II
'Come on, sonny,' said Superintendent Huish encouragingly. 'Let's hear all about it.'
Master Cyril Green took a deep breath. Before he could speak, his mother interposed.
'As you might say, Mr. Huish, I didn't take much notice at the time. You know what these children are. Always talking and thinking about space ships and things. And he comes home to me and he says, 'Mum, I've seen a sputnik, it's come down.' Well, I mean, before that it was flying saucers. It's always something. It's these Russians that go putting things into their heads.'
Superintendent Huish sighed and thought how much easier it would be if mothers would not insist on accompanying their sons and talking for them.
'Come on, Cyril,' he said, 'you went home and told your Mum — that's right, isn't it? — that you'd seen this Russian sputnik — whatever it was.'
'Didn't know no better then,' said Cyril. 'I was only a kid then. That's two years ago. Course, I know better now.'
'Them bubble cars,' his mother put in, 'was quite new at the time. There hadn't been one about locally, so naturally when he saw it — and bright red too – he didn't realise as it was just an ordinary car. And when we heard the next morning as Mrs. Argyle had been done in, Cyril he says to me, 'Mum,' he says, 'it's them Russians,' he says, 'they come down in that sputnik of theirs and they must have got in and killed her.' 'Don't talk such nonsense,' I said. And then of course later in the day we hear her own son has been arrested for having done it'
Superintendent Huish addressed himself patiently once more to Cyril. 'It was in the evening, I understand? What time, do you remember?'
'I'd had me tea,' said Cyril, breathing hard in the effort of remembrance, 'and Mum was out at the Institute, so I went out again a bit with the boys and we larked around a bit up that way down the new road.'
'And what was you doing there, I'd like to know,' his mother put in.
P.С Good, who'd brought in this promising piece of evidence, interposed. He knew well enough what Cyril and the boys had been doing down the new road. The disappearance of chrysanthemums had been angrily reported from several householders there, and he knew well enough that the bad characters of the village surreptitiously encouraged the younger generation to supply them with flowers which they themselves took to market. This was not the moment, P.C. Good knew, to go into past cases of delinquency. He said heavily: 'Boys is boys, Mrs. Green, they gets larking around.'
'Yes,' said Cyril, 'just having a game or two, we were. And that's where I saw it. 'Coo,' I said, 'what's this?' Of course I know now. I'm not a silly kid any longer. It was just one of them bubble cars. Bright red, it was.'
'And the time?' said Superintendent Huish patiently.
'Well, as I say, I'd had me tea an' we'd gone out there and larked around — must have been near on seven o'clock, because I heard the clock strike and 'Coo,' I thought, 'Mum'llbehome and won't she create if I'm not there.' So I went home. I told her then that I thought I'd seen that Russian satellite come down. Mum said it were all lies, but it wasn't. Only o' course, I knows better now. I was just a kid then, see.'
Superintendent Huish said that he saw. After a few more questions he dismissed Mrs. Green and her offspring. P.C. Good, remaining behind, put on the gratified expression of a junior member of the force who has shown intelligence and hopes that it will count in his favour.
'It just come to me,' said Good, 'what that boy'd been around saying about Russians doing Mrs. Argyle in. I thought to myself, 'Well, that may mean something.''
'It does mean something,' said the superintendent. 'Miss Tina Argyle has a red bubble car, and it looks as though I'd have to ask her a few more questions.'
Ill
'You were there that night, Miss Argyle?'
Tina looked at the superintendent. Her hands lay loosely in her lap, her eyes, dark, unwinking, told nothing.
'It is so long ago,' she said, 'really I cannot remember.' 'Your car was seen there,' said Huish. 'Was it?'
'Come now, Miss Argyle. When we asked you for an account of your movements on that night, you told us that you went home and didn't go out that evening. You made yourself supper and listened to the gramophone. Now, that isn't true. Just before seven o'clock your car was seen in the road quite near to Sunny Point. What were you doing there?'
She did not answer. Huish waited a few moments, then he spoke again. 'Did you go into the house, Miss Argyle?' 'No,' said Tina. 'But you were there.' 'You say I was there.'
'It's not just a question of my saying so. We've got evidence that you were there.'
Tina sighed.
'Yes,' she said. 'I did drive out there that evening.'
'But you say you didn't go into the house?' 'No, I didn't go into the house.' 'What did you do?'
'I drove back again to Redmyn. Then, as I told you, I made myself some supper and put on the gramophone.'
'Why did you drive out there if you didn't go into the house?'
'I changed my mind,' said Tina.
'What made you change your mind, Miss Argyle?'
'When I got there I didn't want to go in.'
'Because of something you saw or heard?'
She did not answer.
'Listen, Miss Argyle. That was the night that your mother was murdered. She was killed between seven and half past that evening. You were there, your car was there, at some time before seven. How long it was there we do not know. It is possible, you know, that it may have been there for some time. It may be that you went into the house — you have a key, I think.'
'Yes,' said Tina, 'I have a key.'
'Perhaps you went into the house. Perhaps you went into your mother's sitting-room and found her there, dead. Or perhaps –'
Tina raised her head.
'Or perhaps I killed her? Is that what you want to say, Superintendent Huish?'
'It is one possibility,' said Huish, 'but I think it's more likely, Miss Argyle, someone else did the killing. If so, I think you know — or have a very strong suspicion who the killer was.'
'I did not go into the house,' said Tina.
'Then you saw something or heard something. You saw someone go into the house or someone leave the house. Someone perhaps who was not known to be there. Was it your brother Michael, Miss Argyle?'
Tina said: 'I saw nobody.'
'But you heard something,' said Huish shrewdly. 'What did you hear, Miss Argyle?'
'I tell you,' said Tina, 'I simply changed my mind.'
'You'll forgive me, Miss Argyle, but I don't believe that. Why should you drive out from Redmyn to visit your family, and drive back again without seeing them? Something made you change your mind about that. Something you saw or heard.' He leaned forward. 'I think you know, Miss Argyle, who killed your mother.'
Very slowly she shook her head.
'You know something,' said Huish. 'Something that you are determined not to tell. But think, Miss Argyle, think very carefully. Do you realise what you are condemning your entire family to go through? Do you want them all to remain under suspicion — for that's what's going to happen unless we get at the truth. Whoever killed your mother doesn't deserve to be shielded. For that's it, isn't it? You're shielding someone.'
Again that dark, opaque look met his.
'I know nothing,' said Tina. 'I didn't hear anything and I didn't see anything. I just — changed my mind.'
Chapter 20
Calgary and Huish looked at each other. Calgary saw what seemed to him one of the most depressed and
