“I’ll try not to ruffle her more than I can help,” said Craddock soothingly. “Was that Miss Julia Simmons who opened the door to me?”

“Yes. Would you like to see her now? Patrick has gone out. Phillipa Haymes you will find working at Dayas Hall.”

“Thank you, Miss Blacklock. I’d like to see Miss Simmons now if I may.”

Six

JULIA, MITZI AND PATRICK

I

Julia, when she came into the room, and sat down in the chair vacated by Letitia Blacklock, had an air of composure that Craddock for some reason found annoying. She fixed a limpid gaze on him and waited for his questions.

Miss Blacklock had tactfully left the room.

“Please tell me about last night, Miss Simmons.”

“Last night?” murmured Julia with a blank stare. “Oh, we all slept like logs. Reaction, I suppose.”

“I mean last night from six o’clock onwards.”

“Oh, I see. Well, a lot of tiresome people came—”

“They were?”

She gave him another limpid stare.

“Don’t you know all this already?”

“I’m asking the questions, Miss Simmons,” said Craddock pleasantly.

“My mistake. I always find repetitions so dreary. Apparently you don’t … Well, there was Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook, Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd, Mrs. Swettenham and Edmund Swettenham, and Mrs. Harmon, the Vicar’s wife. They arrived in that order. And if you want to know what they said—they all said the same thing in turn. ‘I see you’ve got your central heating on’ and ‘What lovely chrysanthemums!’”

Craddock bit his lip. The mimicry was good.

“The exception was Mrs. Harmon. She’s rather a pet. She came in with her hat falling off and her shoelaces untied and she asked straight out when the murder was going to happen. It embarrassed everybody because they’d all been pretending they’d dropped in by chance. Aunt Letty said in her dry way that it was due to happen quite soon. And then that clock chimed and just as it finished, the lights went out, the door was flung open and a masked figure said, ‘Stick ’em up, guys,’ or something like that. It was exactly like a bad film. Really quite ridiculous. And then he fired two shots at Aunt Letty and suddenly it wasn’t ridiculous any more.”

“Where was everybody when this happened?”

“When the lights went out? Well, just standing about, you know. Mrs. Harmon was sitting on the sofa—Hinch (that’s Miss Hinchcliffe) had taken up a manly stance in front of the fireplace.”

“You were all in this room, or the far room?”

“Mostly, I think, in this room. Patrick had gone into the other to get the sherry. I think Colonel Easterbrook went after him, but I don’t really know. We were—well—as I said, just standing about.”

“Where were you yourself?”

“I think I was over by the window. Aunt Letty went to get the cigarettes.”

“On that table by the archway?”

“Yes—and then the lights went out and the bad film started.”

“The man had a powerful torch. What did he do with it?”