‘So I was informed. I was never approached personally in the matter.’
‘But you were sufficiently impressed by what you had heard to go to your solicitors about it.’
‘Merely another precautionary measure, Chief Superintendent. I was assured that there was no substance in the claim.’
‘That must have gratified you, sir.’
‘Not particularly. If the claim had been a valid one, the time to have made it was when the will was proved, not more than two years afterwards.’
‘Two years, sir?’
‘More than. Nearer three. I was a year in Paris while the renovations and some structural alterations were carried out, and my tenants, as I told you, have been in residence since May twelvemonth.’
‘Thank you for your help, sir. I wonder whether you can place a room at the disposal of my sergeant and myself?’
‘Do you mean you want an interview room? I thought you saw everybody on your first visit.’
‘Mr Evans and Mr Targe, who were with you when you broke into the bungalow, may be able to help us.’
‘Well, I expect my housekeeper will be prepared to give up her office to you for an hour or so.’
He and the sergeant remained for the rest of the morning. When they had gone, little Shard came to see me. The tenants wanted another mass meeting. Evans was to take the chair and they hoped very much that Niobe and I would be present.
This sounded ominous. Niobe thought so, too. She said she did not like it. They must have been putting their heads together. She hoped that the mass meeting was not to herald a mass walkout.
‘Well, I suppose you couldn’t blame them,’ I said. ‘Nobody likes being mixed up with the police, especially in a case of murder.’
The mass meeting took place in Evans’s large sitting-room immediately after lunch and Niobe’s pious hopes were soon dashed. It was clear that, as soon as the police would allow it, a mass walk-out was planned.
Evans, as one would expect, proved a competent, business-like chairman. He was hospitable, too. Coffee and an assortment of liqueurs were dispensed by Constance. The armchairs, some indigenous, some borrowed, were extremely comfortable. The tenants settled down ghoulishly.
‘I want to make it clear,’ said Evans, ‘that no personal feelings are involved. I’m sure we have all been very happy at Weston Pipers and the last thing we would have wanted is to leave.’
Here Niobe spoke up with some abruptness.
‘I hope you remember that you have all signed a three-year agreement,’ she said.
‘So had Billie and Elysee,’ Constance Kent pointed out, ‘but they went and so shall we.’
‘Please! No arguments at this stage,’ said her husband, ‘although circumstances do alter cases. The point is, Chelion, that whereas the fact of a murder wouldn’t do some of us any harm because of the nature of our work, it must have its effect on others of us. Besides, all this police questioning and probing is a confounded waste of our time and it also saps our concentration. I need all my energies for a damned Chapter Eight which is refusing to come right. I am not willing to expend them answering questions from the Chief Superintendent about matters which are no concern of mine.’
‘But you would still be subject to questioning, even if you left today,’ said Niobe.
‘Granted, and I have no doubt I could survive it, but there are others, as I say.’
‘Including me,’ said the soldierly Constance. ‘The publicity over this business will be the ruin of my books. You can write pulsating stories of star-crossed lovers, or you can get yourself mixed up in a sordid case of the murder of a defenceless, grey-haired old woman, but you can’t do both.’
‘Oh, there I think you exaggerate, Constance,’ said Targe.
‘No, I don’t. Maybe your own work won’t suffer at all. You may even be able to make capital out of this awful business, as will Mandrake and even Cassie.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Cassie McHaig. ‘My paper is very finicky about its reporters getting mixed up with the police. I’m supposed to champion the cause of the downtrodden, not to get myself a bit of notoriety by being questioned about the brutal murder of an old lady.’
‘Before we go any further,’ said Targe, ‘there is something I think Chelion ought to know. I’ve told the others, Chelion, and, to put our cards on the table, it is the real reason for our wanting to leave.’
‘I’m not sure this is the time,’ began Evans.
‘It’s got to be said, ’said Polly Hempseed. ‘Personally, unless I can get the reporters to mention me under my real name which, as most of you know, is Conway, I’m in the same boat as Constance. You can’t write letters of sob-stuff advice to the lovelorn in a woman’s paper and at the same time get yourself tied up in an unsavoury case like this one. I’m with Cassie all the way.’
‘Then why don’t you marry her?’ said Niobe. Everybody looked astounded at the boldness of this uncompromising question.
‘
Latimer Targe tried again.
‘With all respect to the chair,’ he said, ‘I feel I must speak. It is true, Chelion, that poor Miss Minnie did have a claim to this estate and her cousin’s money, isn’t it?’
I said, ‘She had no
