A Murder Is Announced_ A Miss Marple Mystery - Agatha Christie [38]
Craddock had noted, almost mechanically, a thin line horizontally across the panels of the door he had been trying to open. He realized now it was the mark where the table had been. Something stirred vaguely in his mind as he asked, “Moved? How long ago?”
In questioning Dora Bunner there was fortunately no need to give a reason for any question. Any query on any subject seemed perfectly natural to the garrulous Miss Bunner who delighted in the giving of information, however trivial.
“Now let me see, really quite recently—ten days or a fortnight ago.”
“Why was it moved?”
“I really can’t remember. Something to do with the flowers. I think Phillipa did a big vase—she arranges flowers quite beautifully—all autumn colouring and twigs and branches, and it was so big it caught your hair as you went past, and so Phillipa said, ‘Why not move the table along and anyway the flowers would look much better against the bare wall than against the panels of the door.’ Only we had to take down Wellington at Waterloo. Not a print I’m really very fond of. We put it under the stairs.”
“It’s not really a dummy, then?” Craddock asked, looking at the door.”
“Oh, no, it’s a real door, if that’s what you mean. It’s the door of the small drawing room, but when the rooms were thrown into one, one didn’t need two doors, so this one was fastened up.”
“Fastened up?” Craddock tried it again, gently. “You mean it’s nailed up? Or just locked?”
“Oh, locked, I think, and bolted too.”
He saw the bolt at the top and tried it. The bolt slid back easily—too easily….
“When was it last open?” he asked Miss Bunner.
“Oh, years and years ago, I imagine. It’s never been opened since I’ve been here, I know that.”
“You don’t know where the key is?”
“There are a lot of keys in the hall drawer. It’s probably among those.”
Craddock followed her and looked at a rusty assortment of old keys pushed far back in the drawer. He scanned them and selected one that looked different from the rest and went back to the door. The key fitted and turned easily. He pushed and the door slid open noiselessly.
“Oh, do be careful,” cried Miss Bunner. “There may be something resting against it inside. We never open it.”
“Don’t you?” said the Inspector.
His face now was grim. He said with emphasis:
“This door’s been opened quite recently, Miss Bunner. The lock’s been oiled and the hinges.”
She stared at him, her foolish face agape.
“But who could have done that?” she asked.
“That’s what I mean to find out,” said Craddock grimly. He thought—“X from outside? No—X was here—in this house—X was in the drawing room that night….”
Ten
PIP AND EMMA
I
Miss Blacklock listened to him this time with more attention. She was an intelligent woman, as he had known, and she grasped the implications of what he had to tell her.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “That does alter things … No one had any right to meddle with that door. Nobody has meddled with it to my knowledge.”
“You see what it means,” the Inspector urged. “When the lights went out, anybody in this room the other night could have slipped out of that door, come up behind Rudi Scherz and fired at you.”
“Without being seen or heard or noticed?”
“Without being seen or heard or noticed. Remember when the lights went out people moved, exclaimed, bumped into each other. And after that all that could be seen was the blinding light of the electric torch.”
Miss Blacklock said slowly, “And you believe that one of those people—one of my nice commonplace neighbours—slipped out and tried to murder me? Me? But why? For goodness’ sake, why?”
“I’ve a feeling that you must know the answer to that question, Miss Blacklock.”
“But I don’t, Inspector. I can assure you, I don’t.”
“Well, let’s make a start. Who gets your money if you were to die?”
Miss Blacklock said rather reluctantly:
“Patrick and Julia. I’ve left the furniture in this