'I can trust you to look after Miss Megan?' I said, and Rose replied in a gratified way, 'Oh, yes, sir.'
I went through into the house. If I knew Rose and her kind, she would soon find it necessary to keep her strength up with a little food, and that would be good for Megan too. Confound these people, why couldn't they look after the child?
Fuming inwardly I ran into Elsie Holland in the hall. She didn't seem surprised to see me. I suppose that the gruesome excitement of the discovery made one oblivious of who was coming and going. The constable, Bert Rundle, was by the front door.
Elsie Holland gasped out, 'Oh, Mr. Burton, isn't it awful? Whoever can have done such a dreadful thing?'
'It was murder, then?'
'Oh, yes. She was struck on the back of the head. It's all blood and hair – oh! it's awful – and bundled into that cupboard. Who can have done such a wicked thing? And why? Poor Agnes, I'm sure she never did anyone any harm.'
'No,' I said. 'Somebody saw to that pretty promptly.'
She stared at me. Not, I thought, a quick-witted girl. But she had good nerves. Her color was as usual, slightly heightened by excitement, and I even fancied that in a macabre kind of way, and in spite of a naturally kind heart, she was enjoying the drama.
She said apologetically, 'I must go up to the boys. Mr. Symmington is so anxious that they shouldn't get a shock. He wants me to keep them right away.'
'Megan found the body, I hear,' I said. 'I hope somebody is looking after her.'
I will say for Elsie Holland that she looked conscience-stricken.
'Oh, dear,' she said. 'I forgot all about her. I do hope she's all right. I've been so rushed, you know, and the police and everything – but it was remiss of me. Poor girl, she must be feeling bad. I'll go and look for her at once.'
I relented.
'She's all right,' I said. 'Rose is looking after her. You get along to the kids.'
She thanked me with a flash of white tombstone teeth and hurried upstairs. After all, the boys were her job, and not Megan! Megan was nobody's job. Elsie was paid to look after Symmington's blinking brats. One could hardly blame her for attending to it.
As she flashed around the corner of the stairs, I caught my breath. For a minute I caught a glimpse of a Winged Victory, deathless and incredibly beautiful, instead of a conscientious nursery governess.
Then a door opened and Superintendent Nash stepped out into the hall with Symmington behind him.
'Oh, Mr. Burton,' he said, 'I was just going to telephone you. I'm glad you are here.'
He didn't ask me – then – why I was here.
He turned his head and said to Symmington, 'I'll use this room if I may.'
It was a small morning room with a window on the front of the house.
'Certainly, certainly.'
Symmington's poise was pretty good, but he looked desperately tired. Superintendent Nash said gently:
'I should have some breakfast if I were you, Mr. Symmington. You and Miss Holland and Miss Megan will feel much better after coffee and eggs and bacon. Murder is a nasty business on an empty stomach.'
He spoke in a comfortable family-doctor kind of way.
Symmington gave a faint attempt at a smile and said, 'Thank you, Superintendent, I'll take your advice.'
I followed Nash into the little morning room and he shut the door.
He said then, 'You've got here very quickly? How did you hear?'
I told him that Megan had rung me up. I felt well-disposed toward Superintendent Nash. He, at any rate, had not forgotten that Megan, too, would be in need of breakfast.
'I hear that you telephoned last night, Mr. Burton, asking about this girl? Why was that?'
I suppose it did seem odd. I told him about Agnes' telephone call to Partridge and her nonappearance. He said, 'Yes, I see.'
He said it slowly and reflectively, rubbing his chin.
Then he sighed.
'Well,' he said. 'It's murder now, right enough. Direct physical action. The question is, what did the girl know? Did she say anything to this Partridge? Anything definite?'
'I don't think so. But you can ask her.'
'Yes, I shall come up and see her when I've finished here.'
'What happened exactly?' I asked. 'Or don't you know yet?'
'Near enough. It was the maids' day out -'
'Both of them?'
'Yes, it seems that there used to be two sisters here who liked to go out together, so Mrs. Symmington arranged it that way. Then when these two came, she kept to the same arrangement. They used to have cold supper laid out in the diningroom, and Miss Holland used to get tea.'
'I see.'
'It's pretty clear up to a point. The cook, Rose, comes from Nether Mickford, and in order to get there on her day out she has to catch the half-past-two bus. So Agnes has to finish clearing up lunch always, Rose used to wash up the supper things in the evenings to even things up.
'That's what happened yesterday, Rose went off to catch the bus at two-twenty-five, Symmington left for his office at twenty-five to three. Elsie Holland and the children went out at a quarter to three. Megan Hunter went out on her bicycle about five minutes later. Agnes would then be alone in the house. As far as I can make out, she normally left the house between three o'clock and half past three.'
'The house being then left empty?'
'Oh, they don't worry about that down here. There's not much locking up done in these parts. As I say, at ten minutes to three Agnes was alone in the house. That she never left it is clear, for she was in her cap and apron still when we found her body.'
'I suppose you can tell roughly the time of death?'
'Doctor Griffith won't commit himself. Between two o'clock and four-thirty is his official medical verdict.'
'How was she killed?'
'She was first stunned by a blow on the back of the head. Afterward an ordinary kitchen skewer, sharpened to a fine point, was thrust into the base of the skull, causing instantaneous death.'
I lit a cigarette. It was not a nice picture.
'Pretty cold-blooded,' I said.
'Oh, yes, yes, that was indicated.'
I inhaled deeply.
'Who did it?' I said. 'And why?'
'I don't suppose,' said Nash slowly, 'that we shall ever know exactly why. But we can guess.'
'She knew something?'
'She knew something.'
'She didn't give anyone here a hint?'
'As far as I can make out, no. She's been upset, so the cook says, ever since Mrs. Symmington's death, and according to this Rose, she's been getting more and more worried, and kept saying she didn't know what she ought to do.'
He gave a short exasperated sigh.
'It's always the way. They won't come to us. They've got that deep-seated prejudice against 'being mixed up with the police.' If she'd come along and told us what was worrying her, she'd be alive today.'
'Didn't she give the other women any hint?'
'No, or so Rose says, and I'm inclined to believe her. For if she had, Rose would have blurted it out at once with a good many fancy embellishments of her own.'
'It's maddening,' I said, 'not to know.'
'We can still guess, Mr. Burton. To begin with, it can't be anything very definite. It's got to be the sort of thing that you think over, and as you think it over, your uneasiness grows. You see what I mean?'
'Yes.'
