“He said that, did he? ‘Whatever Haydock says’?”
“Yes. And he said it was all a plot.”
“You didn’t hear the lady speak at all?”
“Only just at the end. She must have got up to go and come nearer the window. And I heard what she said. Made my blood run cold, it did. I’ll never forget it. ‘By this time tomorrow night, you may be dead,’ she said. Wicked the way she said it. As soon as I heard the news, ‘There,’ I said to Rose. ‘There!'”
Lawrence wondered. Principally he wondered how much of Gladys’s story was to be depended upon. True in the main, he suspected that it had been embellished and polished since the murder. In especial he doubted the accuracy of the last remark. He thought it highly possible that it owed its being to the fact of the murder.
He thanked Gladys, rewarded her suitably, reassured her as to her misdoings being made known to Mrs. Pratt, and left Old Hall with a good deal to think over.
One thing was clear, Mrs. Lestrange’s interview with Colonel Protheroe had certainly not been a peaceful one, and it was one which he was anxious to keep from the knowledge of his wife.
I thought of Miss Marple’s churchwarden with his separate establishment. Was this a case resembling that?
I wondered more than ever where Haydock came in? He had saved Mrs. Lestrange from having to give evidence at the inquest.
He had done his best to protect her from the police.
How far would he carry that protection?
Supposing he suspected her of crime – would he still try and shield her?
She was a curious woman – a woman of very strong magnetic charm. I myself hated the thought of connecting her with the crime in any way.
Something in me said, “It can’t be her!” Why?
And an imp in my brain replied: “Because she’s a very beautiful and attractive woman. That’s why?”
There is, as Miss Marple would say, a lot of human nature in all of us.
CHAPTER XX
When I got back to the Vicarage I found that we were in the middle of a domestic crisis.
Griselda met me in the hall and with tears in her eyes dragged me into the drawing-room. “She’s going.”
“Who’s going?”
“Mary. She’s given notice.”
I really could not take the announcement in a tragic spirit.
“Well,” I said, “we’ll have to get another servant.”
It seemed to me a perfectly reasonable thing to say. When one servant goes, you get another. I was at a loss to understand Griselda’s look of reproach.
“Len – you are absolutely heartless. You don’t care.”
I didn’t. In fact, I felt almost light-hearted at the prospect of no more burnt puddings and undercooked vegetables.
“I’ll have to look for a girl, and find one, and train her,” continued Griselda in a voice of acute self-pity.
“Is Mary trained?” I said.
“Of course she is.”
“I suppose,” I said, “that somebody has heard her address us as sir or m’am and has immediately wrested her from us as a paragon. All I can say is, they’ll be disappointed.”
“It isn’t that,” said Griselda. “Nobody else wants her. I don’t see how they could. It’s her feelings. They’re upset because Lettice Protheroe said she didn’t dust properly.”
Griselda often comes out with surprising statements, but this seemed to me so surprising that I questioned it. It seemed to me the most unlikely thing in the world that Lettice Protheroe should go out of her way to interfere in our domestic affairs and reprove our maid for slovenly housework. It was completely unLetticelike, and I said so.
“I don’t see,” I said, “what our dust has to do with Lettice Protheroe.”
“Nothing at all,” said my wife. “That’s why it’s so unreasonable. I wish you’d go and talk to Mary yourself. She’s in the kitchen.”
I had no wish to talk to Mary on the subject, but Griselda, who is very energetic and quick, fairly pushed me through the baize door into the kitchen before I had time to rebel.
Mary was peeling potatoes at the sink.
“Er – good-afternoon,” I said nervously.