and I were once – well, why deny what everybody knows? It was very pleasant while it lasted… and we’re still the best of friends. I suppose that’s the reason the Lytton Gore child looks at me so fiercely. She suspects I still have a
Mr. Satterthwaite contented himself with saying:
“I think you are right in suspecting that Egg Lytton Gore mistrusts you.”
Miss Sutcliffe frowned.
“I’m not at all sure that I’m not a little jealous of her… We women are such cats, aren’t we? Scratch, scratch, miauw, miauw, purr, purr… ”
She laughed.
“Why didn’t Charles come and catechise me on this business? Too much nice feeling, I suppose. The man must think me guilty… Am I guilty, Mr. Satterthwaite? What do you think now?”
She stood up and stretched out a hand.
“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand – ”
She broke off.
“No, I’m not Lady MacBeth. Comedy’s my line.”
“There seems also a certain lack of motive,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
“True. I liked Bartholomew Strange. We were friends. I had no reason for wishing him out of the way. Because we were friends I’d rather like to take an active part in hunting down his murderer. Tell me if I can help in any way.”
“I suppose, Miss Sutcliffe, you didn’t see or hear anything that might have a bearing on the crime?”
“Nothing that I haven’t already told the police. The house party had only just arrived, you know. His death occurred on that first evening.”
“The butler?”
“I hardly noticed him.”
“Any peculiar behaviour on the part of the guests?”
“No. Of course that boy – what’s his name? – Manders turned up rather unexpectedly.”
“Did Sir Bartholomew Strange seem surprised?”
“Yes, I think he was. He said to me just before we went in to dinner that it was an odd business, ‘a new method of gate crashing,’ he called it. ‘Only,’ he said, ‘it’s my wall he’s crashed, not my gate.’”
“Sir Bartholomew was in good spirits?”
“Very good spirits.”
“What about this secret passage you mentioned to the police?”
“I believe it led out of the library. Sir Bartholomew promised to show it to me – but of course the poor man died.”
“How did the subject come up?”
“We were discussing a recent purchase of his – an old walnut bureau. I asked if it had a secret drawer in it. I told him I adored secret drawers. It’s a secret passion of mine. And he said, ‘No, there wasn’t a secret drawer that he knew of – but he had got a secret passage in the house.’”
“He didn’t mention a patient of his, a Mrs. de Rushbridger?”
“No.”
“Do you know a place called Gilling, in Kent?”
“Gilling? Gilling, no, I don’t think I do. Why?”
“Well, you knew Mr. Babbington before, didn’t you?”
“Who is Mr. Babbington?”
“The man who died, or who was killed, at the Crow's Nest.”
“Oh, the clergyman. I’d forgotten his name. No, I’d never seen him before in my life. Who told you I knew him?”
“Someone who ought to know,” said Mr. Satterthwaite boldly.
Miss Sutcliffe seemed amused.
“Dear old man, did they think I’d had an affair with him? Archdeacons are sometimes very naughty, aren’t they? So why not vicars? There’s the man in the barrel, isn’t there? But I must clear the poor mans’ memory. I’d never seen him before in my life.”
And with that statement Mr. Satterthwaite was forced to rest content.
21
Five Upper Cathcart Road, Tooting, seemed an incongruous home for a satiric playwright. The room into which Sir Charles was shown had walls of a rather drab oatmeal colour with a frieze of laburnum round the top. The curtains were of rose-coloured velvet, there were a lot of photographs and china dogs, the telephone was coyly hidden by a lady with ruffled skirts, there were a great many little tables and some suspicious-looking brasswork from Birmingham via the Far East.
Miss Wills entered the room so noiselessly that Sir Charles, who was at the moment examining a ridiculously elongated pierrot doll lying across the sofa, did not hear her. Her thin voice saying, “How d’you do, Sir Charles. This is really a great pleasure,” made him spin round.
Miss Wills was dressed in a limp jumper suit which hung disconsolately on her angular form. Her stockings were slightly wrinkled, and she had on very high-heeled patent leather slippers.
“Fancy you finding me out here,” said Miss Wills. “My mother will be ever so excited. She just adores the theatre – especially anything romantic. That play where you were a Prince at a University – she’s often talked of it. She goes to matinees, you know, and eats chocolates – she’s one of that kind. And she does love it.”
“How delightful,” said Sir Charles. “You don’t know how charming it is to be remembered. The public memory is short!” He sighed.
“She’ll be thrilled at meeting you,” said Miss Wills. “Miss Sutcliffe came the other day, and Mother was thrilled at meeting her.”
“Angela was here?”
“Yes. She’s putting on a play of mine, you know:
“Of course,” said Sir Charles. “I’ve read about it. Rather intriguing title.”
“I’m so glad you think so. Miss Sutcliffe likes it, too. It’s a kind of modern version of the nursery rhyme – a lot of froth and nonsense – Hey diddle diddle and the dish and the spoon scandal. Of course, it all revolves round Miss Sutcliffe’s part – everyone dances to her fiddling – that’s the idea.”
Sir Charles said:
“Not bad. The world nowadays is rather like a mad nursery rhyme. And the little dog laughed to see such sport, eh?” And he thought suddenly: “Of course this woman’s the Little Dog. She looks on and laughs.”
The light shifted from Mrs. Wills’s pince-nez, and he saw her pale-blue eyes regarding him intelligently through them.
“This woman,” thought Sir Charles, “has a fiendish sense of humour.”
Aloud he said:
“I wonder if you can guess what errand has brought me here?”
“Well,” said Miss Wills archly, “I don’t suppose it was only to see poor little me.”
Sir Charles registered for a moment the difference between the spoken and the written word. On paper Miss Wills was witty and cynical, in speech she was arch.
“It was really Satterthwaite put the idea into my head,” said Sir Charles. “He fancies himself as being a good judge of character.”
“He’s very clever about people,” said Miss Wills. “It’s rather his hobby, I should say.”
“And he is strongly of opinion that it there were anything worth noticing that night at Melfort Abbey you
