A Murder is Announced

Chapter 3

At 6.30 p.m.

I

'Well, here we are, all set,' said Miss Blacklock. She looked round the double drawing-room with an appraising eye. The rose-patterned chintzes - the two bowls of bronze chrysanthemums, the small vase of violets and the silver cigarette-box on a table by the wall, the tray of drinks on the centre table.

Little Paddocks was a medium-sized house built in the early Victorian style. It had a long shallow veranda and green shuttered windows. The long, narrow drawing-room which lost a good deal of light owing to the veranda roof had originally had double doors at one end leading into a small room with a bay window. A former generation had removed the double doors and replaced them with portieres of velvet. Miss Blacklock had dispensed with the portieres so that the two rooms had become definitely one. There was a fireplace each end, but neither fire was lit although a gentle warmth pervaded the room.

'You've had the central heating lit,' said Patrick.

Miss Blacklock nodded.

'It's been so misty and damp lately. The whole house felt clammy. I got Evans to light it before he went.'

'The precious precious coke?' said Patrick mockingly.

'As you say, the precious coke. But otherwise there would have been the even more precious coal. You know the Fuel Office won't even let us have the little bit that's due to us each week - not unless we can say definitely that we haven't got any other means of cooking.'

'I suppose there was once heaps of coke and coal for everybody?' said Julia with the interest of one hearing about an unknown country.

'Yes, and cheap, too.'

'And anyone could go and buy as much as they wanted, without filling in anything, and there wasn't any shortage? There was lots of it there?'

'All kinds and qualities - and not all stones and slates like what we get nowadays.'

'It must have been a wonderful world,' said Julia, with awe in her voice.

Miss Blacklock smiled. 'Looking back on it, I certainly think so. But then I'm an old woman. It's natural for me to prefer my own times. But you young things oughtn't to think so.'

'I needn't have had a job then,' said Julia. 'I could just have stayed at home and done the flowers, and written notes...Why did one write notes and who were they to?'

'All the people that you now ring up on the telephone,' said Miss Blacklock with a twinkle. 'I don't believe you even know how to write, Julia.'

'Not in the style of that delicious "Complete Letter Writer" I found the other day. Heavenly! It told you the correct way of refusing a proposal of marriage from a widower.'

'I doubt if you would have enjoyed staying at home as much as you think,' said Miss Blacklock. 'There were duties, you know.' Her voice was dry. 'However, I don't really know much about it. Bunny and I,' she smiled affectionately at Dora Bunner, 'went into the labour market early.'

'Oh, we did, we did indeed,' agreed Miss Bunner. 'Those naughty, naughty children. I'll never forget them. Of course, Letty was clever. She was a business woman, secretary to a big financier.'

The door opened and Phillipa Haymes came in. She was tall and fair and placid-looking. She looked round the room in surprise.

'Hallo,' she said. 'Is it a party? Nobody told me.'

'Of course,' cried Patrick. 'Our Phillipa doesn't know. The only woman in Chipping Cleghorn who doesn't, I bet.'

Phillipa looked at him inquiringly.

'Here you behold,' said Patrick dramatically, waving a hand, 'the scene of a murder!'

Phillipa Haymes looked faintly puzzled.

'Here,' Patrick indicated the two big bowls of chrysanthemums, 'are the funeral wreaths and these dishes of cheese straws and olives represent the funeral baked meats.'

Phillipa looked inquiringly at Miss Blacklock.

'Is it a joke?' she asked. 'I'm always terribly stupid at seeing jokes.'

'It's a very nasty joke,' said Dora Bunner with energy. 'I don't like it at all.'

'Show her the advertisement,' said Miss Blacklock. 'I must go and shut up the ducks. It's dark. They'll be in by now.'

'Let me do it,' said Phillipa.

'Certainly not, my dear. You've finished your day's work.'

'I'll do it, Aunt Letty,' offered Patrick.

'No, you won't,' said Miss Blacklock with energy. 'Last time you didn't latch the door properly.'

'I'll do it, Letty dear,' cried Miss Bunner. 'Indeed, I should love to. I'll just slip on my goloshes - and now where did I put my cardigan?'

But Miss Blacklock, with a smile, had already left the room.

'It's no good, Bunny,' said Patrick. 'Aunt Letty's so efficient that she can never bear anybody else to do things for her. She really much prefers to do everything herself.'

'She loves it,' said Julia.

'I didn't notice you making any offers of assistance,' said her brother.

Julia smiled lazily.

'You've just said Aunt Letty likes to do things herself,' she pointed out. 'Besides,' she held out a well-shaped leg in a sheer stocking, 'I've got my best stockings on.'

'Death in silk stockings!' declaimed Patrick.

'Not silk - nylons, you idiot.'

'That's not nearly such a good title.'

'Won't somebody please tell me,' cried Phillipa plaintively, 'why there is all this insistence on death?'

Everybody tried to tell her at once - nobody could find the Gazette to show her because Mitzi had taken it into the kitchen.

Miss Blacklock returned a few minutes later.

'There,' she said briskly, 'that's done.' She glanced at the clock. 'Twenty-past six. Somebody ought to be here soon - unless I'm entirely wrong in my estimate of my neighbours.'

'I don't see why anybody should come,' said Phillipa, looking bewildered.

'Don't you, dear?...I dare say you wouldn't. But most people are rather more inquisitive than you are.'

'Phillipa's attitude to life is that she just isn't interested,' said Julia, rather nastily.

Phillipa did not reply.

Miss Blacklock was glancing round the room. Mitzi had put the sherry and three dishes containing olives, cheese straws and some little fancy pastries on the table in the middle of the room.

'You might move that tray - or the whole table if you like - round the corner into the bay window in the other room, Patrick, if you don't mind. After all, I am not giving a party! I haven't asked anyone. And I don't intend to make it obvious that I expect people to turn up.'

'You wish, Aunt Letty, to disguise your intelligent anticipation?'

'Very nicely put, Patrick. Thank you, my dear boy.'

'Now we can all give a lovely performance of a quiet evening at home,' said Julia, 'and be quite surprised when somebody drops in.'

Miss Blacklock had picked up the sherry bottle. She stood holding it uncertainly in her hand.

Patrick reassured her.

'There's quite half a bottle there. It ought to be enough.'

'Oh, yes - yes...' She hesitated. Then, with a slight flush, she said:

'Patrick, would you mind...there's a new bottle in the cupboard in the pantry...Bring it and a corkscrew. I - we - might as well have a new bottle. This - this has been opened some time.'

Patrick went on his errand without a word. He returned with the new bottle and drew the cork. He looked up curiously at Miss Blacklock as he placed it on the tray.

'Taking this seriously, aren't you, darling?' he asked gently.

'Oh,' cried Dora Bunner, shocked. 'Surely, Letty, you can't imagine - '

'Hush,' said Miss Blacklock quickly. 'That's the bell. You see, my intelligent anticipation is being justified.'

II

Mitzi opened the door of the drawing-room and admitted Colonel and Mrs Easterbrook. She had her own methods of announcing people.

'Here is Colonel and Mrs Easterbrook to see you,' she said conversationally.

Colonel Easterbrook was very bluff and breezy to cover some slight embarrassment.

'Hope you don't mind us dropping in,' he said. (A subdued gurgle came from Julia.) 'Happened to be passing this way - eh what? Quite a mild evening. Notice you've got your central heating on. We haven't started ours yet.'

'Aren't your chrysanthemums lovely?' gushed Mrs Easterbrook. 'Such beauties!'

'They're rather scraggy, really,' said Julia.

Mrs Easterbrook greeted Phillipa Haymes with a little extra cordiality to show that she quite understood that Phillipa was not really an agricultural labourer.

'How is Mrs Lucas' garden getting on?' she asked. 'Do you think it will ever be straight again? Completely neglected all through the war - and then only that dreadful old man Ashe who simply did nothing but sweep up a few leaves and put in a few cabbage plants.'

'It's yielding to treatment,' said Phillipa. 'But it will take a little time.'

Mitzi opened the door again and said:

'Here are the ladies from Boulders.'

''Evening,' said Miss Hinchcliffe, striding over and taking Miss Blacklock's hand in her formidable grip. 'I said to Murgatroyd: "Let's just drop in at Little Paddocks!" I wanted to ask you how your ducks are laying.'

'The evenings do draw in so quickly now, don't they?' said Miss Murgatroyd to Patrick in a rather fluttery way. 'What lovely chrysanthemums!'

'Scraggy!' said Julia.

'Why can't you be co-operative?' murmured Patrick to her in a reproachful aside.

'You've got your central heating on,' said Miss Hinchcliffe. She said it accusingly. 'Very early.'

'The house gets so damp this time of year,' said Miss Blacklock.

Patrick signalled with his eyebrows: 'Sherry yet?' and Miss Blacklock signalled back: 'Not yet.'

She said to Colonel Easterbrook:

'Are you getting any bulbs from Holland this year?'

The door again opened and Mrs Swettenham came in rather guiltily, followed by a scowling and uncomfortable Edmund.

'Here we are!' said Mrs Swettenham gaily, gazing round her with frank curiosity. Then, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, she went on: 'I just thought I'd pop in and ask you if by any chance you wanted a kitten, Miss Blacklock? Our cat is just - '

'About to be brought to bed of the progeny of a ginger tom,' said Edmund. 'The result will, I think, be frightful. Don't say you haven't been warned!'

'She's a very good mouser,' said Mrs Swettenham hastily. And added: 'What lovely chrysanthemums!'

'You've got your central heating on, haven't you?' asked Edmund, with an air of originality.

'Aren't people just like gramophone records?' murmured Julia.

'I don't like the news,' said Colonel Easterbrook to Patrick, buttonholing him fiercely. 'I don't like it at all. If you ask me, war's inevitable - absolutely inevitable.'

'I never pay any attention to news,' said Patrick.

Once more the door opened and Mrs Harmon came in.

Her battered felt hat was stuck on the back of her head in a vague attempt to be fashionable and she had put on a rather limp frilly blouse instead of her usual pullover.

'Hallo, Miss Blacklock,' she exclaimed, beaming all over her round face. 'I'm not too late, am I? When does the murder begin?'

III

There was an audible series of gasps. Julia gave an approving little giggle, Patrick crinkled up his face and Miss Blacklock smiled at her latest guest.

'Julian is just frantic with rage that he can't be here,' said Mrs Harmon. 'He adores murders. That's really why he preached such a good sermon last Sunday - I suppose I oughtn't to say it was a good sermon as he's my husband - but it really was good, didn't you think? - so much better than his usual sermons. But as I was saying it was all because of Death Does the Hat Trick. Have you read it? The girl at Boots' kept it for me specially. It's simply baffling. You keep thinking you know - and then the whole thing switches round - and there are a lovely lot of murders, four or five of them. Well, I left it in the study when Julian was shutting himself up there to do his sermon, and he just picked it up and simply could not put it down! And consequently he had to write his sermon in a frightful hurry and had to just put down what he wanted to say very simply - without any scholarly twists and bits and learned references - and naturally it was heaps better. Oh, dear, I'm talking too much. But do tell me, when is the murder going to begin?'

Miss Blacklock looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

'If it's going to begin,' she said cheerfully, 'it ought to begin soon. It's just a minute to the half hour. In the meantime, have a glass of sherry.'

Patrick moved with alacrity through the archway. Miss Blacklock went to the table by the archway where the cigarette-box was.

'I'd love some sherry,' said Mrs Harmon. 'But what do you mean by if?'

'Well,' said Miss Blacklock, 'I'm as much in the dark as you are. I don't know what - '

She stopped and turned her head as the little clock on the mantelpiece began to chime. It had a sweet silvery bell-like tone. Everybody was silent and nobody moved. They all stared at the clock.

It chimed a quarter - and then the half. As the last note died away all the lights went out.

IV

Delighted gasps and feminine squeaks of appreciation were heard in the darkness. 'It's beginning,' cried Mrs Harmon in an ecstasy. Dora Bunner's voice cried out plaintively, 'Oh, I don't like it!' Other voices said, 'How terribly, terribly frightening!' 'It gives me the creeps.' 'Archie, where are you?' 'What do I have to do?' 'Oh dear - did I step on your foot? I'm so sorry.'

Then, with a crash, the door swung open. A powerful flashlight played rapidly round the room. A man's hoarse nasal voice, reminiscent to all of pleasant afternoons at the cinema, directed the company crisply to:

'Stick 'em up!

'Stick 'em up, I tell you!' the voice barked.

Delightedly, handswere raised willingly above heads.

'Isn't it wonderful?' breathed a female voice. 'I'm so thrilled.'

And then, unexpectedly, a revolver spoke. It spoke twice. The ping of two bullets shattered the complacency of the room. Suddenly the game was no longer a game. Somebody screamed...

The figure in the doorway whirled suddenly round, it seemed to hesitate, a third shot rang out, it crumpled and then it crashed to the ground. The flashlight dropped and went out.

There was darkness once again. And gently, with a little Victorian protesting moan, the drawing-room door, as was its habit when not propped open, swung gently to and latched with a click.

V

Inside the drawing-room there was pandemonium. Various voices spoke at once. 'Lights.' 'Can't you find the switch?' 'Who's got a lighter?' 'Oh, I don't like it, I don't like it.' 'But those shots were real!' 'It was a real revolver he had.' 'Was it a burglar?' 'Oh, Archie, I want to get out of here.' 'Please, has somebody got a lighter?'

And then, almost at the same moment, two lighters clicked and burned with small steady flames.

Everybody blinked and peered at each other. Startled face looked into startled face. Against the wall by the archway Miss Blacklock stood with her hand up to her face. The light was too dim to show more than that something dark was trickling over her fingers.

Colonel Easterbrook cleared his throat and rose to the occasion.

'Try the switches, Swettenham,' he ordered.

Edmund, near the door, obediently jerked the switch up and down.

'Off at the main, or a fuse,' said the Colonel. 'Who's making that awful row?'

A female voice had been screaming steadily from somewhere beyond the closed door. It rose now in pitch and with it came the sound of fists hammering on a door.

Dora Bunner, who had been sobbing quietly, called out:

'It's Mitzi. Somebody's murdering Mitzi...'

Patrick muttered: 'No such luck.'

Miss Blacklock said: 'We must get candles. Patrick, will you - ?'

The Colonel was already opening the door. He and Edmund, their lighters flickering, stepped into the hall. They almost stumbled over a recumbent figure there.

'Seems to have knocked him out,' said the Colonel. 'Where's that woman making that hellish noise?'

'In the dining-room,' said Edmund.

The dining-room was just across the hall. Someone was beating on the panels and howling and screaming.

'She's locked in,' said Edmund, stooping down. He turned the key and Mitzi came out like a bounding tiger.

The dining-room light was still on. Silhouetted against it Mitzi presented a picture of insane terror and continued to scream. A touch of comedy was introduced by the fact that she had been engaged in cleaning silver and was still holding a chamois leather and a large fish slice.

'Be quiet, Mitzi,' said Miss Blacklock.

'Stop it,' said Edmund, and as Mitzi showed no disposition to stop screaming, he leaned forward and gave her a sharp slap on the cheek. Mitzi gasped and hiccuped into silence.

'Get some candles,' said Miss Blacklock. 'In the kitchen cupboard. Patrick, you know where the fusebox is?'

'The passage behind the scullery? Right, I'll see what I can do.'

Miss Blacklock had moved forward into the light thrown from the dining-room and Dora Bunner gave a sobbing gasp. Mitzi let out another full-blooded scream.

'The blood, the blood!' she gasped. 'You are shot - Miss Blacklock, you bleed to death.'

'Don't be so stupid,' snapped Miss Blacklock. 'I'm hardly hurt at all. It just grazed my ear.'

'But Aunt Letty,' said Julia, 'the blood.'

And indeed Miss Blacklock's white blouse and pearls and her hands were a horrifyingly gory sight.

'Ears always bleed,' said Miss Blacklock. 'I remember fainting in the hairdresser's when I was a child. The man had only just snipped my ear. There seemed to be a basin of blood at once. But we must have some light.'

'I get the candles,' said Mitzi.

Julia went with her and they returned with several candles stuck into saucers.

'Now let's have a look at our malefactor,' said the Colonel. 'Hold the candles down low, will you, Swettenham? As many as you can.'

'I'll come the other side,' said Phillipa.

With a steady hand she took a couple of saucers. Colonel Easterbrook knelt down.

The recumbent figure was draped in a roughly made black cloak with a hood to it. There was a black mask over the face and he wore black cotton gloves. The hood had slipped back disclosing a ruffled fair head.

Colonel Easterbrook turned him over, felt the pulse, the heart...then drew away his fingers with an exclamation of distaste, looking down on them. They were sticky and red.

'Shot himself,' he said.

'Is he badly hurt?' asked Miss Blacklock.

'H'm. I'm afraid he's dead...May have been suicide  - or he may have tripped himself up with that cloak thing and the revolver went off as he fell. If I could see better - '

At that moment, as though by magic, the lights came on again.

With a queer feeling of unreality those inhabitants of Chipping Cleghorn who stood in the hall of Little Paddocks realized that they stood in the presence of violent and sudden death. Colonel Easterbrook's hand was stained red. Blood was still trickling down Miss Blacklock's neck over her blouse and coat and the grotesquely sprawled figure of the intruder lay at their feet...

Patrick, coming from the dining-room, said, 'It seemed to be just one fuse gone...' He stopped.

Colonel Easterbrook tugged at the small black mask.

'Better see who the fellow is,' he said. 'Though I don't suppose it's anyone we know...'

He detached the mask. Necks were craned forward. Mitzi hiccuped and gasped, but the others were very quiet.

'He's quite young,' said Mrs Harmon with a note of pity in her voice.

And suddenly Dora Bunner cried out excitedly:

'Letty, Letty, it's the young man from the Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells. The one who came out here and wanted you to give him money to get back to Switzerland and you refused. I suppose the whole thing was just a pretext - to spy out the house...Oh, dear - he might easily have killed you...'

Miss Blacklock, in command of the situation, said incisively:

'Phillipa, take Bunny into the dining-room and give her a half-glass of brandy. Julia dear, just run up to the bathroom and bring me the sticking plaster out of the bathroom cupboard - it's so messy bleeding like a pig. Patrick, will you ring up the police at once?'