A Murder Is Announced_ A Miss Marple Mystery - Agatha Christie [23]
“And shot himself?”
“It could be. When I saw the face of him, he looked like the kind of little pasty thief who might easily lose his nerve.”
“And you’re sure you had never seen him before?”
“Never.”
“Thank you, Mr. Simmons. I shall want to interview the other people who were here last night. Which would be the best order in which to take them?”
“Well, our Phillipa—Mrs. Haymes—works at Dayas Hall. The gates of it are nearly opposite this gate. After that, the Swettenhams are the nearest. Anyone will tell you.”
Seven
AMONG THOSE PRESENT
I
Dayas Hall had certainly suffered during the war years. Couch grass grew enthusiastically over what had once been an asparagus bed, as evidenced by a few waving tufts of asparagus foliage. Grounsel, bindweed and other garden pests showed every sign of vigorous growth.
A portion of the kitchen garden bore evidence of having been reduced to discipline and here Craddock found a sour-looking old man leaning pensively on a spade.
“It’s Mrs. ’Aymes you want? I couldn’t say where you’d find ’er. ’As ’er own ideas, she ’as, about what she’ll do. Not one to take advice. I could show her—show ’er willing—but what’s the good, won’t listen these young ladies won’t! Think they know everything because they’ve put on breeches and gone for a ride on a tractor. But it’s gardening that’s needed here. And that isn’t learned in a day. Gardening, that’s what this place needs.”
“It looks as though it does,” said Craddock.
The old man chose to take this remark as an aspersion.
“Now look here, mister, what do you suppose I can do with a place this size? Three men and a boy, that’s what it used to ’ave. And that’s what it wants. There’s not many men could put in the work on it that I do. ’Ere sometimes I am till eight o’clock at night. Eight o’clock.”
“What do you work by? An oil lamp?”
“Naterally I don’t mean this time o’ year. Naterally. Summer evenings I’m talking about.”
“Oh,” said Craddock. “I’d better go and look for Mrs. Haymes.”
The rustic displayed some interest.
“What are you wanting ’er for? Police, aren’t you? She been in trouble, or is it the do there was up to Little Paddocks? Masked men bursting in and holding up a roomful of people with a revolver. An’ that sort of thing wouldn’t ’ave ’appened afore the war. Deserters, that’s what it is. Desperate men roaming the countryside. Why don’t the military round ’em up?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Craddock. “I suppose this hold-up caused a lot of talk?”
“That it did. What’s us coming to? That’s what Ned Barker said. Comes of going to the pictures so much, he said. But Tom Riley he says it comes of letting these furriners run about loose. And depend on it, he says, that girl as cooks up there for Miss Blacklock and ’as such a nasty temper—she’s in it, he said. She’s a communist or worse, he says, and we don’t like that sort ’ere. And Marlene, who’s behind the bar, you understand, she will ’ave it that there must be something very valuable up at Miss Blacklock’s. Not that you’d think it, she says, for I’m sure Miss Blacklock goes about as plain as plain, except for them great rows of false pearls she wears. And then she says—Supposin’ as them pearls is real, and Florrie (what’s old Bellamy’s daughter) she says, ‘Nonsense,’ she says—‘noovo ar—that’s what they are—costume jewellery,’ she says. Costume jewellery—that’s a fine way of labelling a string of false pearls. Roman pearls, the gentry used to call ’em once—and Parisian diamonds—my wife was a lady’s maid and I know. But what does it all mean—just glass! I suppose it’s ‘costume jewellery’ that young Miss Simmons wears—gold ivy leaves and dogs and such like. ’Tisn’t often you see a real bit of gold nowadays—even wedding rings they make of this grey plattinghum stuff. Shabby, I call it—for all that it costs the earth.”
Old Ashe paused for breath and then continued:
“‘Miss Blacklock don’t keep much money in the ’ouse, that I do know,’ says Jim ’Uggins, speaking up. ’E should know, for it’s ’is wife as goes up and does for ’em at Little Paddocks, and she’s a woman