Oliver. “I understand that they thought it was a suicide pact.” “I don’t believe that,” said Mrs. Buckle, “I’m sure they’d never have committed suicide together. Not people that age.
And living so pleasantly together as they did. Of course, they hadn’t lived there very long.” “No, I suppose they hadn’t,” said Mrs. Oliver. “They lived somewhere near Bournemouth, didn’t they, when they first came to England?” “Yes, but they found it was a bit too far for getting to London from there, and so that’s why they came to Chipping Bartram. Very nice house it was, and a nice garden.” “Were they both in good health when you were working for them last?” “Well, they felt their age a bit as most people do. The General, he’d had some kind of heart trouble or a slight stroke. Something of that kind, you know. They’d take pills, you know, and lie up a bit from time to time.” “And Mrs, Ravenscroft?” “Well, I think she missed the life she’d had abroad, you know. They didn’t know so very many people there, although they got to know a good many families, of course, being the sort of class they were. But I suppose it wasn’t like India or those places. You know, where you have a lot of servants. I suppose gay parties and that sort of thing.” “You think she missed her gay parties?” “Well, I don’t know that exactly.” “Somebody told me she’d taken to wearing a wig.” “Oh, she’d got several wigs,” said Mrs. Buckle, smiling slightly. “Very smart ones and very expensive. You know, from time to time she’d send one back to the place she’d got it from in London, and they’d redress it for her again and send it. There were all kinds. You know, there was one with auburn hair, and one with little gray curls all over her head, Really, she looked very nice in that one. And two—well, not so attractive really but useful for—you know—windy days when you wanted something to put on when it might be raining. Thought a lot about her appearance, you know, and spent a lot of her money on clothes.” “What do you think was the cause of the tragedy?” said Mrs. Oliver. “You see, not being anywhere near here and not seeing any of my friends at that time because I was in America, I missed hearing anything about it and, well, one doesn’t like to ask questions or write letters about things of that kind. I suppose there must have been some cause. I mean, it was General Ravenscroft’s own revolver that was used, I understand.”
“Oh, yes, he had two of those in the house because he said that no house was safe without. Perhaps he was right there, you know. Not that they’d had any trouble beforehand as far as I know. One afternoon a rather nasty sort of fellow came along to the door. Didn’t like the look of him, I didn’t. Wanted to see the General. Said he’d been in the General’s regiment when he was a young fellow. The General asked him a few questions and I think thought as how he didn’t–well, thought he wasn’t very reliable. So he sent him off.” “You think then that it was someone outside that did it?” “Well, I think it must have been, because I can’t see any other thing. Mind you, I didn’t like the man who came and did the gardening for them very much. He hadn’t got a very good reputation and I gather he’d had a few jail sentences earlier in his life. But of course the General took up his references and he wanted to give him a chance.” “So you think the gardener might have killed them?” “Well, I—I always thought that. But then I’m probably wrong. But it doesn’t seem to me– I mean, the people who said there was some scandalous story or something about either her or him and that either he’d shot her or she’d shot him, that’s all nonsense, I’d say. No, it was some outsider.
One of these people that–well, it’s not as bad as it is nowadays because that, you must remember, was before people began getting all this violence idea. But look at what you read in the papers every day now. Young men, practically only boys still, taking a lot of drugs and going wild and rushing about, shooting a lot of people for nothing at all, asking a girl in a pub to have a drink with them and then they see her home and next day her body’s found in a ditch. Stealing children out of prams from their mothers, taking a girl to a dance and murdering her or strangling her on the way back.