about it, out comes the mistress and has a word with Joseph. Then Joseph gets her car out, and off she goes, and it was after that he comes into the kitchen.’
‘And he was in the kitchen until he was called out?’
‘Yess — all the time. He often came to sit there. But mark you, as a rule he liked to gossip, and Friday night he hardly said a word. And then the phone rang. “It’s like for me,” he said, and goes to get it.’
‘He was expecting the call?’
‘I would have said so.’
‘The telephone is in the corridor, Miss Jones. Is the kitchen near there?’
‘Indeed, it’s right beside it.’
‘Then you were in a position to hear the conversation?’
‘Oh yess — every word.’
‘Can you remember anything of it?’
‘I can, though not exactly. He was asking how to get to where it was.’
‘And anything else?’
‘No — nothing I remember.’
‘You wouldn’t have been close enough to have heard the voice of the person at the other end?’
She shook her head.
‘Or whether it was, in fact, Mr Lammas?’
‘No, I would not.’
‘But that was your general impression?’
‘Indeed yess, he sounded just as though he were speaking to Mr Lammas.’
‘Thank you, Miss Jones… please continue your account.’
The maid stroked down her lace-edged apron and paused before going on. There wasn’t any nervousness about her, Gently noticed; the authority of the mistress descended to the servant.
‘Well, Joseph hung up and told us he had to go to Ollby to fetch Mr Lammas. — “You’ll miss ‘Take It From Here’,” says Gwladys, looking at the clock, “it’s just on half-past eight, mun, why not go a little later? You can always say you’ve had some trouble with the car.” But he would not stay, not even for a cup of tea.’
‘He mentioned Mr Lammas, did he?’
‘Oh yess, he did.’
‘Go on.’
‘Why, then he goes, and me and Gwladys has our tea and toast, and listen to the wireless, we do, until it’s getting quite late. At last we hear Mr Paul come back on his motorcycle. He hasn’t been back five minutes when the mistress follows him and when they get together in the lounge there are words, I can tell you, though they keep their voices low.’
‘About what?’ inquired Gently eagerly.
‘I didn’t hear — and if I did, I might not tell you.’
‘This isn’t idle curiosity, you know…’
‘I know it isn’t — but then, I didn’t hear.’
Gently shrugged regretfully and motioned her to proceed.
‘An hour it goes on, if not longer. I never heard the like before between them. And then Miss Pauline comes in off the bus, and look you, it’s all over, just like that. The mistress rings for malted milk and biscuits, and then to bed without another word.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘Oh, half-past eleven at the soonest.’
‘The bus gets in when?’
‘Eleven o’clock, it does.’
‘Hmn.’
Gently leaned back in his chair and seemed to be studying the white sails which turned and drifted on the broad below.
‘Miss Jones… have you been very long with the Lammas family?’
‘I have been here four years and three months, come Michaelmas.’
‘Would you say it was a… happy family?’
‘I daresay there are worse, when you look about you.’
‘And what would you mean by that?’
She hesitated and then drew herself up with a flash of agression. ‘I mean she was too good for him by far — that’s what I mean! And if you’re asking me, I’d say that nobody will shed many tears now he’s gone!’
Gently nodded his mandarin nod.
‘That’s all, Miss Jones… will you send in the cook as you go through, please?’
Gently had tapped a source of peppermint creams in Wrackstead and he produced his bag now and offered it to Hansom. Hansom took one suspiciously to sample.
‘I never could see what was so damned special about these things!’
Gently tossed one to Dutt and another to the short-hand Constable. ‘They soothe the nerves, you know, and keep the brain clear.’
‘There must be something in it — you seem to get results on them!’
‘Try one the next time things are getting sticky…’
Hansom munched noisily a few moments and then said: ‘What was all that about the voice on the phone?’
Gently hoisted a non-committal shoulder. ‘I just like to know the minor details.’
‘You got an idea it was someone else — like the secretary?’
‘I keep ideas at a distance this early in a case.’
Hansom grunted and kept working on the peppermint cream.
‘Then there’s that row with the son… maybe that ties in somewhere. Yeah — and the way they went out and came back! It looks as though Paul’s ma was trailing him, and she must have known where he was going to keep five minutes behind.’
‘Could have known what the shover was up to, sir,’ put in Dutt brightly. ‘Might have been the son what finds out where Lammas is and gives the tinkle.’
‘Yeah — and it’s the son who’s sweet on the secretary; how about that for a hunch?’
Gently held up a restraining hand. ‘And you ask me what’s special about peppermint creams…! But getting off theory for a moment, what do you see in the garden, Dutt?’
Dutt cast his intelligent eye downwards.
‘Well sir, there’s a bloke tying up some sweet-peas.’
‘Just so, Dutt… we’ll assume he’s the gardener. Go down and have a chat with him, will you?’
‘Yessir. Directly, sir.’
‘Especially touching the incidence of jerricans in the garage…’
‘I get you, sir.’
‘And what other things your police-training suggests.’
Dutt clicked his heels smartly and descended to the garden by the veranda steps. At the same moment there was a confident knock at the door and the cook entered.
The cook was a dumpy middle-aged Welshwoman with a comfortable face and lively grey eyes. She came in with an expression of anticipation on her countenance, as though an incursion of policemen was something that brightened up her day, and took her seat before being asked.
‘Your name, please?’
‘Gwladys Roberts, spinster, look you.’
‘You are Mrs Lammas’ cook, I believe?’
‘I am too, but my father was in the Force and my brother is a sergeant at Cwmchynledd.’
‘Indeed? Then you will be familiar with the routine of interrogation, Miss Roberts…?’
‘Why should I not, when I was brought up at a Station?’
Gently took her over the same ground as had been already covered with the maid. Her answers were full and
