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The Rev. Julian Harmon looked round the big bare dining room and assented doubtfully.
“Some people would think it was the last straw to have to live in this great rambling draughty place.”
“Well, I like big rooms. All the nice smells from outside can get in and stay there. And you can be untidy and leave things about and they don’t clutter you.”
“No labour-saving devices or central heating? It means a lot of work for you, Bunch.”
“Oh, Julian, it doesn’t. I get up at half past six and light the boiler and rush around like a steam engine, and by eight it’s all done. And I keep it nice, don’t I? With beeswax and polish and big jars of Autumn leaves. It’s not really harder to keep a big house clean than a small one. You go round with mops and things much quicker, because your behind isn’t always bumping into things like it is in a small room. And I like sleeping in a big cold room—it’s so cosy to snuggle down with just the tip of your nose telling you what it’s like up above. And whatever size of house you live in, you peel the same amount of potatoes and wash up the same amount of plates and all that. Think how nice it is for Edward and Susan to have a big empty room to play in where they can have railways and dolls’ tea-parties all over the floor and never have to put them away? And then it’s nice to have extra bits of the house that you can let people have to live in. Jimmy Symes and Johnnie Finch—they’d have had to live with their in-laws otherwise. And you know, Julian, it isn’t nice living with your in-laws. You’re devoted to Mother, but you wouldn’t really have liked to start our married life living with her and Father. And I shouldn’t have liked it, either. I’d have gone on feeling like a little girl.”
Julian smiled at her.
“You’re rather like a little girl still, Bunch.”
Julian Harmon himself had clearly been a model designed by Nature for the age of sixty. He was still about twenty-five years short of achieving Nature’s purpose.
“I know I’m stupid—”
“You’re not stupid, Bunch. You’re very clever.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not a bit intellectual. Though I do try … And I really love it when you talk to me about books and history and things. I think perhaps it wasn’t an awfully good idea to read aloud Gibbon to me in the evenings, because if it’s been a cold wind out, and it’s nice and hot by the fire, there’s something about Gibbon that does, rather, make you go to sleep.”
Julian laughed.
“But I do love listening to you, Julian. Tell me the story again about the old vicar who preached about Ahasuerus.”
“You know that by heart, Bunch.”
“Just tell it me again. Please.”
Her husband complied.
“It was old Scrymgour. Somebody looked into his church one day. He was leaning out of the pulpit and preaching fervently to a couple of old charwomen. He was shaking his finger at them and saying, ‘Aha! I know what you are thinking. You think that the Great Ahasuerus of the First Lesson was Artaxerxes the Second. But he wasn’t!’ And then with enormous triumph, ‘He was Artaxerxes the Third.’”
It had never struck Julian Hermon as a particularly funny story himself, but it never failed to amuse Bunch.
Her clear laugh floated out.
“The old pet!” she exclaimed. “I think you’ll be exactly like that some day, Julian.”
Julian looked rather uneasy.
“I know,” he said with humility. “I do feel very strongly that I can’t always get the proper simple approach.”
“I shouldn’t worry,” said Bunch, rising and beginning to pile the breakfast plates on a tray. “Mrs. Butt told me yesterday that Butt, who never went to church and used to be practically the local atheist, comes every Sunday now on purpose to hear you preach.”
She went on, with a very fair imitation of Mrs. Butt’s super-refined voice:
“‘And Butt was saying only the other day, Madam, to Mr. Timkins from Little Worsdale, that we’d got real culture here in Chipping Cleghorn. Not like Mr. Goss, at Little Worsdale, who talks to the congregation as though they were children who hadn’t had any education. Real culture, Butt said, that’s what we’ve got. Our Vicar’s a highly educated gentleman—Oxford, not Milchester, and he gives us the full benefit of his education. All about the Romans and the Greeks he knows, and the Babylonians and the Assyrians, too. And even the Vicarage cat, Butt says, is called after an Assyrian king!’ So there’s glory for you,” finished Bunch triumphantly. “Goodness, I must get on with things or I shall never get done. Come along, Tiglath Pileser, you shall have the herring bones.”
Opening the door and holding it dexterously ajar with her foot, she shot through with the loaded tray, singing in a loud and not particularly tuneful voice, her own version of a sporting song.
“It’s a fine murdering day, (sang Bunch)
And as balmy as May
And the sleuths from the village are gone.”
A rattle of crockery being dumped in the sink drowned the next lines, but as the Rev. Julian Harmon left the house, he heard the final triumphant assertion:
“And we’ll all go a’murdering today!”
Two
BREAKFAST AT LITTLE PADDOCKS
I
At Little Paddocks also, breakfast was in progress.
Miss Blacklock, a woman of sixty odd, the owner of the house, sat at the head of the table. She wore country tweeds—and with them, rather incongruously, a choker necklace of large false pearls. She was reading Lane Norcott in the Daily Mail. Julia Simmons was languidly glancing through the Telegraph. Patrick Simmons was checking up on the crossword in The Times. Miss Dora Bunner was giving her attention wholeheartedly to the local weekly paper.
Miss Blacklock gave a subdued chuckle, Patrick muttered: “Adherent—not adhesive—that’s where I went wrong.”
Suddenly a loud cluck, like a startled hen, came from Miss Bunner.
“Letty—Letty—have you seen this? Whatever can it mean?”
“What’s the matter, Dora?”
“The most extraordinary advertisement. It says Little Paddocks quite distinctly. But whatever can it mean?”
“If you’d let me see, Dora dear—”
Miss Bunner obediently surrendered the paper into Miss Blacklock’s outstretched hand, pointing to the item with a tremulous forefinger.
“Just look, Letty.”
Miss Blacklock looked. Her eyebrows went up. She threw a quick scrutinizing glance round the table. Then she read the advertisement out loud.
“A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m. Friends please accept this, the only intimation.”
Then she said sharply: “Patrick, is this your idea?”
Her eyes rested searchingly on the handsome devil-may-care face of the young man at the other end of the table.
Patrick Simmons’ disclaimer came quickly.
“No, indeed, Aunt Letty. Whatever put that idea into your head? Why should I know anything about it?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” said Miss Blacklock grimly. “I thought it might be your idea of a joke.”
“A joke? Nothing of the kind.”
“And you, Julia?”
Julia, looking bored, said: “Of course not.”
Miss Bunner murmured: “Do you think Mrs. Haymes—” and looked at an empty place where someone had breakfasted earlier.
“Oh, I don’t think our Phillipa would try and be funny,” said Patrick. “She’s a serious girl, she is.”
“But what’s the idea, anyway?” said Julia, yawning. “What does it mean?”
Miss Blacklock said slowly, “I suppose—it’s some silly sort of hoax.”
“But why?” Dora Bunner exclaimed. “What’s the point of it? It seems a very stupid sort of joke. And in very bad taste.”
Her flabby cheeks quivered indignantly, and her shortsighted eyes sparkled with indignation.
Miss Blacklock smiled at her.
“Don?
?t work yourself up over it, Bunny,” she said. “It’s just somebody’s idea of humour, but I wish I knew whose.”
“It says today,” pointed out Miss Bunner. “Today at 6:30 p.m. What do you think is going to happen?”
“Death!” said Patrick in sepulchral tones. “Delicious death.”
“Be quiet, Patrick,” said Miss Blacklock as Miss Bunner gave a little yelp.
“I only meant the special cake that Mitzi makes,” said Patrick apologetically. “You know we always call it delicious death.”
Miss Blacklock smiled a little absentmindedly.
Miss Bunner persisted: “But Letty, what do you really think—?”
Her friend cut across the words with reassuring cheerfulness.
