“Was she a friend of mine?” “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Oliver.
There was a silence. Celia sipped some more sherry and looked very searchingly at Mrs. Oliver.
“You know,” she said, “you’re rather intriguing me. I can’t see quite what you’re leading into.” “Well,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I hope you won’t be angry with me.” “Why should I be angry with you?” “Well, because I’m going to tell you something, or repeat something, and you might say it’s no business of mine or I ought to keep quiet about it and not mention it.” “You’ve aroused my curiosity,” said Celia.
“Her name she mentioned to me. She was a Mrs. BurtonCox.” “Oh!” Celia’s “Oh” was rather distinctive, “Oh.” “You know her?” “Yes, I know her,” said Celia.
“Well, I thought you must, because—” “Because of what?” “Because of something she said.” “What—about me? That she knew me?” “She said that she thought her son might be going to marry you.” Celia’s expression changed. Her eyebrows went up, came down again. She looked very hard at Mrs. Oliver.
“You want to know if that’s so or not?” “No,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I don’t particularly want to know.
I merely mention that because it’s one of the first things she said to me. She said because you were my goddaughter, I might be able to ask you to give me some information. I presume that she meant that if the information was given to me I was to pass it on to her.” “What information?” “Well, I don’t suppose you’ll like what I’m going to say now,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I didn’t like it myself. In fact, it gives me a very nasty feeling all down my spine because I think it was—well, such awful cheek. Awful bad manners.
Absolutely unpardonable. She said, ‘Can you find out if her father murdered her mother or if her mother murdered her father?’ ” “She said that to you? Asked you to do thatf” “Yes.” “And she didn’t know you? 1 mean, apart from being an authoress and being at the party?” “She didn’t know me at all. She’d never met me, I’d never met her.” “Didn’t you find that extraordinary?” “I don’t know that I’d find anything extraordinary that that woman said. She struck me,” said Mrs. Oliver, “if I may say so, as a particularly odious woman.” “Oh, yes. She is a particularly odious woman.” “And are you going to marry her son?” “Well, we’ve considered the question. I don’t know. You knew what she was talking about?” “Well, I know what I suppose anyone would know who was acquainted with your family.” “That my father and mother, after he had retired from India, bought a house in the country, that they went out one day for a walk together, a walk along the cliff path. That they were found there, both of them shot. There was a revolver lying there. It belonged to my father. He had had two revolvers in the house, it seems. There was nothing to say whether it was a suicide pact or whether my father killed my mother and then shot himself, or my mother shot my father and then killed herself. But perhaps you know all this already.” “I know it after a fashion,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It happened I think about twelve–fifteen years ago.” “About that, yes.” “And you were about twelve or fourteen at the time.” “Yes…” “I don’t know much about it,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I wasn’t even in England myself. At the time–I was on a lecture tour in America. I simply read it in the paper. It was given a lot of space in the press because it was difficult to know the real facts–there did not seem to be any motive. Your father and mother had always been happy together and lived on good terms. I remember that being mentioned. I was interested because I had known your father and mother when we were all much younger, especially your mother. I was at school with her. After that our ways led apart. I married and went somewhere and she married and went out, as far as I remember, to India or some place like that, with her soldier husband.