Spotted Hemlock

passage?’

‘I dare say we did it at school. Just let me get at that young beauty! He’ll need a suit of armour to protect himself, I can tell you! Leading my girl astray! How dare he think of marrying her? I never heard of such a thing!’

‘There are worse things than a legal union, surely?’

The woman’s face darkened.

‘I know I made a mistake myself,’ she said, ‘but that’s as may be. I looked forward to a bit of Norah’s company and… I won’t deny it… a bit of her money when she’d finished her college course. I mean, when you’ve kept a girl until she’s in her twenties, you can’t be blamed for wanting some return.’

Dame Beatrice wagged her head. ‘And when she was at home, what kind of person was she? Did she seem discontented, for example?’ she enquired.

‘Not as long as she got her own way. It was me marrying again that unsettled her. You’re right about that. I did wait until after she’d sat for her General Certificate, too, before I told her what I was going to do. Of course, she wasn’t with me very much, in a sense, between sixteen and seventeen. She had her school-friends and Saturday morning games—she was in all the school teams—a proper open-air type—and then, of course, I saw nothing of her, evenings, because I’d have the radio on in the dining-room and she’d be doing her homework on the kitchen table.’

‘What about holidays?’

‘I couldn’t afford them,’ said Mrs Biancini. ‘She had her bike, and that was all I could manage. She only had that because it saved the fares going to school.’

‘But you wouldn’t call her an unhappy girl?’

‘She seemed happy enough to me, but what I say is that children confide in anybody rather than their mothers, once they’re turned fourteen.’

‘Was she a quiet girl?’

‘Very quiet. I used to wonder, sometimes, if still waters ran deep. And now I know they must have done. Whatever could have made her rush into marrying that boy? He hasn’t got a penny to his name! What did she want to do it for? He didn’t get her into trouble, I hope?’

‘He says not.’

‘Humph! I’m not at all sure I’d take his word for it! I don’t trust those artistic types. It wouldn’t surprise me if… oh, well, I’d better not say it, I suppose.’

‘I understand you, but I agree that it should not be said. Was she a girl who formed many friendships with young men?’

‘Oh, she was normal, as to boys. I didn’t pass any objection so long as I knew who she was out with, and she was willing to bring them home and introduce them properly. But, there! You never know what girls get up to, out of your sight! This marriage of hers—I’m not sure it hasn’t upset me as much as the—as much as her passing away.’

She took out her handkerchief again. Dame Beatrice waited until she had recovered, and then asked gently:

‘When did you last see your daughter?’

‘During the summer holiday. She was at home for a few days and then said she had made plans to go away with this young art student. She’d been away with him before. I made no objection. Lots of young people go away together and have a good time and nothing wrong in it. And as for Tony, he was ever so good to her. Gave her the money, and quite a bit over, to spend there, and carried her bag to the station and saw she got a seat on the train, and everything. Not her own father could have done more to give her a send-off—I’m sure of that. Quite put himself out, he did, his own train going an hour later.’

‘Was her husband with her?’

‘No. He was to meet her down there the following day. He’d got something to do—a holiday job, I think—and couldn’t get away until the Sunday, or so she said. It seemed a pity for both of them to miss the Saturday, as they had to pay all the same.’

‘I see.’ Dame Beatrice made a note on Miss McKay’s blotter. A notebook, she thought, might frighten the witness into silence.

‘Then she came home at the end of the fortnight and was with us a couple of days before she went off to stay with her aunt at Harrafield. She was there about ten days and then she came home for a week before going back to the college. And to think that, all the time, she was married!’

‘I suppose she really did go to her aunt?’

‘Oh, she went, all right, because I got a postcard stamped at Harrafield, to say she’d arrived safely. Besides, her aunt would have let me know at once if she hadn’t arrived.’

‘Is the aunt your sister?’

‘No, my late husband’s.’

‘The police may want her address.’

‘They’re welcome. It’s the Hour-Glass Hotel, near the centre of the town. She’s the manageress there. Norah and I used to visit there together until I married Tony. But Sarah took exception to that, and told me I needn’t bring him there again. Nice, wasn’t it? You’d have thought we weren’t respectable! I told her if that’s how she felt, we wouldn’t trouble her any more for the rest of our lives. I was wild with her rudeness, I can tell you. Still, I wouldn’t stop Norah going. She was very fond of her aunt. Well, you’ve been very understanding, I’m sure. See you at the inquest, I expect? And now I’d better have a natter with Miss McKay before I go.’

‘Before you go, Mrs Biancini, there are just one or two points I should like cleared up. First of all, are you staying in the neighbourhood?’