‘But it was her daughter who was killed, not her husband.’
‘It was her daughter who was killed, yes, but I wonder – this is mere idle speculation, and perhaps you would do well to take no notice of it – but I wonder what we should find if Pastor Schumann’s body were exhumed?’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Maisry. ‘You don’t surely mean to suggest …?’
‘No, no, it was a passing thought, and she would have had no motive unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless Edward James was known to the family before Pastor Schumann died. We have been given to understand that Schumann was a schoolmaster and then gave up this work in order to write a book. What could be more likely than that he and James met as fellow-teachers? Even if they were not at the same school, there are inter-staff meetings for various purposes, teachers’ unions and the like, at which they could have got to know one another. After all, they had this common interest in theology, the one for his book, the other for his degree.’
‘Well!’ said Maisry. ‘You have given me something to think about! You mean she wanted James so much that she was prepared to murder first her husband and then her daughter in order to get him?’
‘I have little doubt of it, so now for Mr James.’
James was interviewed at the Stone House, which, previously, he had declined to visit. His attitude was abject and defeatist. The maid shewed him into the library where Maisry and Dame Beatrice were waiting to receive him, and his first words were:
‘Well, I’ve accepted your invitation rather than be called to the police station again, and, if you are charging me, I can only assert my complete innocence.’
‘I am not charging you, Mr James,’ said Maisry, ‘neither have I the smallest intention of doing so unless some entirely fresh evidence turns up which appears to point towards you, but I assure you that I consider this is utterly unlikely. You are here – and thank you for coming – because we think there are just one or two small points which you may be able to clear up for us.’
‘Yes, I see, but I can’t think what they are. I am absolutely certain I’ve told you every single thing I know.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
He is Dead and Gone Lady
‘Tommy’s gone! What shall I do?
Away down Hilo!
‘Oh, Tommy’s gone, and I’ll go too –
Tom’s gone to Hilo.’
(1)
‘First,’ said Maisry, ‘we would like you to tell us the full story of your acquaintance with the Schumann family. Did you know them, or any of them, before Miss Schumann joined the staff at your school?’
‘Oh, yes. The father, Heinrich Schumann, who was a Lutheran pastor in his own country, fled from Germany with his wife soon after Hitler came into power. I had not long left college and was in my first teaching post at an independent school in Bournemouth, and Schumann, seeing no prospect of continuing his own profession, took a post at my school as French and German master.’
‘The same subjects as his daughter taught.’
‘Yes, they were both excellent linguists and Schumann took to me because I could speak German and, of course, had as my main interest, even at that time, those theological studies which were his own delight. He was ten or twelve years older than myself, but that made his society the more enjoyable, as I have never been altogether at ease with my contemporaries.
‘After a time he took to inviting me to his home for weekends. He and his wife had a flat in Poole at that time, and, as I have always lived in lodgings since I left college, it made a very pleasant change for me, as you may well imagine.’
‘Mrs Schumann was not breeding dogs at that time, then?’
‘Oh, no. She often talked of it-she had done a little in that line in Germany – but, of course, living in a flat in a large and busy town, there was no scope for it.’
‘How did the couple get on? There were no children at that time, I take it.’
‘No, the twins, Karen and Otto, came much later. I am no judge of how couples get on, unless they quarrel, in which case’ – he gave his hearers a wry smile – ‘I suppose one would have to say that they don’t get on. I never heard a word exchanged between them which would indicate anything but a reasonably satisfactory relationship, but, all the same, I received an impression that they were not fully compatible.’
‘In other words,’ suggested Dame Beatrice, ‘Mrs Schumann found her life and her husband extremely dull.’
‘Well, one felt rather sorry for her, in a way. The flat was a small one, just three rooms, including the kitchen, and the only other thing was a tiny bathroom, so I don’t think she had enough to keep her occupied.’
‘So you never stayed the week-end?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed I did. They were very kind about that. They used to make me up a camp bed in the living-room and I used to go to lunch with them on Saturdays, sleep there on Saturday night and leave again on Sunday evening after church. We attended church together on Sunday mornings, too, Schumann and I. Mrs Schumann – Karla, as I was soon asked to call her – cooked the dinner and came
