She suspected that Susie had only come home to live because she had got herself into some sort of trouble in London. Susie could have confirmed this opinion, had she cared to do so, for she had been taken up for shoplifting in a big London store, and was lucky to have had the case dismissed. Not for one moment had the mother ever believed that her daughter had returned home solely on account of the death of Cozens.
Susie knew her mother well enough to realize that if she stayed at home on this particular Sunday, she would have to prepare herself for a most unpleasant afternoon, so, in spite of the weather, she dressed herself in her best and prepared to set out on her usual Sunday afternoon walk to the “Swinging Sign.” Usually she left the shop at approximately half-past three. By walking briskly she could thus expect to reach the inn round about ten minutes past four. Tea was at five, which gave John roughly thirty minutes, after she had had the promised bath, to sit beside her on the sofa, while Malachi was having his Sunday afternoon sleep and Dora was washing up the dinner- things and changing into her Sunday dress and getting the tea ready in the kitchen.
On this particular Sunday, however, Susie was delayed. She was up in her bedroom putting the finishing touches to her hair, and wondering whether to tell John about Helm and the funny way he had offered her a sea- water bath, when a car drew up. A minute later her mother was calling her downstairs. Roy had come with a message from the squire to request that Mrs. Cozens and Susie would return with Roy to the big house, as the cook had fallen downstairs, and the squire was expecting visitors to dinner.
“You can go, but I shan’t,” said Susie decidedly.
As an engaged girl, she felt independent of the squire, whom she disliked. If he had been a little less mean over the question of Roy’s wages, she had decided some six days previously, she might not have allowed herself to become engaged to young John Spratt. Privately she considered that her charms were being wasted on John. On the previous Sunday, for instance, he had not even sat beside her on the sofa. He had taken the wireless set to pieces and made her hold small spare parts while he corrected some defect. It had taken him the best part of two hours. She had been intending to tell him about Mr. Helm then but was so bored and angry that she had not done so.
“Might as well be married already,” Susie had thought. She had become sufficiently exasperated to drop a small nut between two gaping boards in the sitting-room floor.
John had been annoyed and quite unreasonably profane about it. She was going over to make her peace with him as much as for any other reason. Besides, Helm had frightened her.
“All right. If you don’t go, our Sue, I shan’t go neither,” said her mother unreasonably.
“I’ll go by myself, but I won’t go along with you,” said Susie, suddenly changing her mind about the visit to John. “Start her up, Mr. Roy,” she added to the chauffeur.
She was quite ready. She had only to slip into hat and coat. Mrs. Cozens, on the other hand, was still in her kitchen garb. Roy was in a hurry, so, with a half-promise flung over his shoulder to Mrs. Cozens that he would return for her later, he started up the engine, and soon the car was lost to sight in the thick white mist which was already blotting out the daylight.
The car crawled along the old main road through the thick mist, and Susie, seriously alarmed at the prospect of an accident, began to suggest to Roy that he should drop her at the cross roads and make some excuse to the squire. Roy, who knew that if Susie and her mother did not come to the rescue, the servants, equally with the squire, would get no evening meal, invited her to think again, and drove on, carefully but steadily, through the white vapour.
It was very cold. Hedges would loom suddenly out of the mist. Once they were almost ditched. It was uncomfortable and terrifying. At last they reached the big house, managed the turn at the lodge gates, and the journey was over. It was then, according to Susie’s wrist-watch, which she had set right that morning by the 10.30 a.m. broadcast signal from Greenwich, just after half-past four. It had taken an hour for the car to do the three and a half miles which lay between Susie’s house and the big house. Once they had stopped while Roy gave directions to a man who had lost himself in the mist.
“You’d better go straight back for mother,” said Susie, as she got out of the car. She stood at the side of the drive and watched while Roy circumnavigated a clump of bushes round which the drive made a circle. The car crawled away. Susie waited until she could hear it no longer, and then went round the house to the side door, where she was admitted by the kitchenmaid. About a quarter of an hour later Roy appeared.
“Didn’t you go back for mother?” asked Susie. He grinned and shrugged.
“Had enough of driving in this fog for one day,” he informed her.
“Well, she won’t come on her own two legs, not mother won’t,” said Susie. “So you better get a move on. I can’t manage a dinner by myself.”
Roy swore at her.
“Thought you’d parted brass-rags and wouldn’t have her come with us,” he said.
“Never mind that,” said the inconsistent Susie. “You get out that car and go after her. As it is, she’ll only be in time to see to the sweet. Get on out of here.”
“Start up the dinner and leave Fatty to look after it,” suggested Roy, indicating the fifteen-year-old kitchenmaid, “and come along with me, then.”
Susie demurred. Roy insisted. The kitchenmaid giggled. In the end, Susie had her way, and remained behind, and Roy, very sulkily, went off alone. He returned at six to find that Susie had disappeared. Susie’s mother sniffed, and went on with the dinner, presumably where Susie had left off. The kitchenmaid, questioned by Roy, announced that Susie had gone “out the back” and had not returned. A little later, a man, well-muffled, came to the back door and inquired for Susie.
By ten o’clock that night three of the squire’s guests had telephoned to say that their cars were fog-bound, the dinner was eaten, and it was declared impossible for Mrs. Cozens to find her way home that night. So she was given a camp-bed in the kitchenmaid’s room, and by eleven o’clock all lights in the big house were extinguished and everything was quiet. Later on in the week, Mrs. Cozens told several sympathizers, including the gentlemen of the press, that she did not sleep a wink all night
“I had them premonitions,” she declared, “d’reckly I saw that man. Like a commercial he was, only more so. Asked right out for her as bold as brass, and her engaged to one man and as good as half-promised to another. I soon sent him off with a flea in his ear. I’ve got a good eye for picking out faces, and if he wasn’t the very spit and image of that monster—what was his name, now? —I remember thinking it suited him right down to the ground!— oh, Cutler. That’s it. Cutler. I don’t read the Sunday papers for nothing. Got a regular gallery of murderers, I have, in the back of me head, and although he was let off with a caution, I reckon he’s a murderer as sure as eggs is eggs.
