'She has been brought down from Cambridgeshire for questioning. It took some time to arrange a nursemaid for the mother.'
'Why, what time is it?'
'Five minutes before eleven o'clock.' I'd slept for twelve hours.
'Good Lord, the colonel will think I've walked out on him. I told him I'd stay until Friday.'
'I took the liberty of telephoning him at eight o'clock, to tell him you would not be to work today. He wished you well.'
'Yes. I have some explanations to make there, I fear. But why the coffee?'
'Your presence is requested by Mrs Erica Rogers.'
'Mrs Rogers? But why?'
'She told Lestrade that she would not make a statement without you present. My presence, though not required, is to be permitted.'
I shook my head in a futile attempt to clear it.
'Does she know who you are, then? That her gardener and the hero of 'Thor Bridge' are one and the same?'
'It would seem so, although I could have sworn she did not know while I was there.'
'But why me?'
'She did not tell Lestrade why, just that you must be there.'
'How extraordinary. And Lestrade didn't object?'
'If it persuades her to make a statement, no. She's a stubborn old lady, is Mrs Erica Rogers.'
'So I gathered. Here, take my cup. I must bath if I'm to deal with her.'
* * *
Inspector Lestrade's office was not the largest of rooms, and with seven people seated there on that warm morning, all of whom were to some degree anxious, it became a claustrophobe's nightmare and stifling besides. Not everyone present had bathed that morning, and the windows were totally inadequate.
On closer inspection, two people presented a front of cool composure. One was Holmes, inevitably; the other was Mrs Rogers, who shot us a glance that would have stripped the leaves from an oak tree before turning back to face Lestrade. Her solicitor was red-faced and damp-looking, and I thought that his heart was probably not in the best of condition. Lestrade was without expression, but the furtiveness of his eyes and the nervous way his small hands shuffled his papers made me think that he was apprehensive about the coming interview. The young uniformed policeman to his side held his notebook tightly and clasped a pencil as if it were an unfamiliar weapon— recent graduate of a stenographer's course, I diagnosed, and fished my own pad out of my bag to hold it up unobtrusively, raising an eyebrow at Lestrade. He nodded slightly, looking marginally relieved. Holmes and I took the last two chairs, next to a stiff police matron who looked anywhere in the room except at Mrs Rogers. When we had seated ourselves, Lestrade began.
'Mrs Rogers, I asked you to come down here today so I could take a statement from you concerning your movements on Wednesday the twenty-second of August, the night your sister, Dorothy Ruskin, was killed by an automobile, and on the night of the twenty-fourth, when the house belonging to Mr Holmes and his wife was broken into and certain objects were stolen.'
'Inspector Lestrade.' The corpulent solicitor's voice informed us that he was a busy man and found this unnecessary intrusion on his time rather annoying. 'Am I to understand that you are charging my client with murder and theft?'
'Suspected murder and burglary are being investigated, Mr Coogan, and we have reason to believe that your client may be able to assist us in this investigation.' Lestrade was cautious in his choice of words, but he would make a poor poker player. Everyone in the room knew what a sparse hand he held. Erica Rogers, on the other hand, was completely inscrutable.
'Inspector, my client has no objection to helping in a criminal investigation, so long as she is not the subject being investigated. As far as I can see, you have little to connect her with Miss Ruskin's death, save their blood relationship. Is that not the case?'
'Not entirely, no.'
'Then what evidence have you, Inspector? I believe my client has the right to know that, don't you?'
'I'll tell you what evidence they have, Timothy: They have nothing, nothing at all.' Mrs Rogers's voice was as hard and as scornful as her old vocal cords could make it, and I saw the young constable go white and drop his pencil, while my hand scribbled automatically on. 'They have a box of wrecked parts from the front of some motorcar that was brought into my grandson Jason's shop for repair, and they have the story of a woman who was drunk at the time but miraculously recovered her memory after being mesmerised, who described a person fitting Jason's general description. That is nothing, Chief Inspector. I had no reason to kill my sister, now did I? Yes, I thought her digging holes in the Holy Land was a waste of time, but I can't see you taking that in front of a judge and jury as some kind of a motive for murder. And as for the two of you'— she swung around to where Holmes and I sat and stabbed at us with her eyes—'I wanted you here so you could see just what your prying and nosing about get you: nothing. You, young lady, though I don't know that
'And as for you, Mr Basil, or Sherlock Holmes, or whoever you are, I hope you're proud of yourself, the way you wheedled your way in my door, ate my food, slept in my shed, took my money, and then used my generosity to spy on me. Can you imagine how I felt when Mr Coogan here shows me a photograph of Mr Sherlock Holmes and I see it's old Mr Basil, who's been working in my potato patch? Inside my house? It made me feel dirty, it did, and I have half a mind to have you arrested for it.'
'I beg your pardon, madam,' broke in Holmes, in his most supercilious manner, 'but with what do you imagine I could be charged? Impersonating an officer, in my ancient tweeds? Hardly. Fraud? With what did I defraud you? You hired me to do work; I did the work, at, I might say, considerably lower wages than I generally pay my own workers and in considerably poorer conditions. No, madam, I broke no laws, and had you consulted your expensive legal counsellor before threatening me, he would have told you that.'His voice turned cold. 'Now, madam, I suggest that you stop wasting the time of these officers of the law and continue with your statement.'
Her eyes narrowed as she realised what she had been harbouring in the unshaven person of Mr Basil. She glanced at Lestrade and Mr Coogan, then down at her hands, which held no knitting.
'I have nothing to say,' she said sullenly.
'I'm afraid I shall have to insist, Mrs Rogers,' said Lestrade.
'Then I want them out of here,' and she jerked her head at us.
'Mrs Rogers, you asked for them to be here,' protested Lestrade. 'You insisted on it.'
'Yes, well, I've had my say, and now I want them gone.'
Lestrade looked at us helplessly, and I folded my notebook and stood up.
'Don't worry about it, Chief Inspector,' I said. 'You can't be held responsible for the whims of other people. Or for their lack of manners,' I added sweetly. 'Good day, Mrs Rogers, Mr Coogan. I shall be down the hall, Chief Inspector, borrowing a typewriter.'
As we went through the door, Mrs Rogers fired her final peevish shot at Holmes.
'And you made a rotten job of the wallpaper, too!'
* * *
It took only a few minutes to type a transcription of my shorthand, and it took Lestrade only slightly longer to receive Mrs Rogers's statement. He was sitting slumped at his desk, staring at it morosely, when we returned to his office. He straightened abruptly, glanced at Holmes and away, and fumbled with unnecessary attention at lighting a cigarette.
'How could she have known our evidence? Or lack of it?' He said finally.
'Did you leave her alone with that young constable who was taking notes?' enquired Holmes.
'He sat with her on the way down from Cambridgeshire, but— Good Lord, he told her? But how could he be so stupid?'
'With Mrs Erica Rogers, I shouldn't wager that you wouldn't have told her yourself, if she started in on you. She's a very clever woman. Don't be too hard on him.'
