She left the room. He thought, disturbed, ‘What did she mean by that? Does she want me to suggest a line of defence? For whom?’
His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of a man about fifty years of age. He had a naturally powerful frame, but stooped slightly. His clothes were untidy and his hair carelessly brushed. He looked good-natured but vague.
‘Sir Edward Palliser? Oh, how do you do. Magdalen sent me along. It’s very good of you, I’m sure, to wish to help us. Though I don’t think anything will ever be really discovered. I mean, they won’t catch the fellow.’
‘You think it was a burglar then – someone from outside?’
‘Well, it must have been. It couldn’t be one of the family. These fellows are very clever nowadays, they climb like cats and they get in and out as they like.’
‘Where were you, Mr Crabtree, when the tragedy occurred?’
‘I was busy with my stamps – in my little sitting-room upstairs.’
‘You didn’t hear anything?’
‘No – but then I never do hear anything when I’m absorbed. Very foolish of me, but there it is.’
‘Is the sitting-room you refer to over this room?’
‘No, it’s at the back.’
Again the door opened. A small fair woman entered. Her hands were twitching nervously. She looked fretful and excited.
‘William, why didn’t you wait for me? I said “wait”.’
‘Sorry, my dear, I forgot. Sir Edward Palliser – my wife.’
‘How do you do, Mrs Crabtree? I hope you don’t mind my coming here to ask a few questions. I know how anxious you must all be to have things cleared up.’
‘Naturally. But I can’t tell you anything – can I, William? I was asleep – on my bed – I only woke up when Martha screamed.’
Her hands continued to twitch. ‘Where is your room, Mrs Crabtree?’
‘It’s over this. But I didn’t hear anything – how could I? I was asleep.’ He could get nothing out of her but that. She knew nothing – she had heard nothing – she had been asleep. She reiterated it with the obstinacy of a frightened woman. Yet Sir Edward knew very well that it might easily be – probably was – the bare truth.
He excused himself at last – said he would like to put a few questions to Martha. William Crabtree volunteered to take him to the kitchen. In the hall, Sir Edward nearly collided with a tall dark young man who was striding towards the front door.
‘Mr Matthew Vaughan?’
‘Yes – but look here, I can’t wait. I’ve got an appointment.’
‘Matthew!’ It was his sister’s voice from the stairs. ‘Oh! Matthew, you promised –’
‘I know, sis. But I can’t. Got to meet a fellow. And, anyway, what’s the good of talking about the damned thing over and over again. We have enough of that with the police. I’m fed up with the whole show.’
The front door banged. Mr Matthew Vaughan had made his exit.
Sir Edward was introduced into the kitchen. Martha was ironing. She paused, iron in hand. Sir Edward shut the door behind him.
‘Miss Vaughan has asked me to help her,’ he said. ‘I hope you won’t object to my asking you a few questions.’
She looked at him, then shook her head.
‘None of them did it, sir. I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t so. As nice a set of ladies and gentlemen as you could wish to see.’
‘I’ve no doubt of it. But their niceness isn’t what we call evidence, you know.’
‘Perhaps not, sir. The law’s a funny thing. But there is evidence – as you call it, sir. None of them could have done it without my knowing.’
‘But surely –’
‘I know what I’m talking about sir. There, listen to that –’
‘That’ was a creaking sound above their heads.
‘The stairs, sir. Every time anyone goes up or down, the stairs creak something awful. It doesn’t matter how quiet you go. Mrs Crabtree, she was lying on her bed, and Mr Crabtree was fiddling about with them wretched stamps of his, and Miss Magdalen she was up above again working her machine, and if any one of those three had come down the stairs I should have known it. And they didn’t!’
She spoke with a positive assurance which impressed the barrister. He thought: ‘A good witness. She’d carry weight.’
‘You mightn’t have noticed.’
‘Yes, I would. I’d have noticed without noticing, so to speak. Like you notice when a door shuts and somebody goes out.’
Sir Edward shifted his ground.
‘That is three of them acounted for, but there is a fourth. Was Mr Matthew Vaughan upstairs also?’
‘No, but he was in the little room downstairs. Next door. And he was typewriting. You can hear it plain in here. His machine never stopped for a moment. Not for a moment, sir, I can swear to it. A nasty irritating tap tapping noise it is, too.’
Sir Edward paused a minute. ‘It was you who found her, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir, it was. Lying there with blood on her poor hair. And no one hearing a sound on account of the tap-tapping of Mr Matthew’s typewriter.’
‘I understand you are positive that no one came into the house?’
‘How could they, sir, without my knowing? The bell rings in here. And there’s only the one door.’
He looked at her straight in the face. ‘You were attached to Miss Crabtree?’
A warm glow – genuine – unmistakable – came into her face. ‘Yes, indeed, I was, sir. But for Miss Crabtree – well, I’m getting on and I don’t mind speaking of it now. I got into trouble, sir, when I was a girl, and Miss Crabtree stood by me – took me back into her service, she did, when it was all over. I’d have died for her – I would indeed.’
Sir Edward knew sincerity when he heard it. Martha was sincere.
‘As far as you know, no one came to the door –?’
‘No one could have come.’
‘I said as far as you know. But if Miss Crabtree had been expecting someone – if she opened the door to that someone herself . . .’
‘Oh!’ Martha seemed taken aback.
‘That’s possible, I suppose?’ Sir Edward urged. ‘It’s possible – yes – but it isn’t very likely. I mean . . .’
She was clearly taken aback. She couldn’t deny and yet she wanted to do so. Why? Because she knew that the truth lay elsewhere. Was that it? The four people in the house – one of them guilty? Did Martha want to shield that guilty party? Had the stairs creaked? Had someone come stealthily down and did Martha know who that someone was?
She herself was honest – Sir Edward was convinced of that.
He pressed his point, watching her.
‘Miss Crabtree might have done that, I suppose? The window of that room faces the street. She might have seen whoever it was she was waiting for from the window and gone out into the hall and let him – or her – in. She might even have wished that no one should see the person.’
Martha looked troubled. She said at last reluctantly:
‘Yes, you may be right, sir. I never thought of that. That she was expecting a gentleman – yes, it well might be.’
It was though she began to perceive advantages in the idea. ‘You were the last person to see her, were you not?’
‘Yes, sir. After I’d cleared away the tea. I took the receipted books to her and the change from the money she’d given me.’
‘Had she given the money to you in five-pound notes?’
‘A five-pound note, sir,’ said Martha in a shocked voice. ‘The book never came up as high as five pounds. I’m very careful.’
‘Where did she keep her money?’
‘I don’t rightly know, sir. I should say that she carried it about with her – in her black velvet bag. But of course she may have kept it in one of the drawers in her bedroom that were locked. She was very fond of locking up things, though prone to lose her keys.’
Sir Edward nodded.
‘You don’t know how much money
she had – in five-pound notes, I mean?’
‘No, sir, I couldn’t say what the exact amount was.’
‘And she said nothing to you that could lead you to believe that she was expecting anybody?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re quite sure? What exactly did she say?’
‘Well,’ Martha considered, ‘she said the butcher was nothing more than a rogue and a cheat, and she said I’d had in a quarter of a pound of tea more than I ought, and she said Mrs Crabtree was full of nonsense for not liking to eat margarine, and she didn’t like one of the sixpences I’d brought her back – one of the new ones with oak leaves on it – she said it was bad, and I had a lot of trouble to convince her. And she said – oh, that the fishmonger had sent haddocks instead of whitings, and had I told him about it, and I said I had – and, really, I think that’s all, sir.’
Martha’s speech had made the deceased lady loom clear to Sir Edward as a detailed description would never have done. He said casually:
‘Rather a difficult mistress to please, eh?’
‘A bit fussy, but there, poor dear, she didn’t often get out, and staying cooped up she had to have something to amuse herself like. She was pernickety but kind hearted – never a beggar sent away from the door without something. Fussy she may have been, but a real charitable lady.’
‘I am glad, Martha, that she leaves one person to regret her.’
The old servant caught her breath. ‘You mean – oh, but they were all fond of her – really – underneath. They all had words with her now and again, but it didn’t mean anything.’
Sir Edward lifted his head. There was a creak above.
‘That’s Miss Magdalen coming down.’
‘How do you know?’ he shot at her.
The old woman flushed. ‘I know her step,’ she muttered.
Sir Edward left the kitchen rapidly. Martha had been right. Magdalen had just reached the bottom stair. She looked at him hopefully.
‘Not very far on as yet,’ said Sir Edward, answering her look, and added, ‘You don’t happen to know what letters your aunt received on the day of her death?’
‘They are all together. The police have been through them, of course.’ She led the way to the big double drawing-room, and unlocking a drawer took out a large black velvet bag with an old-fashioned silver clasp.
‘This is Aunt’s bag. Everything is in here just as it was on the day of her death. I’ve kept it like that.’
Sir Edward thanked her and proceeded to turn out the contents of the bag on the table. It was, he fancied, a fair specimen of an eccentric elderly lady’s handbag.
There was some odd silver change, two ginger nuts, three newspaper cuttings about Joanna Southcott’s box, a trashy printed poem about the unemployed, an Old Moore’s Almanack, a large piece of camphor, some spectacles and three letters. A spidery one from someone called ‘Cousin Lucy’, a bill for mending a watch, and an appeal from a charitable institution.
Sir Edward went through everything very carefully, then repacked the bag and handed it to Magdalen with a sigh.
‘Thank you, Miss Magdalen. I’m afraid there isn’t much there.’
He rose, observed that from the window you commanded a good view of the front door steps, then took Magdalen’s hand in his.
‘You are going?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it’s – it’s going to be all right?’
‘Nobody connected with the law ever commits himself to a rash statement like that,’ said Sir Edward solemnly, and made his escape.
He walked along the street lost in thought. The puzzle was there under his hand – and he had not solved it. It needed something – some little thing. Just to point the way.
A hand fell on his shoulder and he started. It was Matthew Vaughan, somewhat out of breath.
‘I’ve been chasing you, Sir Edward. I want to apologize. For my rotten manners half an hour ago. But I’ve not got the best temper in the world, I’m afraid. It’s awfully good of you to bother about this business. Please ask me whatever you like. If there’s anything I can do to help –’
Suddenly Sir Edward stiffened. His glance was fixed – not on Matthew – but across the street. Somewhat bewildered, Matthew repeated:
‘If there’s anything I can do to help –’
‘You have already done it, my dear young man,’ said Sir Edward. ‘By stopping me at this particular spot and so fixing my attention on something I might otherwise have missed.’
He pointed across the street to a small restaurant opposite. ‘The Four and Twenty Blackbirds?’ asked Matthew in a puzzled voice. ‘Exactly.’
‘It’s an odd name – but you get quite decent food there, I believe.’
‘I shall not take the risk of experimenting,’ said Sir Edward. ‘Being further from my nursery days than you are, my friend, I probably remember my nursery rhymes better. There is a classic that runs thus, if I remember rightly: Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie – and so on. The rest of it does not concern us.’
He wheeled round sharply. ‘Where are you going?’ asked Matthew Vaughan. ‘Back to your house, my friend.’
They walked there in silence, Matthew Vaughan shooting puzzled glances at his companion. Sir Edward entered, strode to a drawer, lifted out a velvet bag and opened it. He looked at Matthew and the young man reluctantly left the room.
Sir Edward tumbled out the silver change on the table. Then he nodded. His memory had not been at fault.
He got up and rang the bell, slipping something into the palm of his hand as he did so.
Martha answered the bell. ‘You told me, Martha, if I remember rightly, that you had a slight altercation with your late mistress over one of the new sixpences.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ah! but the curious thing is, Martha, that among this loose change, there is no new sixpence. There are two sixpences, but they are both old ones.’
She stared at him in a puzzled fashion. ‘You see what that means? Someone did come to the house that evening
– someone to whom your mistress gave sixpence . . . I think she gave it him in exchange for this . . .’
With a swift movement, he shot his hand forward, holding out the doggerel verse about unemployment.
One glance at her face was enough.
‘The game is up, Martha – you see, I know. You may as well tell me everything.’
She sank down on a chair – the tears raced down her face. ‘It’s true – it’s true – the bell didn’t ring properly – I wasn’t sure, and then I thought I’d better go and see. I got to the door just as he struck her down. The roll of five-pound notes was on the table in front of her – it was the sight of them as made him do it – that and thinking she was alone in the house as she’d let him in. I couldn’t scream. I was too paralysed and then he turned – and I saw it was my boy . . .
‘Oh, he’s been a bad one always. I gave him all the money I could. He’s been in gaol twice. He must have come around to see me, and then Miss Crabtree, seeing as I didn’t answer the door, went to answer it herself, and he was taken aback and pulled out one of those unemployment leaflets, and the mistress being kind of charitable, told him to come in and got out a sixpence. And all the time that roll of notes was lying on the table where it had been when I was giving her the change. And the devil got into my Ben and he got behind her and struck her down.’
‘And then?’ asked Sir Edward.
‘Oh, sir, what could I do? My own flesh and blood. His father was a bad one, and Ben takes after him – but he was my own son. I hustled him out, and I went back to the kitchen and I went to lay for supper at the usual time. Do you think it was very wicked of me, sir? I tried to tell you no lies when you was asking me questions.’
Sir Edward rose.
‘My poor woman,’ he said with feeling in his voice, ‘I am very sorry for you. All the same, the law will have to take its course, you know.’
‘He’s fled the country, sir. I don’t know where he is.’
‘There’s a chance, then, that he may escape the gallows, but don’t build upon it. Will you send Miss Magdalen to me.’
‘Oh, Sir Edward. How wonderful of you – how wonderful you are,’ said Magdalen when he had finished his brief recital. ‘You’ve saved us all. How can I ever thank you?’
Sir Edward smiled down at her and patted her hand gently. He was very much the great man. Little Magdalen had been very charming on the Siluric. That bloom of seventeen – wonderful! She had completely lost it now, of course.
‘Next time you need a friend –’ he said.
‘I’ll come straight to you.’
‘No, no,’ cried Sir Edward in alarm. ‘That’s just what I don’t want you to do. Go to a younger man.’
He extricated himself with dexterity from the grateful household and hailing a taxi sank into it with a sigh of relief.
Even the charm of a dewy seventeen seemed doubtful.
It could not really compare with a really well-stocked library on criminology.
The taxi turned into Queen Anne’s Close.
His cul-de-sac.
Chapter 34
The Blue Geranium
‘The Blue Geranium’ was first published in The Christmas Story-Teller, December 1929.
‘When I was down here last year –’ said Sir Henry Clithering, and stopped.
His hostess, Mrs Bantry, looked at him curiously.
The Ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard was staying with old friends of his, Colonel and Mrs Bantry, who lived near St Mary Mead.
Mrs Bantry, pen in hand, had just asked his advice as to who should be invited to make a sixth guest at dinner that evening.
‘Yes?’ said Mrs Bantry encouragingly. ‘When you were here last year?’
‘Tell me,’ said Sir Henry, ‘do you know a Miss Marple?’
Mrs Bantry was surprised. It was the last thing she had expected.
‘Know Miss Marple? Who doesn’t! The typical old maid of fiction. Quite a dear, but hopelessly behind the times. Do you mean you would like me to ask her to dinner?’
‘You are surprised?’
‘A little, I must confess. I should hardly have thought you – but perhaps there’s an explanation?’