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The Inspector, pausing discreetly on the threshold, cast a somewhat awed look at the widow. Ermyntrude seemed to be beyond human aid, but Mary stepped forward, saying: ‘Yes, of course. Good afternoon, Inspector. This – this is an awful shock. I – I hardly know what… Please come in! We’re rather upset, and Mrs Carter… But, of course, you must come in!’
‘Very sorry to have to intrude on Mrs Carter at such a moment miss,’ said the Inspector. ‘You’ll understand that it’s my duty to make certain inquiries.’
Ermyntrude lowered the handkerchief from her eyes. ‘What have you done with his body?’ she said tragically.
The Inspector glanced appealing towards Hugh, who took pity on his evident embarrassment, and tried to explain tactfully to Ermyntrude that Wally’s body had been removed to the police mortuary.
‘The mortuary!’ Ermyntrude said in shuddering accents. ‘Oh my God!’
It was plain that the situation was fast getting out of the Inspector’s control. Mary saw that it was her duty to pull herself together, and to assist the course of justice. She turned to the couch. ‘Dear Aunt Ermy, what does it matter what becomes of his body? Don’t think about that! The Inspector wants to ask you some questions.’
Ermyntrude found that her recumbent position made it impossible for her to fling wide her arms without hitting the sofa-back, so she sat up. ‘Have you no me
rcy?’ she demanded of the horrified Inspector. ‘Haven’t I borne enough without your coming here badgering and torturing me?’
‘I’m sure, madam, I don’t want to badger you!’ expostulated the Inspector. ‘If you’ll just—’
‘Ask me what you like!’ said Ermyntrude, allowing her arms to fall, and bowing her golden head. ‘What do I care? What is there left for me to care for?’ She clutched suddenly at Mary’s hand, and said in far more natural tones: ‘Oh, Mary dear, the disgrace of it! Oh, I shall never get over it! Having the police in!’
The Inspector, who was beginning to feel like a leper, said defensively that he was sure there was no reason for her to take it that way, though he quite understood her feelings. ‘What I want to know is, was there anyone who might have had any sort of grudge against your husband, madam? Anyone who’d quarrelled with him, for instance, or—’
He broke off, for the effect of this question was very alarming. Ermyntrude almost leaped to her feet, and confronted him in an attitude that would have done credit to a Duse. ‘Are you accusing me of having done my husband to death?’ she cried.
‘Aunt Ermy, of course he isn’t!’ exclaimed Mary. ‘What can you be thinking of ? You must try and control yourself!’
‘Am I to understand, madam, that you had quarrelled with Mr Carter?’ asked the Inspector.
‘Oh God!’ said Ermyntrude. ‘I parted from him in anger!’ Once more she reverted to more ordinary accents. ‘Oh, Mary dear, he was a bad husband to me, but I wish I hadn’t told him off, for now I shall never see him again, and we can’t all be perfect, can we?’
Mary gently pressed her down on to the couch again. ‘It was nothing, Aunty Ermy; and I’m perfectly certain he didn’t set any store by it.’
‘Him set store by anything?’ said Ermyntrude bitterly. ‘Water off a duck’s back!’
By this time, the Inspector was looking keenly interested. It seemed as though Ermyntrude had recovered from her histrionic fit, so he ventured to put a question to her. ‘Had there been any unpleasantness between you and Mr Carter, madam?’
Mary could not resist giving Ermyntrude’s hand, which she was still holding, a squeeze of warning. Unfortunately, this acted upon Ermyntrude in a most disastrous way. She reared up her head, and declared that other people could wash their dirty linen in public if they liked, but she would not. ‘What’s past is done with!’ she said. ‘He may have been a waster – I’m not saying he wasn’t – and Heaven knows he treated me disgracefully, what with his goings-on, and encouraging that Harold White, and a lot of other things I could tell you if I wanted to; but he’s dead now, and God forbid I should go taking his character away! You won’t get a word out of me, and as for me telling him off; who had a better right, that’s what I should like to know?’
Mary removed her hand, and said quietly to the Inspector: ‘Mrs Carter is rather overwrought. Perhaps I can help you? What exactly do you wish to know?’
‘Well, miss,’ replied the Inspector, ‘when a gentleman is shot dead practically in his own grounds, the police want to know everything. Mr Carter was related to you, I believe?’
‘He was my cousin, and until I came of age, my guardian.’
‘I take it you were on pretty intimate terms with him?’
‘I think so – up to a point. I live here, you know.’
‘Yes, miss. Now, did you ever have any reason to think he might have enemies?’
‘No,’ Mary replied. ‘I know that many people – rather disliked him, but I can’t imagine anyone having any cause to murder him.’
‘Oh, Mary, what a shocking word to use!’ gasped Ermyntrude. ‘Oh, whatever have I done to deserve a thing like this coming upon me, and Lady Dering asking me to be Chairwoman of the Hospital Committee, and all!’
‘Had he private means, miss?’ asked the Inspector.
‘Not a penny!’ said Ermyntrude. ‘And if he had he’d have gone through it inside of a week! The money I’ve squandered – well, I don’t mean that exactly, but no one would believe the sums he’s had out of me, and all spent on things I won’t mention, let alone what found its way into White’s pocket! Oh, you needn’t look like that, Mary! I’m not such a fool but what I can see what’s been under my nose since I don’t know when! It was him led Wally to his ruin, not but what he didn’t need much leading, but at least he wasn’t ever so bad till he took up with White! Everything’s been his fault, and if you ask me you’ll find he’s at the bottom of this, too!’
‘What makes you say that, madam?’ asked the Inspector.
