothing doing!’

‘There’s gratitude for you,’ said Patrick. ‘After all I did for that girl.’

‘Nearly landed me in prison on a murder charge —that’s what your forgetfulness nearly did for me,’ said Julia. ‘I shall never forget that evening when your sister’s letter came. I really thought I was for it. I couldn’t see any way out.’

‘As it is,’ she added musingly, ‘I think I shall go on the stage.’

‘What? You, too?’ groaned Patrick.

‘Yes. I might go to Perth. See if I can get your Julia’s place in the Rep there. Then, when I’ve learnt my job, I shall go into theatre management—and put on Edmund’s plays, perhaps.’