Nest of Vipers

‘Yes, chiefly that, but I also found it very expensive.’

‘Did you know the party who was murdered?’

‘I do not think anybody knew her. I am told that she kept very much to herself. In any case she was dead before I arrived.’

‘The murderer must have known her, mustn’t he?’

‘Unless he was a burglar and killed her so that she should not scream and raise the alarm.’

‘A burglar? Oh, well, in a rich place like Weston Pipers that might well be, but that couldn’t be so with our murder, could it?’

‘Our murder? (The subject had come up easily and early.) ’Oh, you mean the man who kept that little shop on the corner. No, I shouldn’t think there was much worth stealing there.’

‘A load of old rubbish, that’s all. But he had other irons in the fire, so ’tis said.’

‘I heard he used to work at the local cinema.’

‘Oh, that was only very part-time. No, there used to be cars parked in this road after the shop was shut – big cars, some of them – and ladies in evening dress. We reckon he used to run a gambling place. The police came once or twice, but it seems they never found anything that shouldn’t have been there, and there was never noise or anything to complain of. Perhaps he was licensed or something, and the police couldn’t touch him.’

‘The police have been there again, I suppose, if he was murdered.’

‘Oh, yes.’

They discussed the gory details with relish.

‘Somebody who owed him gambling money. I wouldn’t wonder,’ said the woman. ‘Debts of honour they call them, and you can’t be made to pay, I don’t believe, but still no need to murder him, was there?’

‘Did nobody but women in evening dress get out of the cars? Were there no escorts?’

‘Now and again there would be gentlemen. There was one little tiny fellow I saw a couple of times. I only noticed him because he was so very small. Like a little doll he was. Of course it wasn’t the same lot come every evening. It was as if they all had their special times. I suppose there wasn’t much room for them all to come at once.’

‘Were any of the women noticeably tall?’

‘Tall? Oh, yes, a couple of them were, but the pretty one only came during the day. She was a good deal younger than the other. They never came together, not so far as I’m aware, and I haven’t seen the older one for weeks.’

‘Did you ever see a much older woman go that way in the mornings?’

‘Well, not very recent I haven’t. She used to come along some mornings – not every morning it wasn’t – and I reckon she used to go to the shop to do a bit of cleaning. Hurrying and scurrying she used to be, and with her head down as though she didn’t want to be noticed or to stop and speak to anybody. Her clothes was quite good, but sort of old-fashioned, as though she was poor but respectable and as if she’d known better days. Perhaps she hurried along because she felt that doing a cleaning job kind of demeaned her, though what I always say is that honest work is honest work and don’t demean anybody, not if they was the richest in the land.’

‘This, you say, was on certain mornings. You never saw her in the evenings, I suppose?’

‘Oh, well, yes, but it would have been months ago. That’s when I see her with the older one of them two tall ladies. They come together in one of the cars I mentioned, but I only see them once or twice, though there might have been times when I didn’t see ’em. Them times I did see ’em, the old one was still dressed the same, that’s how I recognised her. She was acting more like a chaperone, I suppose, though that do seem a bit out of date these days, don’t it? But it was mostly in the mornings I see ’em, and not together then they wasn’t, the tall one in the same car, which she left a bit beyond my front windows but still in this street, and the old one on her own, like I said, scurrying along on foot. But I haven’t seen anything of her for quite a week or two lately, so I reckon either she give up the cleaning job or else he sacked her.’

‘But you can’t be sure that either she or the tall younger woman visited the antique-dealer’s shop, can you?’

‘Well, being as you ask me, dear, yes, as it happens, I can be sure. Mind you, most times I only see one or other of ’em by accident, like as I might be cleaning my front windows or doing a bit of dusting in there, but sometimes I would have my hat and coat on to do my shopping early, and I walked up the street instead of down it and had to come past the shop and then there’s a flagged alley, a bit further along, which takes you down to the shops along the front.’

‘And you actually saw one or other of them go into the shop?’

‘I did that and with my own eyes. The time I saw the young tall lady, she was carrying a bundle, so I reckon she had tooken something to try and sell. The old one always carried a bag, but I reckon that was only her working overall.’

‘But once she wasn’t carrying anything, and another young lady came after her with it, but did not catch up with her.’

‘Now how do you know that?’ asked the woman, wide-eyed.

‘Only because that particular young lady was resident at Weston Pipers, and to that extent I became acquainted with her.’ Dame Beatrice did not say that she and Elysee had not been resident at the same time, but the woman asked no awkward questions and they parted with mutual expressions of goodwill.

‘Heaven bless the uneventful lives of home-based women,’ said Laura, when she had heard the story. ‘They notice everything, they remember everything and they often add up correctly. So you didn’t see the milkman?’

‘There was no point, since he is the wrong milkman. In any case, I do not think the one the police interviewed can be of any further help. All the same, I think this kindly and unsuspecting soul I visited has advanced the enquiry a little. She may have established a definite connection between Niobe Nutley and Miss Minnie. This, I imagine, would have been when Niobe made the excuse of coming to the town to bathe from the beach here. Were there any