The Applegreen Cat, page 6
Her eyebrows met, then sprang apart.
“I almost forgot that I came to ask you to go downstairs. The inspector is waiting in the drawing-room. He wants to question you first because you went out there this morning with Pat and Kip. Don’t be frightened—the English police are always very polite.”
I wasn’t in the least frightened. But suddenly it didn’t seem quite modest not to be, so I thanked her and went downstairs. On the way, I met Patrick.
“What sort of sleuth, darling?”
“Very good guy,” he said.
“Smart?”
“Very salty indeed,” Patrick said, salty being a complimentary adjective in the Marine language.
When I opened the door into the drawing-room Kip Heyward and the little man in brown were standing near the French door leading to the terrace. They came towards me. The little man walked with a long springy stride.
Kip introduced him, “This is Mrs. Abbott. Inspector Yates.”
“How do you do,” I said.
“How d’ye’do, Mrs. Abbott.” The inspector shook hands firmly and looked me square in the eyes. He was not as tall as I, but of course, I am rather tall. He had a round face, round blue eyes, and round-lensed silver-rimmed spectacles. His brown hair was rather springy and wavy and receded somewhat from a roundish forehead.
Kip left us. The inspector asked me to sit down. I chose a corner of one of the two sofas which faced each other across the Adam mantelpiece. “Will you have a cigarette, Mrs. Abbott?” Inspector Yates offered his case. He took out a lighter and gave me a light. He put an ashtray near me. He drew a straight chair up, facing me, at a conventional distance, and moved a small table near it to hold an ashtray for himself. Finally he sat down.
“I asked to speak with you because I’m told you accompanied your husband and Squadron Leader Heyward to the scene of the murder this morning, Mrs. Abbott.” He had a smooth attractive voice, deeper than you would expect in a small man. “Would you mind telling me about it? Your impressions, I mean?”
Suddenly and without special reason, I did feel nervous. These English detectives are the best, I thought. They’re thorough. They’re smart.
So I said, “Whatever I say would be what my husband has probably told you already.”
The inspector smiled. “Yes … of course … certainly. Except, oddly enough, there is a certain advantage in repetition, particularly when the story comes from another person. No two people see the same thing exactly alike, Mrs. Abbott, and, oddly enough, women are in some ways much more observant than men.”
I laughed. “Not in our family, Inspector. My husband sees everything.”
“Indeed? Your husband tells us you identified the body, by the tiny black spots on the hands? Oddly enough, Squadron Leader Heyward did not notice that. He didn’t recognize the girl till you identified her.” He paused to see how I took this. “You knew the girl well, Mrs. Abbott?”
“Oh, no. This is my first visit.” And he knows it is as well as I do, I thought. “And my first English week-end,” I said.
“Ah-h. What a pity to have it spoiled, like this. But you have been here several days, perhaps? I hope it hasn’t been entirely … unpleasant?”
“I arrived yesterday afternoon.” I was sure he knew that, too. He was a very tricky little number, and no mistake.
“Then you are observant, Mrs. Abbott.”
“Not specially. But I saw the girl several times. Yesterday. And I looked at her rather particularly because she was so very pretty.” If it hadn’t been for the injury it might have done Anglo-American relations I might have added that the English servants I’d met weren’t as a rule exactly beautiful.
“Yes. Of course. Certainly,” Inspector Yates kept agreeing to everything I said.
I told him how Kip had awakened us, and how we went to the bottom of the garden and saw the girl lying dead in the punt. I remarked that my husband hadn’t been too keen about my coming along. I rather like to have people know that Patrick finds my curiosity a pain in the neck.
“I shouldn’t wonder if it was suicide,” Inspector Yates said, when I had finished.
“Suicide?” I caught myself. “Oh, no,” I said. But no more. It was a trick. He knew it couldn’t be suicide.
“Why not, Mrs. Abbott?”
“Well—well, I saw Elsie last night, probably just before she left the house. She looked so very happy. She wouldn’t have looked gay and happy, if she was on her way to strangle herself.”
“Ah-h? Now, just what time was that, Mrs. Abbott?”
“I can tell you exactly, as it happens. It was twenty-seven or eight minutes past ten.”
“How does it happen that you can be so exact?”
“I went upstairs at that time to get a coat. We were going to meet my husband. He was to arrive on the eleven o’clock train—10:55—and we were going to row across the river and walk along the path to meet him. I didn’t want us to have to hurry, so I allowed myself plenty of time. It was twenty-five minutes past ten when I left the others in the playroom. I stopped in the hall for a few words with Miss Wells, then went on up, met Elsie, talked with her a moment, and went into the room. It was by this time exactly 10:29.”
“Why would she be in your room at that hour, Mrs. Abbott?”
“She had pressed a suit for me, Inspector Yates. She had just brought it back.”
“And she looked happy?”
“Very. She was all fixed up. She had done her hair differently and had her coat on, and no cap.”
“Do you happen to remember the conversation?”
“Oh, yes. I said she looked lovely, and she blushed. She said she was going to take a walk. I thought it was a funny thing that she would take a walk after being on her feet all day, but she looked so happy, so it wasn’t hard to guess that she probably had a date. I do hope she never knew she was being murdered, Inspector. Because, you see, she was so very happy.”
If you died when very happy, I meant, and didn’t realize you were dying, it wouldn’t be so bad.
“She knew,” Inspector Yates said, with sudden grimness.
“Did she have a date?”
“We don’t know about that yet. Constable Jackson is making inquiry in the village. We do know that her young man is home on leave. What you have told us is very important, Mrs. Abbott. According to the medical evidence the girl may have been dead within a short time after you talked with her last night. It seems curious, however, that, in going to meet your husband a few minutes later, you didn’t happen onto the murder itself, for there are signs of a struggle near the landing.”
“Signs?”
“The grass was trampled slightly. There was a button from Elsie’s coat found in the water among the waterlilies. You heard, or saw nothing last night?”
“But, we didn’t go,” I said. “That is, all the way.”
“We?”
“The Heywards—Mr. and Mrs. Heyward—and Mr. and Mrs. Erickson were going with me. We planned to cross the river and walk along the path towards the station—I told you that. That’s why we allowed so much time. But I got locked in my room.”
The inspector displayed some animation, which, however, he promptly banished.
“Locked in your room?”
“It was nothing. All my own fault. And it was all my own fault that I stayed locked in. The key was there all the time, apparently, behind the lamp on the table near the door. But I didn’t know it and the room was dark and I made what noise I could without actually screaming to attract attention, and waited, and meanwhile the others waited for me to come down, and when I did, it was too late to go to meet Pat. My husband. We only got as far as the landing, on this bank of the river, and waited there.”
“At what time was that?”
“It was ten minutes to eleven when Mr. Heyward unlocked my door.”
“Mr. Heyward?”
His tone made me nervous.
“It was Miss Wells—the secretary—who finally heard me knocking on the door. She called to Mr. Heyward, who had a master key. He opened the door. This morning I found the room key on the table. I think the lock caught as I went into the room—well, it’s all so silly. I don’t like to talk about stupid things I’ve done, do you, Inspector?”
“No. Come to think of it,” the inspector said solemnly, “I don’t. No. Oddly enough.”
Then he said, “It might have been a practical joke. Your being locked in, of course.”
“Oh, no. No one in this house would do that.” Unless Lorna Erickson, I thought. It would probably be her idea of fun. But of course I didn’t say it. “No, it was all my own fault. The latch must have caught somehow, and since I am specially dumb about such things, there I was … but it didn’t really matter, my husband arrived all right and everything finally was fine.” All the same, my mind registered, now that he had suggested it, Lorna might have done that. She had a streak of cruelty in her. That would be her idea of a joke. The house was familiar to her. There were probably other master keys. I had been in the bath, I needn’t have heard the lock turn … or maybe all she had to do was slip a catch … oh, heck, I thought, it was an accident, and my fault. I couldn’t be bothered really by thinking that someone had done it on purpose.
Inspector Yates gazed at me steadily.
“Now, let’s see, Mr. Heyward let you out, then you and Mr. and Mrs. Heyward and Mr. and Mrs. Erickson walked to the landing and waited there for Mr. Abbott.” I nodded. I decided not to say that Lorna didn’t show up, unless he had found out elsewhere that she wasn’t with us just at that time. I didn’t want to tangle with Lorna, in any way.
“Where is your room, Mrs. Abbott?”
“Above part of this one,” I said, with a glance around the huge drawing-room.
“Ah-h. That’s very interesting. Then you overlook the river?” I nodded. “Did you happen to be near your windows, at any time?”
Oh, dear. Lorna’s rendezvous. Did he know about that?
I put out my cigarette.
“Well, yes-s. I waited by the windows, most of the time.”
“You didn’t hear an outcry of any kind? A scream?”
I felt relieved.
“No.”
The inspector leaned forward to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray on the low table. “What you have just told me is very interesting, Mrs. Abbott. Thanks very much. Oh—ah—did you happen to notice the girl’s hosiery? Stockings, so to speak? Very fine American ones, I believe.”
“Yes. They looked very nice.”
“You gave them to her, possibly?”
“I? If I had a pair of that quality I would keep them in a bank!”
Oh-oh. I shouldn’t have said that. His round face, for an instant, had a ferrety look.
“Indeed?”
“That was just a crack, Inspector. They are nice, but we Americans always have had good stockings.”
“Elsie,” said the inspector, “is not American. And in her position in life—”
That expression, used often in England, always irked me. I had grown up in a country where fine stockings can be had at a reasonable price, so that any girl with any kind of job could have them if she chose.
When I attended again, Yates was saying, “Americans are known to be generous, so I assumed, rather, that you had given the girl the stockings. It is of no importance. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
I wasn’t fooled. It was important, and I knew it.
“Hello,” Lorna Erickson said, from the French door to the terrace. She entered. “I hope I’m not barging in? Joyce Wells said I was to report to the police. Are you the police?” she inquired, archly.
The inspector rose. I could see the impression she made. He liked her. He fell instantly for her smoky eyes and smoky voice, and probably for her stunning red outfit.
I introduced them. The inspector shook Lorna’s hand very firmly and looked directly into her eyes. “Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Erickson?” He put her in the other corner of my sofa. He took out his cigarette case. “Will you have a cigarette, Mrs. Erickson?”
Lorna produced her own.
“Not I. I smoke American. The English ones are too much work.”
“You’re quite right, Mrs. Erickson,” the inspector agreed. He offered me another, which I declined, and gave Lorna a light for one of her own. He got her an ashtray. He lit himself a fresh cigarette. All the time in the world, said the spider to another fly.
6
“You ask, and I’ll answer,” Lorna said, as though she were running the show.
I glanced at the inspector. If he wanted me to go he gave no sign, and since I wanted to see what sort of performance Lorna was going to give this time, I didn’t propose leaving.
He sat gazing, and with open admiration, at Lorna. He said yes, of course, and certainly.
She said, “Personally, I think the murder is outrageous. The girl was a nice creature. Now, if it had been me, there would have been some point to it. I’ve got enemies, Inspector Yates. I hate a few people and they hate me. But I’m alive and Elsie’s dead. It doesn’t make sense.” Lorna inhaled through her nose. “I shouldn’t be surprised if I’m not your star witness. I was the last to see Elsie alive.”
The inspector’s eyes looked rounder.
“Indeed?”
“Excepting the murderer, Inspector.”
“Yes. Oddly enough. Of course.”
“From what I can gather from the rapidly tangling grapevine, Elsie was popped off an hour or two before midnight last night. I saw her at ten o’clock. No one seems to have seen her after that.”
I glanced at Yates. He was gazing serenely at Lorna.
Lorna said, making a pouting face, “Now it must be told! I quarreled with Mr. Erickson last night, that is, he made me very angry, when we were playing pingpong, so I decided to go home. To London. He needed a lesson. Things were going on here I didn’t like anyhow. There’s a train leaving Staples for London at 10:30, so I went upstairs and got my little dressing-case, intending to walk to the station. As I came down the big stairs I met Elsie on her way up and I thought, oh, what the hell, Lorna—that’s me—why go at this hour when you can go in early tomorrow morning and nobody will know the dif, so I asked Elsie if anybody was using either of two small rooms on this floor—in this wing between this room and the library—they’re little sitting-rooms but they have divans in them and sometimes double as bedrooms—and she said no. The bed in one was made up, she said. She took my case and took me there and turned down the bed and I gave her five bob and told her to keep mum. I wanted Mr. Erickson to think I’d gone to town, see.” She smiled gaily. “That’s my story, Inspector.”
Yates kept nodding, as with understanding.
Lorna said, “I’m afraid it’s not very impressive. Unfortunately, I went to bed and straight to sleep and never heard one darn thing more.”
“And you missed the morning train?”
Lorna’s laugh rang out. “Oh, I slept the mad off, Inspector. I woke up this morning perfectly happy, having forgotten the whole thing.”
“What time did you get to bed, Mrs. Erickson?”
“It couldn’t have been later than five minutes past ten. It was a minute or two before ten by the big hall clock, which keeps perfect time, when I met Elsie on the stairs.”
“Was she in uniform then?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t mention that she was going out?”
“No. Why should she? I’m afraid I’m not the type servants confide in, Inspector.”
Yates laughed gaily. He likes her, I thought. He thinks she’s one of those breezy Americans, the kind that are always marrying dukes and earls and such. I’ll bet he thinks she used to be an actress. Well, maybe she had been. I wondered about that.
“You’re positive about that five minutes past ten?” Yates asked.
“Approximately. It might have been four minutes or six minutes. Had a good laugh all by myself thinking that it was the first time little Lorna had been in bed at that hour since she was going on three.”
She laughed again, a gay uncomplicated laugh. Yates laughed too. They seemed to have forgotten my presence.
But she’s lying through her teeth, I thought. She was outside our windows. And I didn’t go upstairs till 10:25. She knows something, I thought. She’s mixed up in it some way. She is fixing up an alibi for herself, which Yates won’t be able to break because the only one who knows the real truth is Elsie, and she’s dead.
Maybe she killed Elsie. Maybe she heard me in our room and thought that Elsie had overheard her outside, with Mr. Heyward, or maybe she did it out of jealousy.
In my mind the throaty voice echoed. “Does she know about us?” it asked again, as it had done it last night, under our window. And then, with another kind of laughter, “What have I got to lose?”
“Did anyone in the house besides the maid know you planned to go into London last night, Mrs. Erickson?”
“Not at the time. I left Mr. Erickson a note, but he didn’t know about it till later.”
“When did he know?”
“Oh, I imagine sometime around eleven. Whenever he went upstairs.”
“You sent him the note by Elsie?”
“Oh, no. Pinned it on his pillow, when I got my hat and bag. Romantic, don’t you think?” The inspector chuckled. “I didn’t expect to stay in the house all night when I wrote the note, but when I did stay I let it ride, thought it would do Mr. Erickson good to worry about me, for a change.”
“Is he in the habit of worrying about—other people?”
“Business, Inspector. I’m that kind of widow, you know. If I ever sue for divorce, I’ll name some cold-cream or soap account co-respondent.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Inspector Yates. And Lorna laughed.
