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II
Ellen proved to be grim but unafraid. Her sour old face looked tri-
“It’s a shocking business, sir. And I never thought I’d live to find myself
in a house where that sort of thing has been going on. But in a way I can’t
say that it surprises me. I ought to have given my notice in long ago and
that’s a fact. I don’t like the language that’s used in this house, and I don’t
like the amount of drink that’s taken, and I don’t approve of the goings on
there’ve been. I’ve nothing against Mrs. Crump, but Crump and that girl
Gladys just don’t know what proper service is. But it’s the goings on that I
mind about most.”
“What goings on do you mean exactly?”
“You’ll soon hear about them if you don’t know already. It’s common
talk all over the place. They’ve been seen here, there and everywhere. All
this pretending to play golf—or tennis—And I’ve seen things—with my
own eyes—in this house. The library door was open and there they were,
kissing and canoodling.”
say “Whom do you mean?” but he said it nevertheless.
“Who should I mean? The mistress—and that man. No shame about it,
they hadn’t. But if you ask me, the master had got wise to it. Put someone
on to watch them, he had. Divorce, that’s what it would have come to. In-
stead, it’s come to this.”
“When you say this, you mean—”
“You’ve been asking questions, sir, about what the master ate and drank
and who gave it to him. They’re in it together, sir, that’s what I’d say. He
got the stuff from somewhere and she gave it to the master, that was the
way of it, I’ve no doubt.”
anywhere?”
“Yew? Nasty poisonous stuff. Never you touch those berries, my mother
said to me when I was a child. Was that what was used, sir?”
“We don’t know yet what was used.”
Neele questioned her about the grain found in Fortescue’s pocket but
here again he drew a blank.
“No, sir. I know nothing about that.”
He went on to further questions, but with no gainful result. Finally he
asked if he could see Miss Ramsbottom.
Ellen looked doubtful.
“I could ask her, but it’s not everyone she’ll see. She’s a very old lady,
you know, and she’s a bit odd.”
The inspector pressed his demand, and rather unwillingly7 Ellen led him
along a passage and up a short flight of stairs to what he thought had
He glanced out of a passage window as he followed her and saw Ser-
gardener.
Ellen tapped on a door, and when she received an answer, opened it and
said:
“There’s a police gentleman here who would like to speak to you, miss.”
The answer was apparently10 in the affirmative for she drew back and
motioned Neele to go in.
The room he entered was almost fantastically overfurnished. The in-
spector felt rather as though he had taken a step backward into not
old lady was sitting laying out a patience. She wore a maroon-coloured
Without looking up or discontinuing her game she said impatiently:
“Well, come in, come in. Sit down if you like.”
The invitation was not easy to accept as every chair appeared to be
As he moved them slightly aside on the sofa Miss Ramsbottom asked
sharply:
“Interested in mission work?”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m not very, ma’am.”
Darkest Africa. Had a young clergyman here last week. Black as your hat.
But a true Christian.”
Inspector Neele found it a little difficult to know what to say.
The old lady further disconcerted him by snapping:
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, I thought perhaps you came about a wireless licence. Or one of
these silly forms. Well, man, what is it?”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you, Miss Ramsbottom, that your brother-in-
law, Mr. Fortescue, was taken suddenly ill and died this morning.”
Miss Ramsbottom continued with her patience without any sign of per-
turbation, merely remarking in a conversational16 way:
come.”
“I hope it’s not a shock to you?”
It obviously wasn’t but the inspector wanted to hear what she would
say.
Miss Ramsbottom gave him a sharp glance over the top of her spectacles
and said:
“If you mean I am not distressed18, that is quite right. Rex Fortescue was
always a sinful man and I never liked him.”
“His death was very sudden—”
“As befits the ungodly,” said the old lady with satisfaction.
“It seems possible that he may have been poisoned—”
The inspector paused to observe the effect he had made.
He did not seem to have made any. Miss Ramsbottom merely mur-
mured: “Red seven on black eight. Now I can move up the King.”
Struck apparently by the inspector’s silence, she stopped with a card
“Well, what did you expect me to say? I didn’t poison him if that’s what
you want to know.”
“Have you any idea who might have done so?”
this house are two of my dead sister’s children. I decline to believe that
anybody with Ramsbottom blood in them could be guilty of murder. Be-
cause it’s murder you’re meaning, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say so, madam.”
“Of course it’s murder. Plenty of people have wanted to murder Rex in
their time. A very unscrupulous man. And old sins have long shadows, as
the saying goes.”
“Have you anyone in particular in mind?”
Miss Ramsbottom swept up the cards and rose to her feet. She was a tall
woman.
“I think you’d better go now,” she said.
“If you want my opinion,” she went on, “it was probably one of the ser-
initely subnormal. Good evening.”
able old lady. Nothing to be got out of her.
He came down the stairs into the square hall to find himself suddenly
face to face with a tall dark girl. She was wearing a damp mackintosh and
she stared into his face with a curious blankness.
“I’ve just come back,” she said. “And they told me—about Father—that
he’s dead.”
“I’m afraid that’s true.”
She pushed out a hand behind her as though blindly seeking for sup-
port. She touched an oak chest and slowly, stiffly, she sat down on it.
“Oh no,” she said. “No… .”
Slowly two tears ran down her cheeks.
“It’s awful,” she said. “I didn’t think that I even liked him … I thought I
hated him … But that can’t be so, or I wouldn’t mind. I do mind.”
She sat there, staring in front of her, and again tears forced themselves
from her eyes and down her cheeks.
Presently she spoke again, rather breathlessly:
“The awful thing is that it makes everything come right. I mean, Gerald
and I can get married now. I can do everything that I want to do. But I
hate it happening this way. I don’t want Father to be dead … Oh I don’t. Oh
Daddy—Daddy… .”
was startled by what seemed to be genuine grief for the dead man.
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