谋杀启事28

Nine

CONCERNING A DOOR

I
“I’m sorry to bother you again, Miss Blacklock—”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I suppose, as the inquest was adjourned¹ for aweek, you’re hoping to get more evidence?”

Detective-Inspector² Craddock nodded.

“To begin with, Miss Blacklock, Rudi Scherz was not the son of the pro-prietor of the Hotel des Alpes at Montreux. He seems to have started hiscareer as an orderly in a hospital at Berne. A good many of the patientsmissed small pieces of jewellery. Under another name he was a waiter atone³ of the small winter sports places. His speciality there was making outduplicate bills in the restaurant with items on one that didn’t appear onthe other. The difference, of course, went into his pocket. After that he wasin a department store in Zürich. There losses from shoplifting were ratherabove the average whilst he was with them. It seems likely that theshoplifting wasn’t entirely⁴ due to customers.”

“He was a picker up of unconsidered trifles, in fact?” said Miss Blacklockdryly. “Then I was right in thinking that I had not seen him before?”

“You were quite right—no doubt you were pointed⁵ out to him at theRoyal Spa Hotel and he pretended to recognize you. The Swiss police hadbegun to make his own country rather too hot for him, and he came overhere with a very nice set of forged papers and took a job at the Royal Spa.”

“Quite a good hunting ground,” said Miss Blacklock dryly. “It’s ex-tremely expensive and very well-off people stay there. Some of them arecareless about their bills, I expect.”

“Yes,” said Craddock. “There were prospects⁶ of a satisfactory harvest.”

Miss Blacklock was frowning.

“I see all that,” she said. “But why come to Chipping Cleghorn? Whatdoes he think we’ve got here that could possibly be better than the richRoyal Spa Hotel?”

“You stick to your statement that there’s nothing of especial value in thehouse?”

“Of course there isn’t. I should know. I can assure you Inspector, we’venot got an unrecognized Rembrandt or anything like that.”

“Then it looks, doesn’t it, as though your friend Miss Bunner was right?

He came here to attack you.”

(“There, Letty, what did I tell you!”

“Oh, nonsense, Bunny.”)

“But is it nonsense?” said Craddock. “I think, you know, that it’s true.”

Miss Blacklock stared very hard at him.

“Now, let’s get this straight. You really believe that this young man cameout here—having previously⁷ arranged by means of an advertisement thathalf the village would turn up agog⁸ at that particular time—”

“But he mayn’t have meant that to happen,” interrupted Miss Bunnereagerly. “It may have been just a horrid⁹ sort of warning—to you, Letty—that’s how I read it at the time—‘A murder is announced’—I felt in mybones that it was sinister—if it had all gone as planned he would have shotyou and got away—and how would anyone have ever known who it was?”

“That’s true enough,” said Miss Blacklock. “But—”

“I knew that advertisement wasn’t a joke, Letty. I said so. And look atMitzi—she was frightened, too!”

“Ah,” said Craddock, “Mitzi. I’d like to know rather more about thatyoung woman.”

“Her permit and papers are quite in order.”

“I don’t doubt that,” said Craddock dryly. “Scherz’s papers appeared tobe quite correct, too.”

“But why should this Rudi Scherz want to murder me? That’s what youdon’t attempt to explain, Inspector Craddock.”

“There may have been someone behind Scherz,” said Craddock slowly.

“Have you thought of that?”

He used the words metaphorically¹⁰ though it flashed across his mind thatif Miss Marple’s theory was correct, the words would also be true in a lit-eral sense. In any case they made little impression on Miss Blacklock, whostill looked sceptical.

“The point remains¹¹ the same,” she said. “Why on earth should anyonewant to murder me?”

“It’s the answer to that that I want you to give me, Miss Blacklock.”

“Well, I can’t! That’s flat. I’ve no enemies. As far as I’m aware I’ve al-ways lived on perfectly¹² good terms with my neighbours. I don’t know anyguilty secrets about anyone. The whole idea is ridiculous! And if whatyou’re hinting is that Mitzi has something to do with this, that’s absurd,too. As Miss Bunner has just told you she was frightened to death whenshe saw that advertisement in the Gazette. She actually wanted to pack upand leave the house then and there.”

“That may have been a clever move on her part. She may have knownyou’d press her to stay.”

“Of course, if you’ve made up your mind about it, you’ll find an answerto everything. But I can assure you that if Mitzi had taken an unreasoningdislike to me, she might conceivably poison my food, but I’m sure shewouldn’t go in for all this elaborate rigmarole.

“The whole idea’s absurd. I believe you police have got an anti-foreignercomplex. Mitzi may be a liar¹³ but she’s not a cold-blooded murderer. Goand bully¹⁴ her if you must. But when she’s departed in a whirl of indigna-tion, or shut herself up howling in her room, I’ve a good mind to make youcook the dinner. Mrs. Harmon is bringing some old lady who is stayingwith her to tea this afternoon and I wanted Mitzi to make some little cakes—but I suppose you’ll upset her completely. Can’t you possibly go and sus-pect somebody else?”

 

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