At that moment the gong took charge. Stoddart-West was an artist. He gave it everything he had, and all further conversation was inhibited.
Bryan carried in the joint, Lucy followed with the vegetables – returned to the kitchen to get the two brimming sauceboats of gravy.
Mr. Wimborne was standing in the hall putting on his gloves – as Emma came quickly down the stairs.
'Are you really sure you won't stop for lunch, Mr. Wimborne? It's all ready.'
'No. I've an important appointment in London . There is a restaurant car on the train.'
'It was very good of you to come down,' said Emma gratefully.
The two police officers emerged from the library.
Mr. Wimborne took Emma's hand in his.
'There's nothing to worry about, my dear,' he said. 'This is Detective-Inspector Craddock from New Scotland Yard who has come down to take charge of the case. He is coming back at two-fifteen to ask you for any facts that may assist him in his inquiry. But, as I say, you have nothing to worry about.' He looked towards Craddock.
'I may repeat to Miss Crackenthorpe what you have told me?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'Inspector Craddock has just told me that this almost certainly was not a local crime. The murdered woman is thought to have come from London and was probably a foreigner.'
Emma Crackenthorpe said sharply:
'A foreigner. Was she French?'
Mr. Wimborne had clearly meant his statement to be consoling. He looked slightly taken aback. Dermot Craddock's glance went quickly from him to Emma's face.
He wondered why she had leaped to the conclusion that the murdered woman was French, and why that thought disturbed her so much?
Chapter 9
I
The only people who really did justice to Lucy's excellent lunch were the two boys and Cedric Crackenthorpe who appeared completely unaffected by the circumstances which had caused him to return to England . He seemed, indeed, to regard the whole thing as a rather good joke of a macabre nature.
This attitude, Lucy noted, was most unpalatable to his brother Harold. Harold seemed to take the murder as a kind of personal insult to the Crackenthorpe family and so great was his sense of outrage that he ate hardly any lunch. Emma looked worried and unhappy and also ate very little. Alfred seemed lost in a train of thought of his own and spoke very little.
He was quite a good-looking man with a thin dark face and eyes set rather too close together.
After lunch the police officers returned and politely asked if they could have a few words with Mr. Cedric Crackenthorpe.
Inspector Craddock was very pleasant and friendly.
'Sit down, Mr. Crackenthorpe. I understand you have just come back from the Balearics? You live out there?'
'Have done for the last six years. In Ibiza . Suits me better than this dreary country.'
'You get a good deal more sunshine than we do, I expect,' said Inspector Craddock agreeably. 'You were home not so very long ago, I understand – for Christmas, to be exact. What made it necessary for you to come back again so soon?'
Cedric grinned.
'Got a wire from Emma – my sister. We've never had a murder on the premises before. Didn't want to miss anything – so along I came.'
'You are interested in criminology?'
'Oh, we needn't put it in such highbrow terms! I just like murders – Whodunnits, and all that! With a Whodunnit parked right on the family doorstep, it seemed the chance of a lifetime. Besides, I thought poor old Em might need a spot of help – managing the old man and the police and all the rest of it.'
'I see. It appealed to your sporting instincts and also to your family feelings. I've no doubt your sister will be very grateful to you – although her two other brothers have also come to be with her.'
'But not to cheer and comfort,' Cedric told him. 'Harold is terrifically put out. It's not at all the thing for a City magnate to be mixed up with the murder of a questionable female.'
Craddock's eyebrows rose gently.
'Was she – a questionable female?'
'Well, you're the authority on that point. Going by the facts, it seemed to me likely.'
'I thought perhaps you might have been able to make a guess at who she was?'
'Come now, Inspector, you already know – or your colleagues will tell you, that I haven't been able to identify her.'
'I said a guess, Mr. Crackenthorpe. You might never have seen the woman before – but you might have been able to make a guess at who she was – or who she might have been?'
Cedric shook his head.
'You're barking up the wrong tree. I've absolutely no idea. You're suggesting, I suppose, that she may have come to the Long Barn to keep an assignation with one of us? But we none of us live here. The only people in the house were a woman and an old man. You don't seriously believe that she came here to keep a date with my revered Pop?'
'Our point is – Inspector Bacon agrees with me – that the woman may once have had some association with this house. It may have been a considerable number of years ago. Cast your mind back, Mr. Crackenthorpe.'
Cedric thought a moment or two, then shook his head.
'We've had foreign help from time to time, like most people, but I can't think of any likely possibility. Better ask the others – they'd know more than I would.'
'We shall do that, of course.'
Craddock leaned back in his chair and went on:
'As you have heard at the inquest, the medical evidence cannot fix the time of death very accurately. Longer than two weeks, less than four – which brings it somewhere around Christmas-time. You have told me you came home for Christmas. When did you arrive in England and when did you leave?'
Cedric reflected.
'Let me see… I flew. Got here on the Saturday before Christmas – that would be the 21st.'
'You flew straight from Majorca ?'
'Yes. Left at five in the morning and got here midday.'
'And you left?'
'I flew back on the following Friday, the 27th.'
'Thank you.'
Cedric grinned.
'Leaves me well within the limit, unfortunately. But really, Inspector, strangling young women is not my favourite form of Christmas fun.'
'I hope not, Mr. Crackenthorpe.'
Inspector Bacon merely looked disapproving.
'There would be a remarkable absence of peace and good will about such an action, don't you agree?'
Cedric addressed this question to Inspector Bacon who merely grunted. Inspector Craddock said
