'Well, I wouldn't say exactly persuaded.'
I stuck to my guns. 'But you did say something to her?'
Aimee Griffith planted her feet firmly and stared me in the eyes. She was, just slightly, on the defensive. She said:
'It's no good – that young woman shirking her responsibility. She's young and she doesn't know how tongues wag, so I felt it my duty to give her a hint.'
'Tongues -?' I broke off because I was too angry to go on. Aimee Griffith continued with that maddeningly complacent confidence in herself which was her chief characteristic: 'Oh, I dare say you don't hear all the gossip that goes around. I do! I know what people are saying. Mind you, I don't for a minute think there's anything in it – not for a minute! But you know what people are – if they can say something ill-natured, they do! And it's rather hard lines on the girl when she's got her living to earn.'
'Her living to earn?' I said, puzzled.
Aimee went on:
'It's a difficult position for her, naturally. And I think she did the right thing. I mean, she couldn't go off at a moment's notice and leave the children with no one to look after them. She's been splendid – absolutely splendid. I say so to everybody! But there it is, it's an invidious position, and people will talk.'
'Who are you talking about?' I asked.
'Elsie Holland, of course,' said Aimee Griffith impatiently. 'In my opinion, she's a thoroughly nice girl and has only been doing her duty.'
'And what are people saying?'
Aimee Griffith laughed. It was, I thought, rather an unpleasant laugh.
'They're saying that she's already considering the possibility of becoming Mrs. Symmington No. 2 – that she's all out to console the widower and make herself indispensable.'
'But,' I said, shocked, 'Mrs. Symmington's only been dead a week!'
Aimee Griffith shrugged her shoulders.
'Of course. It's absurd! But you know what people are! The Holland girl is young and she's good-looking – that's enough. And mind you, being a nursery governess isn't much of a prospect for a girl. I wouldn't blame her if she wanted a settled home and a husband and was playing her cards accordingly.
'Of course,' she went on. 'Poor Dick Symmington hasn't the least idea of all this! He's still completely knocked out by Mona Symmington's death. But you know what men are! If the girl is always there, making him comfortable, looking after him, being obviously devoted to the children – well, he gets to be dependent on her.'
I said quietly, 'So you do think that Elsie Holland is a designing hussy?'
Aimee Griffith flushed.
'Not at all. I'm sorry for the girl – with people saying nasty things! That's why I more or less told Megan that she ought to go home. It looks better than having Dick Symmington and the girl alone in the house.'
I began to understand things.
Aimee Griffith gave her jolly laugh. 'You're shocked, Mr. Burton, at hearing what our gossipping little town thinks. I can tell you this – they always think the worst!'
She laughed and nodded and strode away.
I came upon Mr. Pye by the church. He was talking to Emily Barton, who looked pink and excited.
Mr. Pye greeted me with every evidence of delight:
'Ah, Burton, good morning, good morning! How is your charming sister?'
I told him that Joanna was well.
'But not joining our village Parliament? We are all agog over the news. Murder! Real Sunday newspaper murder in our midst! Not the most interesting of crimes, I fear. Somewhat sordid. The brutal murder of a little serving maid. No finer points about the crime, but still undeniably news.'
Miss Barton said tremulously, 'It is shocking – quite shocking.'
Mr. Pye turned on her: 'But you enjoy it, dear lady, you enjoy it. Confess it now. You disapprove, you deplore, but there is the thrill. I insist, there is the thrill!'
'Such a nice girl,' said Emily Barton. 'She came to me from St. Clotilde's Home. Quite a raw girl. But most teachable. She turned into such a nice little maid. Partridge was very pleased with her.'
I said quickly, 'She was coming to tea with Partridge yesterday afternoon.' I turned to Pye: 'I expect Aimee Griffith told you.'
My tone was quite casual. Pye responded apparently quite unsuspiciously:
'She did mention it, yes. She said, I remember, that it was something quite new for servants to ring up on their employers' telephones.'
'Partridge would never dream of doing such a thing,' said Miss Emily, 'and I am really surprised at Agnes doing so.'
'You are behind the times, dear lady,' said Mr. Pye. 'My two terrors use the telephone constantly and smoked all over the house until I objected. But one daren't say too much. Prescott is a divine cook, though temperamental, and Mrs. Prescott is an admirable house-parlor maid.'
'Yes, indeed, we all think you're very lucky.'
I intervened, since I did not want the conversation to become purely domestic.
'The news of the murder has got around very quickly,' I said.
'Of course, of course,' said Mr. Pye. 'The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues! Lymstock, alas! is going to the dogs. Anonymous letters, murders, any amount of criminal tendencies.'
Emily Barton said nervously, 'They don't think – there's no idea – that – that the two are connected?'
Mr. Pye pounced on the idea. 'An interesting speculation. The girl knew something, therefore she was murdered. Yes, yes, most promising. How clever of you to think of it.'
'I – I can't bear it.'
Emily Barton spoke abruptly and turned away, walking very fast.
Pye looked after her. His cherubic face was pursed up quizzically.
He turned back to me and shook his head gently.
'A sensitive soul. A charming creature, don't you think? Absolutely a period piece. She's not, you know, of her own generation, she's of the generation before that. The mother must have been a woman of very strong character. She kept the family time ticking at about 1870, I should say. The whole family preserved under a glass case. I do like to come across that sort of thing.'
I did not want to talk about period pieces.
'What do you really think about all this business?' I asked.
'Meaning by that?'
'Anonymous letters, murder…'
'Our local crime wave? What do you?'
'I asked you first,' I said pleasantly.
Mr. Pye said gently:
'I'm a student, you know, of abnormalities. They interest me. Such apparently unlikely people do the most fantastic things. Take the case of Lizzie Borden. There's not really a reasonable explanation of that. In this case, my advice to the police would be – study character. Leave your fingerprints and your measuring of handwriting and your microscopes. Notice instead what people do with their hands, and their little tricks of manner, and the way they eat their food, and if they laugh sometimes for no apparent reason.'
I raised my eyebrows.
'Mad?' I said.
'Quite, quite mad,' said Mr. Pye, and added, 'but you'd never know it!'
'Who?'
His eyes met mine. He sighed.
'No, no, Burton, that would be slander. We can't add slander to all the rest of it.'
He fairly skipped off down the street.
