4_50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie [31]
“Got a wire from Emma—my sister. We’ve never had a murder on the premises before. Didn’t want to miss anything—so along I came.”
“You are interested in criminology?”
“Oh, we needn’t put it in such highbrow terms! I just like murders—Whodunnits and all that! With a Whodunnit parked right on the family doorstep, it seemed the chance of a lifetime. Besides, I thought poor Em might need a spot of help—managing the old man and the police and all the rest of it.”
“I see. It appealed to your sporting instincts and also to your family feelings. I’ve no doubt your sister will be very grateful to you—although her two other brothers have also come to be with her.”
“But not to cheer and comfort,” Cedric told him. “Harold is terrifically put out. It’s not at all the thing for a City magnate to be mixed up with the murder of a questionable female.”
Craddock’s eyebrows rose gently.
“Was she—a questionable female?”
“Well, you’re the authority on that point. Going by the facts, it seemed to me likely.”
“I thought perhaps you might have been able to make a guess at who she was?”
“Come now, Inspector, you already know—or your colleagues will tell you, that I haven’t been able to identify her.”
“I said a guess, Mr. Crackenthorpe. You might never have seen the woman before—but you might have been able to make a guess at who she was—or who she might have been?”
Cedric shook his head.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. I’ve absolutely no idea. You’re suggesting, I suppose, that she may have come to the Long Barn to keep an assignation with one of us? But we none of us live here. The only people in the house were a woman and an old man. You don’t seriously believe that she came here to keep a date with my revered Pop?”
“Our point is—Inspector Bacon agrees with me—that the woman may once have had some association with this house. It may have been a considerable number of years ago. Cast your mind back, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Cedric thought a moment or two, then shook his head.
“We’ve had foreign help from time to time, like most people, but I can’t think of any likely possibility. Better ask the others—they’d know more than I would.”
“We shall do that, of course.”
Craddock leaned back in his chair and went on:
“As you have heard at the inquest, the medical evidence cannot fix the time of death very accurately. Longer than two weeks, less than four—which brings it somewhere around Christmas-time. You have told me you came home for Christmas. When did you arrive in England and when did you leave?”
Cedric reflected.
“Let me see… I flew. Got here on the Saturday before Christmas—that would be the 21st.”
“You flew straight from Majorca?”
“Yes. Left at five in the morning and got here midday.”
“And you left?”
“I flew back on the following Friday, the 27th.”
“Thank you.”
Cedric grinned.
“Leaves me well within the limit, unfortunately. But really, Inspector, strangling young women is not my favourite form of Christmas fun.”
“I hope not, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Inspector Bacon merely looked disapproving.
“There would be a remarkable absence of peace and good will about such an action, don’t you agree?”
Cedric addressed this question to Inspector Bacon who merely grunted. Inspector Craddock said politely:
“Well, thank you, Mr. Crackenthorpe. That will be all.”
“And what do you think of him?” Craddock asked as Cedric shut the door behind him.
Bacon grunted again.
“Cocky enough for anything,” he said. “I don’t care for the type myself. A loose-living lot, these artists, and very likely to be mixed up with a disreputable class of woman.”
Craddock smiled.
“I don’t like the way he dresses, either,” went on Bacon. “No respect—going to an inquest like that. Dirtiest pair of trousers I’ve seen in a long while. And did you see his tie? Looked as though it was made of coloured string. If you ask me, he’s the kind that would easily strangle a woman and make no bones about it.”
“Well, he didn’t strangle this one—if he didn’t leave Majorca until the 21st. And that’s a thing we can verify easily enough.”
Bacon threw him a sharp glance.