Edna sniffed.
'And what you did ought to do -'
Mrs Sweetiman broke off and attended to Mrs Wetherby, who had come in for some knitting pins and another ounce of wool.
'Haven't seen you about for some time, m'am,' said Mrs Sweetiman brightly.
'No, I've been very far from well lately,' said Mrs Wetherby. 'My heart, you know.' She sighed deeply. 'I have to lie up a great deal.'
'I heard as you've got some help at last,' said Mrs Sweetiman. 'You'll want dark needles for this light wool.'
'Yes. Quite capable as far as she goes, and cooks not at all badly. But her manners! And her appearance! Dyed hair and the most unsuitable tight jumpers.'
'Ah,' said Mrs Sweetiman. 'Girls aren't trained proper to service nowadays. My mother, she started at thirteen and she got up at a quarter to five every morning. Head housemaid she was when she finished, and three maids under her. And she trained them proper, too. But there's none of that nowadays – girls aren't trained nowadays, they're just educated, like Edna.'
Both women looked at Edna, who leant against the post office counter, sniffing and sucking a peppermint, and looking particularly vacant. As an example of education, she hardly did the educational system credit.
'Terrible about Mrs Upward, wasn't it?' continued Mrs Sweetiman conversationally, as Mrs Wetherby sorted through various coloured needles.
'Dreadful,' said Mrs Wetherby. 'They hardly dared tell me. And when they did, I had the most frightful palpitations. I'm so sensitive.'
'Shock to all of us, it was,' said Mrs Sweetiman. 'As for young Mr Upward, he took on something terrible. Had her hands full with him, the authoress lady did, until the doctor came and give him a seddytiff or something. He's gone up to Long Meadows now as a paying guest, felt he couldn't stay in the cottage – and I don't know as I blame him. Janet Groom, she's gone home to her niece and the police have got the key. The lady what writes the murder books has gone back to London, but she'll come down for the inquest.'
Mrs Sweetiman imparted all this information with relish. She prided herself on being well informed. Mrs Wetherby, whose desire for knitting needles had perhaps been prompted by a desire to know what was going on, paid for her purchase.
'It's most upsetting,' she said. 'It makes the whole village so dangerous. There must be a maniac about. When I think that my own dear daughter was out that night, that she herself might have been attacked, perhaps killed.' Mrs Wetherby closed both eyes and swayed on her feet. Mrs Sweetiman watched her with interest, but without alarm. Mrs Wetherby opened her eyes again, and said with dignity:
'This place should be patrolled. No young people should go about after dark. And all doors should be locked and bolted. You know that up at Long Meadows, Mrs Summerhayes never locks any of her doors. Not even at night. She leaves the back door and the drawing-room window open so that the dogs and cats can get in and out. I myself consider that is absolute madness, but she says they've always done it and that if burglars want to get in, they always can.'
'Reckon there wouldn't be much for a burglar to take up at Long Meadows,' said Mrs Sweetiman.
Mrs Wetherby shook her head sadly and departed with her purchase.
Mrs Sweetiman and Edna resumed their argument.
'It's no good your setting yourself up to know best,' said Mrs Sweetiman. 'Right's right and murder's murder. Tell the truth and shame the devil. That's what I say.'
'Dad would skin me alive, he would, for sure,' said Edna.
'I'd talk to your Dad,' said Mrs Sweetiman.
'I couldn't ever,' said Edna.
'Mrs Upward's dead,' said Mrs Sweetiman. 'And you saw something the police don't know about. You're employed in the post office, aren't you? You're a Government servant. You've got to do your duty. You've got to go along to Bert Hayling -'
Edna's sobs burst out anew.
'Not to Bert, I couldn't. However could I go to Bert? It'd be all over the place.'
Mrs Sweetiman said rather hesitantly:
'There's that foreign gentleman.'
'Not a foreigner, I couldn't. Not a foreigner.'
'No, maybe you're right there.'
A car drew up outside the post office with a squealing of brakes.
Mrs Sweetiman's face lit up.
'That's Major Summerhayes, that is. You tell it all to him and he'll advise you what to do.'
'I couldn't ever,' said Edna, but with less conviction.
Johnnie Summerhayes came into the post office, staggering under the burden of three cardboard boxes.
'Good morning, Mrs Sweetiman,' he said cheerfully. 'Hope these aren't overweight?'
Mrs Sweetiman attended to the parcels in her official capacity. As Summerhayes was licking the stamps, she spoke.
'Excuse me, sir, I'd like your advice about something.'
'Yes, Mrs Sweetiman?'
'Seeing as you belong here, sir, and will know best what to do.'
Summerhayes nodded. He was always curiously touched by the lingering feudal spirit of English villages. The villagers knew little of him personally, but because his father and his grandfather and many great-great- grandfathers had lived at Long Meadows, they regarded it as natural that he should advise and direct when asked so to do.
'It's about Edna here,' said Mrs Sweetiman.
Edna sniffed.
Johnnie Summerhayes looked at Edna doubtfully. Never, he thought, had he seen a more unprepossessing girl. Exactly like a skinned rabbit. Seemed half-witted too. Surely she couldn't be in what was known officially as 'trouble.' But no, Mrs Sweetiman would not have come to him for advice in that case.
'Well,' he said kindly, 'what's the difficulty?'
'It's about the murder, sir. The night of the murder. Edna saw something.'
Johnnie Summerhayes transferred his quick dark gaze from Edna to Mrs Sweetiman and back again to Edna.
'What did you see, Edna?' he said.
Edna began to sob. Mrs Sweetiman took over.
'Of course we've been hearing this and that. Some's rumour and some's true. But it's said definite as that there were a lady there that night who drank coffee with Mrs Upward. That's so, isn't it, sir?'
'Yes, I believe so.'
'I know as that's true, because we had it from Bert Hayling.'
Albert Hayling was the local constable whom Summerhayes knew well. A slow-speaking man with a sense of his own importance.
'I see,' said Summerhayes.
'But they don't know, do they, who the lady is? Well, Edna here saw her.'
Johnnie Summerhayes looked at Edna. He pursed his lips as though to whistle.
'You saw her, did you, Edna? Going in – or coming out?'
'Going in,' said Edna. A faint sense of importance loosened her tongue. 'Across the road I was, under the trees. Just by the turn of the lane where it's dark. I saw her. She went in at the gate and up to the door and stood there a bit, and then – then she went in.'
Johnnie Summerhayes' brow cleared.
'That's all right,' he said. 'It was Miss Henderson. The police know all about that. She went and told them.'
Edna shook her head.
'It wasn't Miss Henderson,' she said.
