A Murder Is Announced (3 page)

I

“W
ell, here we are, all set,” said Miss Blacklock. She looked round the double drawing room with an appraising eye. The rose-patterned chintzes—the two bowls of bronze chrysanthemums, the small vase of violets and the silver cigarette box on a table by the wall, the tray of drinks on the centre table.

Little Paddocks was a medium-sized house built in the early Victorian style. It had a long shallow veranda and green shuttered windows. The long, narrow drawing room which lost a good deal of light owing to the veranda roof had originally had double doors at one end leading into a small room with a bay window. A former generation had removed the double doors and replaced them with portieres of velvet. Miss Blacklock had dispensed with the portieres so that the two rooms had become definitely one. There was a fire
place each end, but neither fire was lit although a gentle warmth pervaded the room.

“You've had the central heating lit,” said Patrick.

Miss Blacklock nodded.

“It's been so misty and damp lately. The whole house felt clammy. I got Evans to light it before he went.”

“The precious precious coke?” said Patrick mockingly.

“As you say, the precious coke. But otherwise there would have been the even more precious coal. You know the Fuel Office won't even let us have the little bit that's due to us each week—not unless we can say definitely that we haven't got any other means of cooking.”

“I suppose there was once heaps of coke and coal for everybody?” said Julia with the interest of one hearing about an unknown country.

“Yes, and cheap, too.”

“And anyone could go and buy as much as they wanted, without filling in anything, and there wasn't any shortage? There was lots of it there?”

“All kinds and qualities—and
not
all stones and slates like what we get nowadays.”

“It must have been a wonderful world,” said Julia, with awe in her voice.

Miss Blacklock smiled. “Looking back on it,
I
certainly think so. But then I'm an old woman. It's natural for me to prefer my own times. But you young things oughtn't to think so.”

“I needn't have had a job then,” said Julia. “I could just have stayed at home and done the flowers, and written notes … Why did one write notes and who were they to?”

“All the people that you now ring up on the telephone,” said Miss Blacklock with a twinkle. “I don't believe you even know
how
to write, Julia.”

“Not in the style of that delicious ‘Complete Letter Writer' I found the other day. Heavenly! It told you the correct way of refusing a proposal of marriage from a widower.”

“I doubt if you would have enjoyed staying at home as much as you think,” said Miss Blacklock. “There were duties, you know.” Her voice was dry. “However, I don't really know much about it. Bunny and I,” she smiled affectionately at Dora Bunner, “went into the labour market early.”

“Oh, we did, we did
indeed,
” agreed Miss Bunner. “Those naughty, naughty children. I'll never forget them. Of course, Letty was clever. She was a business woman, secretary to a big financier.”

The door opened and Phillipa Haymes came in. She was tall and fair and placid-looking. She looked round the room in surprise.

“Hallo,” she said. “Is it a party? Nobody told me.”

“Of course,” cried Patrick. “Our Phillipa doesn't know. The only woman in Chipping Cleghorn who doesn't, I bet.”

Phillipa looked at him inquiringly.

“Here you behold,” said Patrick dramatically, waving a hand, “the scene of a murder!”

Phillipa Haymes looked faintly puzzled.

“Here,” Patrick indicated the two big bowls of chrysanthemums, “are the funeral wreaths and these dishes of cheese straws and olives represent the funeral baked meats.”

Phillipa looked inquiringly at Miss Blacklock.

“Is it a joke?” she asked. “I'm always terribly stupid at seeing jokes.”

“It's a very nasty joke,” said Dora Bunner with energy. “I don't like it at all.”

“Show her the advertisement,” said Miss Blacklock. “I
must
go and shut up the ducks. It's dark. They'll be in by now.”

“Let me do it,” said Phillipa.

“Certainly not, my dear. You've finished your day's work.”

“I'll do it, Aunt Letty,” offered Patrick.

“No, you won't,” said Miss Blacklock with energy. “Last time you didn't latch the door properly.”

“I'll do it, Letty dear,” cried Miss Bunner. “Indeed, I should love to. I'll just slip on my goloshes—and now where did I put my cardigan?”

But Miss Blacklock, with a smile, had already left the room.

“It's no good, Bunny,” said Patrick. “Aunt Letty's so efficient that she can never bear anybody else to do things for her. She really much prefers to do everything herself.”

“She loves it,” said Julia.

“I didn't notice you making any offers of assistance,” said her brother.

Julia smiled lazily.

“You've just said Aunt Letty likes to do things herself,” she pointed out. “Besides,” she held out a well-shaped leg in a sheer stocking, “I've got my best stockings on.”

“Death in silk stockings!” declaimed Patrick.

“Not silk—nylons, you idiot.”

“That's not nearly such a good title.”

“Won't somebody please tell me,” cried Phillipa plaintively, “why there is all this insistence on death?”

Everybody tried to tell her at once—nobody could find
the
Gazette
to show her because Mitzi had taken it into the kitchen.

Miss Blacklock returned a few minutes later.

“There,” she said briskly, “
that's
done.” She glanced at the clock. “Twenty past six. Somebody ought to be here soon—unless I'm entirely wrong in my estimate of my neighbours.”

“I don't see why anybody should come,” said Phillipa, looking bewildered.

“Don't you, dear?… I dare say you wouldn't. But most people are rather more inquisitive than you are.”

“Phillipa's attitude to life is that she just isn't interested,” said Julia, rather nastily.

Phillipa did not reply.

Miss Blacklock was glancing round the room. Mitzi had put the sherry and three dishes containing olives, cheese straws and some little fancy pastries on the table in the middle of the room.

“You might move that tray—or the whole table if you like—round the corner into the bay window in the other room, Patrick, if you don't mind. After all, I am
not
giving a party!
I
haven't asked anyone. And I don't intend to make it obvious that I expect people to turn up.”

“You wish, Aunt Letty, to disguise your intelligent anticipation?”

“Very nicely put, Patrick. Thank you, my dear boy.”

“Now we can all give a lovely performance of a quiet evening at home,” said Julia, “and be quite surprised when somebody drops in.”

Miss Blacklock had picked up the sherry bottle. She stood holding it uncertainly in her hand.

Patrick reassured her.

“There's quite half a bottle there. It ought to be enough.”

“Oh, yes—yes …” She hesitated. Then, with a slight flush, she said:

“Patrick, would you mind … there's a new bottle in the cupboard in the pantry … Bring it and a corkscrew. I—we—might as well have a new bottle. This—this has been opened some time.”

Patrick went on his errand without a word. He returned with the new bottle and drew the cork. He looked up curiously at Miss Blacklock as he placed it on the tray.

“Taking this seriously, aren't you, darling?” he asked gently.

“Oh,” cried Dora Bunner, shocked. “Surely, Letty, you can't imagine—”

“Hush,” said Miss Blacklock quickly. “That's the bell. You see, my intelligent anticipation is being justified.”

II

Mitzi opened the door of the drawing room and admitted Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook. She had her own methods of announcing people.

“Here is Colonel and Mrs. Easterbrook to see you,” she said conversationally.

Colonel Easterbrook was very bluff and breezy to cover some slight embarrassment.

“Hope you don't mind us dropping in,” he said. (A subdued gurgle came from Julia.) “Happened to be passing this way—eh what? Quite a mild evening. Notice you've got your central heating on. We haven't started ours yet.”

“Aren't your chrysanthemums
lovely?
” gushed Mrs. Easterbrook. “
Such
beauties!”

“They're rather scraggy, really,” said Julia.

Mrs. Easterbrook greeted Phillipa Haymes with a little extra cordiality to show that she
quite
understood that Phillipa was not really an agricultural labourer.

“How is Mrs. Lucas' garden getting on?” she asked. “Do you think it will ever be straight again? Completely neglected all through the war—and then only that dreadful old man Ashe who simply did nothing but sweep up a few leaves and put in a few cabbage plants.”

“It's yielding to treatment,” said Phillipa. “But it will take a little time.”

Mitzi opened the door again and said:

“Here are the ladies from Boulders.”

“'Evening,” said Miss Hinchcliffe, striding over and taking Miss Blacklock's hand in her formidable grip. “I said to Murgatroyd: ‘Let's just drop in at Little Paddocks!' I wanted to ask you how your ducks are laying.”

“The evenings do draw in so quickly now, don't they?” said Miss Murgatroyd to Patrick in a rather fluttery way. “What
lovely
chrysanthemums!”

“Scraggy!” said Julia.

“Why can't you be cooperative?” murmured Patrick to her in a reproachful aside.

“You've got your central heating on,” said Miss Hinchcliffe. She said it accusingly. “Very early.”

“The house gets so damp this time of year,” said Miss Blacklock.

Patrick signalled with his eyebrows: “Sherry yet?” and Miss Blacklock signalled back: “Not yet.”

She said to Colonel Easterbrook:

“Are you getting any bulbs from Holland this year?”

The door again opened and Mrs. Swettenham came in rather guiltily, followed by a scowling and uncomfortable Edmund.

“Here we are!” said Mrs. Swettenham gaily, gazing round her with frank curiosity. Then, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, she went on: “I just thought I'd pop in and ask you if by any chance you wanted a kitten, Miss Blacklock? Our cat is just—”

“About to be brought to bed of the progeny of a ginger tom,” said Edmund. “The result will, I think, be frightful. Don't say you haven't been warned!”

“She's a very good mouser,” said Mrs. Swettenham hastily. And added: “What
lovely
chrysanthemums!”

“You've got your central heating on, haven't you?” asked Edmund, with an air of originality.

“Aren't people just like gramophone records?” murmured Julia.

“I don't like the news,” said Colonel Easterbrook to Patrick, buttonholing him fiercely. “I don't like it at all. If you ask me, war's inevitable—absolutely inevitable.”

“I never pay any attention to news,” said Patrick.

Once more the door opened and Mrs. Harmon came in.

Her battered felt hat was stuck on the back of her head in a vague attempt to be fashionable and she had put on a rather limp frilly blouse instead of her usual pullover.

“Hallo, Miss Blacklock,” she exclaimed, beaming all over her round face. “I'm not too late, am I? When does the murder begin?”

III

There was an audible series of gasps. Julia gave an approving little giggle, Patrick crinkled up his face and Miss Blacklock smiled at her latest guest.

“Julian is just frantic with rage that he can't be here,” said Mrs. Harmon. “He
adores
murders. That's really why he preached such a good sermon last Sunday—I suppose I oughtn't to say it was a good sermon as he's my husband—but it really was good, didn't you think?—so much better than his usual sermons. But as I was saying it was all because of
Death Does the Hat Trick.
Have you read it? The girl at Boots' kept it for me specially. It's simply
baffling.
You keep thinking you know—and then the whole thing switches round—and there are a lovely lot of murders, four or five of them. Well, I left it in the study when Julian was shutting himself up there to do his sermon, and he just picked it up and simply
could not
put it down! And consequently he had to write his sermon in a frightful hurry and had to just put down what he wanted to say very simply—without any scholarly twists and bits and learned references—and naturally it was heaps better. Oh, dear, I'm talking too much. But do tell me, when is the murder going to begin?”

Miss Blacklock looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“If it's going to begin,” she said cheerfully, “it ought to begin soon. It's just a minute to the half hour. In the meantime, have a glass of sherry.”

Patrick moved with alacrity through the archway. Miss Blacklock went to the table by the archway where the cigarette box was.

“I'd love some sherry,” said Mrs. Harmon. “But what do you mean by
if?
”

“Well,” said Miss Blacklock, “I'm as much in the dark as you are. I don't know what—”

She stopped and turned her head as the little clock on the mantelpiece began to chime. It had a sweet silvery bell-like tone. Everybody was silent and nobody moved. They all stared at the clock.

It chimed a quarter—and then the half. As the last note died away all the lights went out.

IV