III
Inspector Craddock looked with more attention at Emma Crackenthorpe than he had done previously. He was still wondering about the expression that he had surprised on her face before lunch. A quiet woman. Not stupid. Not brilliant either. One of those comfortable pleasant women whom men were inclined to take for granted, and who had the art of making a house into a home, giving it an atmosphere of restfulness and quiet harmony. Such, he thought, was Emma Crackenthorpe.
Women such as this were often underrated. Behind their quiet exterior they had force of character, they were to be reckoned with. Perhaps, Craddock thought, the clue to the mystery of the dead woman in the sarcophagus was hidden away in the recesses of Emma's mind.
Whilst these thoughts were passing through his head; Craddock was asking various unimportant questions.
'I don't suppose there is much that you haven't already told Inspector Bacon,' he said. 'So I needn't worry you with many questions.'
'Please ask me anything you like.'
'As Mr. Wimborne told you, we have reached the conclusion that the dead woman was not a native of these parts. That may be a relief to you – Mr. Wimborne seemed to think it would be – but it makes it really more difficult for us. She's less easily identified.'
'But didn't she have anything – a handbag? Papers?'
Craddock shook his head.
'No handbag, nothing in her pockets.'
'You've no idea of her name – of where she came from – anything at all?'
Craddock thought to himself: She wants to know – she's very anxious to know – who the woman is. Has she felt like that all along, I wonder? Bacon didn't give me that impression – and he's a shrewd man…
'We know nothing about her,' he said. 'That's why we hoped one of you could help us. Are you sure you can't? Even if you didn't recognise her – can you think of anyone she might be?'
He thought, but perhaps he imagined it, that there was a very slight pause before she answered.
'I've absolutely no idea,' she said.
Imperceptibly, Inspector Craddock's manner changed. It was hardly noticeable except as a slight hardness in his voice.
'When Mr. Wimborne told you that the woman was a foreigner, why did you assume that she was French?'
Emma was not disconcerted. Her eyebrows rose slightly.
'Did I? Yes, I believe I did. I don't really know why – except that one always tends to think foreigners are French until one finds out what nationality they really are. Most foreigners in this country are French, aren't they?'
'Oh, I really wouldn't say that was so, Miss Crackenthorpe. Not nowadays. We have so many nationalities over here, Italians, Germans, Austrians, all the Scandinavian countries –'
'Yes, I suppose you're right.'
'You didn't have some special reason for thinking that this woman was likely to be French.'
She didn't hurry to deny it. She just thought a moment and then shook her head almost regretfully.
'No,' she said. 'I really don't think so.'
Her glance met his placidly, without flinching. Craddock looked towards Inspector Bacon. The latter leaned forward and presented a small enamel powder compact.
'Do you recognise this, Miss Crackenthorpe?'
She took it and examined it.
'No. It's certainly not mine.'
'You've no idea to whom it belonged?'
'No.'
'Then I don't think we need worry you any more – for the present.'
'Thank you.'
She smiled briefly at them, got up, and left the room. Again he may have imagined it, but Craddock thought she moved rather quickly, as though a certain relief hurried her.
'Think she knows anything?' asked Bacon.
Inspector Craddock said ruefully:
'At a certain stage one is inclined to think everyone knows a little more than they are willing to tell you.'
'They usually do, too,' said Bacon out of the depth of his experience. 'Only,' he added, 'it quite often isn't anything to do with the business in hand. It's some family peccadillo or some silly scrape that people are afraid is going to be dragged into the open.'
'Yes, I know. Well, at least –'
But whatever Inspector Craddock had been about to say never got said, for the door was flung open and old Mr. Crackenthorpe shuffled in in a high state of indignation.
'A pretty pass,' he said. 'Things have come to a pretty pass, when Scotland Yard comes down and doesn't have the courtesy to talk to the head of the family first! Who's the master of this house, I'd like to know? Answer me that? Who's master here?'
'You are, of course, Mr. Crackenthorpe,' said Craddock soothingly and rising as he spoke. 'But we understood that you had already told Inspector Bacon all you knew, and that, your health not being good, we must not make too many demands upon it. Dr. Quimper said –'
'I dare say – I dare say. I'm not a strong man… As for Dr. Quimper, he's a regular old woman – perfectly good doctor, understands my case – but inclined to wrap me up in cotton-wool. Got a bee in his bonnet about food. Went on at me Christmas-time when I had a bit of a turn – what did I eat? When? Who cooked it? Who served it? Fuss, fuss, fuss! But though I may have indifferent health, I'm well enough to give you all the help that's in my power. Murder in my own house – or at any rate in my own barn! Interesting building, that. Elizabethan. Local architect says not – but fellow doesn't know what he's talking about. Not a day later than 1580 – but that's not what we're talking about. What do you want to know? What's your present theory?'
'It's a little too early for theories, Mr. Crackenthorpe. We are still trying to find out who the woman was?'
'Foreigner, you say?'
'We think so.'
'Enemy agent?'
'Unlikely, I should say.'
'You'd say – you'd say! They're everywhere, these people. Infiltrating! Why the Home Office lets them in beats me. Spying on industrial secrets, I'd bet. That's what she was doing.'
'In Brackhampton?'
'Factories everywhere. One outside my own back gate.'
Craddock shot an inquiring glance at Bacon who responded.
'Metal Boxes.'
'How do you know that's what they're really making? Can't swallow all these fellows tell you. All right, if she wasn't a spy, who do you think she was? Think she was mixed up with one of my precious sons? It would be Alfred, if so. Not Harold, he's too careful. And Cedric doesn't condescend to live in this country. All right, then, she was Alfred's bit of skirt. And some violent fellow followed her down here, thinking she was coming to meet him and did her in. How's that?'
Inspector Craddock said diplomatically that it was certainly a theory. But Mr. Alfred Crackenthorpe, he said, had not recognised her.
'Pah! Afraid, that's all! Alfred always was a coward. But he's a liar, remember, always was! Lie himself black
