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“What put the idea into your head?”
I said slowly:
“Well, we’ve only her word for it, haven’t we, as to what the girl Agnes said to her? Suppose Agnes asked Partridge to tell her why Partridge came and left a note that day—and Partridge said she’d call round that afternoon and explain.”
“And then camouflaged it by coming to us and asking if the girl could come here?”
“Yes.”
“But Partridge never went out that afternoon.”
“We don’t know that. We were out ourselves, remember.”
“Yes, that’s true. It’s possible, I suppose.” Joanna turned it over in her mind. “But I don’t think so, all the same. I don’t think Partridge has the mentality to cover her tracks over the letters. To wipe off fingerprints, and all that. It isn’t only cunning you want—it’s knowledge. I don’t think she’s got that. I suppose—” Joanna hesitated, then said slowly, “they are sure it is a woman, aren’t they?”
“You don’t think it’s a man?” I exclaimed incredulously.
“Not—not an ordinary man—but a certain kind of man. I’m thinking, really, of Mr. Pye.”
“So Pye is your selection?”
“Don’t you feel yourself that he’s a possibility? He’s the sort of person who might be lonely—and unhappy—and spiteful. Everyone, you see, rather laughs at him. Can’t you see him secretly hating all the normal happy people, and taking a queer perverse artistic pleasure in what he was doing?”
“Graves said a middle-aged spinster.”
“Mr. Pye,” said Joanna, “is a middle-aged spinster.”
“A misfit,” I said slowly.
“Very much so. He’s rich, but money doesn’t help. And I do feel he might be unbalanced. He is, really, rather a frightening little man.”
“He got a letter himself, remember.”
“We don’t know that,” Joanna pointed out. “We only thought so. And anyway, he might have been putting on an act.”
“For our benefit?”
“Yes. He’s clever enough to think of that—and not to overdo it.”
“He must be a first-class actor.”
“But of course, Jerry, whoever is doing this must be a first-class actor. That’s partly where the pleasure comes in.”
“For God’s sake, Joanna, don’t speak so understandingly! You make me feel that you—that you understand the mentality.”
“I think I do. I can—just—get into the mood. If I weren’t Joanna Burton, if I weren’t young and reasonably attractive and able to have a good time, if I were—how shall I put it?—behind bars, watching other people enjoy life, would a black evil tide rise in me, making me want to hurt, to torture—even to destroy?”
“Joanna!” I took her by the shoulders and shook her. She gave a little sigh and shiver, and smiled at me.
“I frightened you, didn’t I, Jerry? But I have a feeling that that’s the right way to solve this problem. You’ve got to be the person, knowing how they feel and what makes them act, and then—and then perhaps you’ll know what they’re going to do next.”
“Oh, hell!” I said. “And I came down here to be a vegetable and get interested in all the dear little local scandals. Dear little local scandals! Libel, vilification, obscene language and murder!”
II
Joanna was quite right. The High Street was full of interested groups. I was determined to get everyone’s reactions in turn.
I met Griffith first. He looked terribly ill and tired. So much so that I wondered. Murder is not, certainly, all in the day’s work to a doctor, but his profession does equip him to face most things including suffering, the ugly side of human nature, and the fact of death.
“You look all in,” I said.
“Do I?” He was vague. “Oh! I’ve had some worrying cases lately.”
“Including our lunatic at large?”
“That, certainly.” He looked away from me across the street. I saw a fine nerve twitching in his eyelid.
“You’ve no suspicions as to—who?”
“No. No. I wish to God I had.”
He asked abruptly after Joanna, and said, hesitatingly, that he had some photographs she’d wanted to see.
I offered to take them to her.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I shall be passing that way actually later in the morning.”
I began to be afraid that Griffith had got it badly. Curse Joanna! Griffith was too good a man to be dangled as a scalp.
I let him go, for I saw his sister coming and I wanted, for once, to talk to her.
Aimée Griffith began, as it were, in the middle of a conversation.
“Absolutely shocking!” she boomed. “I hear you were there—quite early?”
There was a question in the words, and her eyes glinted as she stressed the word “early.” I wasn’t going to tell her that Megan had rung me up. I said instead:
“You see, I was a bit uneasy last night. The girl was due to tea at our house and didn’t turn up.”
“And so you feared the worst? Damned smart of you!”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m quite the human bloodhound.”
“It’s the first murder we’ve ever had in Lymstock. Excitement is terrific. Hope the police can handle it all right.”
“I shouldn’t worry,” I said. “They’re an efficient body of men.”
“Can’t even remember what the girl looked like, although I suppose she’s opened the door to me dozens of times. Quiet, insignificant little thing. Knocked on the head and then stabbed through the back of the neck, so Owen tells me. Looks like a boyfriend to me. What do you think?”
“That’s your solution?”
“Seems the most likely one. Had a quarrel, I expect. They’re very inbred round here—bad heredity, a lot of them.” She paused, and then went on, “I hear Megan Hunter found the body? Must have given her a bit of a shock.”
I said shortly:
“It did.”
“Not too good for her, I should imagine. In my opinion she’s not too strong in the head—and a thing like this might send her completely off her onion.”
I took a sudden resolution. I had to know something.
“Tell me, Miss Griffith, was it you who persuaded Megan to return home yesterday?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say exactly persuaded.”
I stuck to my guns.
“But you did say something to her?”
Aimée 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 responsibilities. 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.
Aimée 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 round. 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.
Aimée 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 Aimée Griffith impatiently. “In my opinion, she’s a thoroughly nice girl, and has only been doing her duty.”
“And what are people saying?”
Aimée Griffith laughed. It was, I thought, rather an unpleasant laugh.
“Th
ey’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, good God,” I said, shocked, “Mrs. Symmington’s only been dead a week!”
Aimée 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?”
Aimée 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.
Aimée Griffith gave her jolly laugh.
“You’re shocked, Mr. Burton, at hearing what our gossiping little town thinks. I can tell you this—they always think the worst!”
She laughed and nodded and strode away.
III
