“It was on the Friday night,” she said, dropping her voice to a confidential monotone. “After dinner had been brought out, Mrs. Browning, that’s the housekeeper, sent me upstairs to see to the fires. I hadn’t been up there more than ten minutes when I come over faint.” She paused and eyed the two defiantly.
“I never touch liquor,” she said, and hesitated again. Abbershaw was completely in the dark, but Meggie had a flash of intuition, born of long experience of Mrs. Meade’s prototypes.
“But as you weren’t well you looked about for something to revive you?” she said. “Of course. Why not?”
Mrs. Meade’s dubious expression faded.
“Of course,” she said. “What else was I to do?”
“What else indeed?” said Meggie encouragingly.
“What did I do?” said the old woman, lapsing once more into the rhetorical form she favoured. “I remembered that in the Colonel’s study—that’s through his bedroom, you know—there was a little cupboard behind the screen by the window, where he kept a drop of Scotch whisky. That’s soothing and settling to the stomach as much as anything is. So, coming over faint, and being in the Colonel’s bedroom, I went into the study, and had just poured myself out a little drop when I heard voices, and the German gentleman with his friend Mr. Gideon and Dr. Whitby come in.” She stopped again and looked at Meggie.
“I didn’t holler out,” she said, “because it would have looked so bad—me being there in the dark.”
Meggie nodded understandingly, and Mrs. Meade continued.
“So I just stayed where I was behind the screen,” she said. “Mr. Gideon was carrying a lamp and he set it down on the desk. They was all very excited, and as soon as Dr. Whitby spoke I knew something was up. ‘What an opportunity,’ he said, ‘while they’re playing around with that dagger he’ll just sit where he is. We’re safe for fifteen minutes at least.’ Then the German gentleman spoke. Very brusque he is. ‘Get on with it,’ says he. ‘Where does he keep the stuff?’ ”
Mrs. Meade paused, and her little black eyes were eloquent. “Imagine the state I was in, me standing there with the bottle in me ’and,” she said. “But the next moment Dr. Whitby set me at peace again. ‘In the secret drawer at the back of the desk,’ he said. I peeked round the edge of the screen and saw ’im fiddling about with the master’s desk.” She fixed Meggie with a bright black eye. “I was upset,” she said. “If it hadn’t been for the whisky and the way it would have looked I’d ’ave gone out, but as it was I couldn’t very well, and so I stayed where I was, but I listened. For I said to myself, ‘The humblest of us are sometimes the ministers of the Lord,’ and I realized someone would have to be brought to justice.”
Her self-righteousness was so sublime that it all but carried her hearers away with it, and she went on, whilst they listened to her, fascinated.
“I saw them open the drawer and then there was such a swearing set-out that I was ashamed. ‘It’s gone,’ said Mr. Gideon, and Dr. Whitby he started moaning like an idiot. ‘He always kept them here,’ he kept saying over and over again. Then the German, him that’s for Hell Fire as sure as I’ll be with the Lambs, he got very angry. ‘You’ve played the fool enough,’ he said, in such a loud voice that I nearly cried out and gave myself away. ‘Go and fetch him,’ he said. ‘Bring him up here. I’ve had enough of this playing.’ ”
Mrs. Meade paused for breath.
“Dr. Whitby’s rather a sullen gentleman,” she continued, “but he went off like a child. I stood there, my knees knocking together, wishing me breathing wasn’t so heavy, and praying to the Lord to smite them for their wickedness, while the German gentleman and Mr. Gideon were talking together in a foreign language. I couldn’t understand it, of course,” she added regretfully, “but I’m not an old fool, like you might imagine. Though I’m sixty-two I’m pretty spry, and I could tell by the way they was waving their hands about and the look on their faces and the sound of their voices that the German gentleman was angry about something or other, and that Mr. Gideon was trying to soothe ’im. ‘Wait,’ he said at last, in a Christian tongue, ‘he’ll have it on him, I tell you.’ Well! …” She paused and looked from one to the other of her listeners, her voice becoming more dramatic and her little black eyes sparkling. Clearly she was coming to the cream of her narrative.
“Well,” she repeated, when she was satisfied that they were both properly on edge, “at that moment the door was flung open and Dr. Whitby came back, white as a sheet, and trembling. ‘Chief! Gideon!’ he said. ‘He’s been murdered! Stabbed in the back.’ ”
Mrs. Meade stopped to enjoy the full effect of her announcement.
“Were they surprised?”
Abbershaw spoke involuntarily.
“You be quiet and I’ll tell ’ee,” said Mrs. Meade, with sudden sternness. “They was struck silly, I can tell you. The German gentleman was the first to come to his senses. ‘Who?’ he said. Mr. Gideon turned on him then. ‘Sinisters?’ he says, as if asking a question.”
Meggie and Abbershaw exchanged significant glances, while Mrs. Meade hurried on with her narrative, speaking with great gusto, acting the parts of the different speakers, and investing the whole gruesome story with an air of self-righteous satisfaction that made it even more terrible.
“The German gentleman wasn’t pleased at that,” she continued, “but it was he who kept his head, as they say. ‘And the papers,’ said he. ‘Were they on him?’ ‘No,’ says the doctor. ‘Then,’ said the German gentleman, ‘get him upstairs. No one must leave the house till
