谋杀启事36

III

“Murgatroyd!”

“Yes, Hinch?”

“I’ve been doing a bit of thinking.”

“Have you, Hinch?”

“Yes, the great brain has been working. You know, Murgatroyd, thewhole setup the other evening was decidedly fishy¹.”

“Fishy?”

“Yes. Tuck your hair up, Murgatroyd, and take this trowel. Pretend it’s arevolver.”

“Oh,” said Miss Murgatroyd, nervously².

“All right. It won’t bite you. Now come along to the kitchen door. You’regoing to be the burglar. You stand here. Now you’re going into the kitchento hold up a lot of nit-wits. Take the torch. Switch it on.”

“But it’s broad daylight!”

“Use your imagination, Murgatroyd. Switch it on.”

Miss Murgatroyd did so, rather clumsily, shifting the trowel under onearm while she did so.

“Now then,” said Miss Hinchcliffe, “off you go. Remember the time youplayed Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Women’s Institute?

Act. Give it all you’ve got. ‘Stick ’em up!’ Those are your lines—and don’truin them by saying ‘Please.’”

Obediently Miss Murgatroyd raised her torch, flourished the trowel andadvanced on the kitchen door.

Transferring the torch to her right hand she swiftly turned the handleand stepped forward, resuming the torch in her left hand.

“Stick ’em up!” she fluted³, adding vexedly: “Dear me, this is very diffi-cult, Hinch.”

“Why?”

“The door. It’s a swing door, it keeps coming back and I’ve got bothhands full.”

“Exactly,” boomed Miss Hinchcliffe. “And the drawing room door atLittle Paddocks always swings to. It isn’t a swing door like this, but it won’tstay open. That’s why Letty Blacklock bought that absolutely delectableheavy glass doorstop from Elliot’s in the High Street. I don’t mind sayingI’ve never forgiven her for getting in ahead of me there. I was beating theold brute⁴ down most successfully. He’d come down from eight guineas tosix pound ten, and then Blacklock comes along and buys the damnedthing. I’d never seen as attractive a doorstop, you don’t often get thoseglass bubbles in that big size.”

“Perhaps the burglar put the doorstop against the door to keep it open,”

suggested Miss Murgatroyd.

“Use your common sense, Murgatroyd. What does he do? Throw thedoor open, say ‘Excuse me a moment,’ stoop and put the stop into positionand then resume business by saying ‘Hands up’? Try holding the door withyour shoulder.”

“It’s still very awkward,” complained Miss Murgatroyd.

“Exactly,” said Miss Hinchcliffe. “A revolver, a torch and a door to holdopen—a bit too much, isn’t it? So what’s the answer?”

Miss Murgatroyd did not attempt to supply an answer. She looked in-quiringly and admiringly at her masterful friend and waited to be en-lightened.

“We know he’d got a revolver, because he fired it,” said Miss Hinchcliffe.

“And we know he had a torch because we all saw it—that is unless we’reall victims of mass hypnotism like explanations of the Indian Rope Trick(what a bore that old Easterbrook is with his Indian stories) so the ques-tion is, did someone hold that door open for him?”

“But who could have done that?”

“Well, you could have for one, Murgatroyd. As far as I remember, youwere standing⁵ directly behind it when the lights went out.” Miss Hinch-cliffe laughed heartily⁶. “Highly suspicious character, aren’t you, Murga-troyd? But who’d think it to look at you? Here, give me that trowel—thankheavens it isn’t really a revolver. You’d have shot yourself by now!”

IV

“It’s a most extraordinary thing,” muttered Colonel Easterbrook. “Most ex-traordinary. Laura.”

“Yes, darling?”

“Come into my dressing⁷ room a moment.”

“What is it, darling?”

Mrs. Easterbrook appeared through the open door.

“Remember my showing you that revolver of mine?”

“Oh, yes, Archie, a nasty horrid⁸ black thing.”

“Yes. Hun souvenir. Was in this drawer, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Well, it’s not there now.”

“Archie, how extraordinary!”

“You haven’t moved it or anything?”

“Oh, no, I’d never dare to touch the horrid thing.”

“Think old mother whatsername did?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so for a minute. Mrs. Butt⁹ would never do a thinglike that. Shall I ask her?”

“No—no, better not. Don’t want to start a lot of talk. Tell me, do you re-member when it was I showed it to you?”

“Oh, about a week ago. You were grumbling¹⁰ about your collars and thelaundry and you opened this drawer wide and there it was at the back andI asked you what it was.”

“Yes, that’s right. About a week ago. You don’t remember the date?”

Mrs. Easterbrook considered, eyelids¹¹ down over her eyes, a shrewdbrain working.

“Of course,” she said. “It was Saturday. The day we were to have gone into the pictures, but we didn’t.”

“H’m—sure it wasn’t before that? Wednesday? Thursday or even theweek before that again?”

“No, dear,” said Mrs. Easterbrook. “I remember quite distinctly. It wasSaturday the 30th. It just seems a long time because of all the troublethere’s been. And I can tell you how I remember. It’s because it was theday after the hold-up at Miss Blacklock’s. Because when I saw your re-volver it reminded me of the shooting the night before.”

“Ah,” said Colonel Easterbrook, “then that’s a great load off my mind.”

“Oh, Archie, why?”

“Just because if that revolver had disappeared before the shooting —well, it might possibly have been my revolver that was pinched by thatSwiss fellow.”

“But how would he have known you had one?”

“These gangs have a most extraordinary communication service. Theyget to know everything about a place and who lives there.”

“What a lot you do know, Archie.”

“Ha. Yes. Seen a thing or two in my time. Still as you definitely remem-ber seeing my revolver after the hold-up—well, that settles it. The revolverthat Swiss fellow used can’t have been mine, can it?”

“Of course it can’t.”

“A great relief. I should have had to go to the police about it. And theyask a lot of awkward questions. Bound to. As a matter of fact I never tookout a licence for it. Somehow, after a war, one forgets these peacetime reg-ulations. I looked on it as a war souvenir, not as a firearm.”

“Yes, I see. Of course.”

“But all the same—where on earth can the damned thing be?”

“Perhaps Mrs. Butt took it. She’s always seemed quite honest, but per-haps she felt nervous after the hold-up and thought she’d like to—to havea revolver in the house. Of course, she’ll never admit doing that. I shan’teven ask her. She might get offended. And what should we do then? This issuch a big house—I simply couldn’t—”

“Quite so,” said Colonel Easterbrook. “Better not say anything.”

 

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