“Miss Cram,” said my wife, “very kindly came in to offer to help us with the Guides. We asked for helpers last Sunday, you remember.”
I did remember, and I was convinced, and so, I knew from her tone, was Griselda, that the idea of enrolling herself among them would never have occurred to Miss Cram but for the exciting incident which had taken place at the Vicarage.
“I was only just saying to Mrs. Clement,” went on Miss Cram, “you could have struck me all of a heap when I heard the news. A murder? I said. In this quiet one-horse village – for quiet it is, you must admit – not so much as a picture house, and as for Talkies! And then when I heard it was Colonel Protheroe – why, I simply couldn’t believe it. He didn’t seem the kind, somehow, to get murdered.”
”And so,” said Griselda, “Miss Cram came round to find out all about it.”
I feared this plain speaking might offend the lady, but she merely flung her head back and laughed uproariously, showing every tooth she possessed.
“That’s too bad. You’re a sharp one, aren’t you, Mrs. Clement? But it’s only natural, isn’t it, to want to hear the ins and out of a case like this? And I’m sure I’m willing enough to help with the Guides in any way you like. Exciting, that’s what it is. I’ve been stagnating for a bit of fun. I have, really I have. Not that my job isn’t a very good one, well paid, and Dr. Stone quite the gentleman in every way. But a girl wants a bit of life out of office hours, and except for you, Mrs. Clement, who is there in the place to talk to except a lot of old cats?”
“There’s Lettice Protheroe,” I said.
Gladys Cram tossed her head.
“She’s too high and mighty for the likes of me. Fancies herself the county, and wouldn’t demean herself by noticing a girl who had to work for her living. Not but what I did hear her talking of earning her living herself. And who’d employ her, I should like to know? Why, she’d be fired in less than a week. Unless she went as one of those mannequins, all dressed up and sidling about. She could do that, I expect.”
“She’d make a very good mannequin,” said Griselda. “She’s got such a lovely figure.” There’s nothing of the cat about Griselda. “When was she talking of earning her own living?”
Miss Cram seemed momentarily discomfited, but recovered herself with her usual archness.
“That would be telling, wouldn’t it?” she said. “But she did say so. Things not very happy at home, I fancy. Catch me living at home with a stepmother. I wouldn’t sit down under it for a minute.”
“Ah! but you’re so high spirited and independent,” said Griselda gravely, and I looked at her with suspicion.
Miss Cram was clearly pleased.
“That’s right. That’s me all over. Can be led, not driven. A palmist told me that not so very long ago. No. I’m not one to sit down and be bullied. And I’ve made it clear all along to Dr. Stone that I must have my regular times off. These scientific gentlemen, they think a girl’s a kind of machine – half the time they just don’t notice her or remember she’s there.”
“Do you find Dr. Stone pleasant to work with? It must be an interesting job if you are interested in archæology.”
“Of course, I don’t know much about it,” confessed the girl. “It still seems to me that digging up people that are dead and have been dead for hundreds of years isn’t – well, it seems a bit nosey, doesn’t it? And there’s Dr. Stone so wrapped up in it all that half the time he’d forget his meals if it wasn’t for me.”
“Is he at the barrow this morning?” asked Griselda.
Miss Cram shook her head.
“A bit under the weather this morning,” she explained. “Not up to doing any work. That means a holiday for little Gladys.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Oh! it’s nothing much. There’s not going to be a second death. But do tell me, Mr. Clement, I hear you’ve been with the police all morning. What do they think?”