And living so pleasantly together as they did. Of course, they hadn't lived there very long.'
'No, I suppose they hadn't,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'They lived somewhere near Bournemouth, didn't they, when they first came to England?'
'Yes, but they found it was a bit too far for getting to London from there, and so that's why they came to Chipping Bartram. Very nice house it was, and a nice garden.'
'Were they both in good health when you were working for them last?'
'Well, they felt their age a bit as most people do. The General, he'd had some kind of heart trouble or a slight stroke. Something of that kind, you know. They'd take pills, you know, and lie up a bit from time to time.'
'And Mrs, Ravenscroft?'
'Well, I think she missed the life she'd had abroad, you know. They didn't know so very many people there, although they got to know a good many families, of course, being the sort of class they were. But I suppose it wasn't like India or those places. You know, where you have a lot of servants. I suppose gay parties and that sort of thing.'
'You think she missed her gay parties?'
'Well, I don't know that exactly.'
'Somebody told me she'd taken to wearing a wig.'
'Oh, she'd got several wigs,' said Mrs. Buckle, smiling slightly. 'Very smart ones and very expensive. You know, from time to time she'd send one back to the place she'd got it from in London, and they'd redress it for her again and send it. There were all kinds. You know, there was one with auburn hair, and one with little gray curls all over her head, Really, she looked very nice in that one. And two-well, not so attractive really but useful for-you know-windy days when you wanted something to put on when it might be raining. Thought a lot about her appearance, you know, and spent a lot of her money on clothes.'
'What do you think was the cause of the tragedy?' said Mrs. Oliver. 'You see, not being anywhere near here and not seeing any of my friends at that time because I was in America, I missed hearing anything about it and, well, one doesn't like to ask questions or write letters about things of that kind. I suppose there must have been some cause. I mean, it was General Ravenscroft's own revolver that was used, I understand.'
'Oh, yes, he had two of those in the house because he said that no house was safe without. Perhaps he was right there, you know. Not that they'd had any trouble beforehand as far as I know. One afternoon a rather nasty sort of fellow came along to the door. Didn't like the look of him, I didn't. Wanted to see the General. Said he'd been in the General's regiment when he was a young fellow. The General asked him a few questions and I think thought as how he didn't-well, thought he wasn't very reliable. So he sent him off.'
'You think then that it was someone outside that did it?'
'Well, I think it must have been, because I can't see any other thing. Mind you, I didn't like the man who came and did the gardening for them very much. He hadn't got a very good reputation and I gather he'd had a few jail sentences earlier in his life. But of course the General took up his references and he wanted to give him a chance.'
'So you think the gardener might have killed them?'
'Well, I--I always thought that. But then I'm probably wrong. But it doesn't seem to me- I mean, the people who said there was some scandalous story or something about either her or him and that either he'd shot her or she'd shot him, that's all nonsense, I'd say. No, it was some outsider.
One of these people that-well, it's not as bad as it is nowadays because that, you must remember, was before people began getting all this violence idea. But look at what you read in the papers every day now. Young men, practically only boys still, taking a lot of drugs and going wild and rushing about, shooting a lot of people for nothing at all, asking a girl in a pub to have a drink with them and then they see her home and next day her body's found in a ditch. Stealing children out of prams from their mothers, taking a girl to a dance and murdering her or strangling her on the way back.
If anything, you feel as anyone can do anything. And anyway, there's that nice couple, the General and his wife, out for a nice walk in the evening, and there they were, both shot through the head.'
'Was it through the head?'
'Well, I don't remember exactly now and of course I never saw anything myself. But anyway, just went for a walk as they often did.'
'And they'd not been on bad terms with each other?'
'Well, they had words now and again, but who doesn't?'
'No boy friend or girl friend?'
'Well, if you can use that term of people of that age, oh, I mean there was a bit of talk here and there, but it was all nonsense. Nothing to it at all. People always want to say something of that kind.'
'Perhaps one of them was-ill.'
'Well, Lady Ravenscroft had been up to London once or twice consulting a doctor about something and I rather think she was going into hospital, or planning to go into hospital for an operation of some kind, though she never told me exactly what it was. But I think they managed to put her right-she was in this hospital for a short time. No operation, I think.
And when she came back, she looked very much younger.
Altogether, she'd had a lot of face treatment and you know, she looked so pretty in these wigs with curls on them. Rather as though she'd got a new lease of life.'
'And General Ravenscroft?'
'He was a very nice gentleman and I never heard or knew of any scandal about him and I don't think there was any.
People say things, but then they want to say something when there's been a tragedy of any kind. It seems to me perhaps as he might have had a blow on the head in India or something like that, I had an uncle or a great- uncle, you know, who fell off his horse there once. Hit it on a cannon or something and he was very queer afterwards. All right for about six months and then they had to put him into an asylum because he wanted to take his wife's life the whole time. He said she was persecuting him and following him and that she was a spy for another nation. Ah, there's no saying what things happen or can happen in families.'
'Anyway, you don't think there was any truth in some of the stories about them that I have happened to hear of, bad feeling between them so that one of them shot the other and then shot himself or herself?'
'Oh, no, I don't.'
'Were her children at home at the time?'
'No. Miss-er-oh, what was her name now, Rosie? No. Penelope?'
'Celia,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'She's my goddaughter.'
'Oh, of course she is. Yes, I know that now. I remember you coming and taking her out once. She was a high-spirited girl, rather bad-tempered in some ways, but she was very fond of her father and mother, I think. No, she was away at a school in Switzerland when it happened. I'm glad to say, because it would have been a terrible shock to her if she'd been at home and the one who saw them.'
'And there was a boy, too, wasn't there?'
'Oh, yes. Master Edward. His father was a bit worried about him, I think. He looked as though he disliked his father.'
'Oh, there's nothing in that. Boys go through that stage, I think. Was he very devoted to his mother?'
'Well, she fussed over him a bit too much, I think, which he found tiresome. You know, they don't like a mother fussing over them, telling them to wear thicker vests or put an extra pullover on. His father, he didn't like the way he wore his hair. It was-well, they weren't wearing hair like the way they are nowadays, but they were beginning to, if you know what I mean.'
'But the boy wasn't at home at the time of the tragedy?'
'No.'
'I suppose it was a shock to him?'
'Well, it must have been. Of course, I wasn't going to the house any more at that time, so I didn't hear so much. If you ask me, I didn't like that gardener. What was his name now- Fred, I think. Fred Wizell. Some name like that. Seems to me if he'd done a bit of-well, a bit of cheating or something like that and the General had found him out and was going to sack him, I wouldn't put it past him.'
'To shoot the husband and wife?'
