A Murder Is Announced_ A Miss Marple Mystery - Agatha Christie [63]
“Fletcher has been exceedingly active. He’s made a routine search of the house by agreement with Miss Blacklock—but he didn’t find anything significant. Then he’s been checking up on who could have had the opportunity of oiling that door. Checking who was up at the house on the days that that foreign girl was out. A little more complicated than we thought, because it appears she goes for a walk most afternoons. Usually down to the village where she has a cup of coffee at the Bluebird. So that when Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner are out—which is most afternoons—they go blackberrying—the coast is clear.”
“And the doors are always left unlocked?”
“They used to be. I don’t suppose they are now.”
“What are Fletcher’s results? Who’s known to have been in the house when it was left empty?”
“Practically the whole lot of them.”
Rydesdale consulted a page in front of him.
“Miss Murgatroyd was there with a hen to sit on some eggs. (Sounds complicated but that’s what she says.) Very flustered about it all and contradicts herself, but Fletcher thinks that’s temperamental and not a sign of guilt.”
“Might be,” Craddock admitted. “She flaps.”
“Then Mrs. Swettenham came up to fetch some horse meat that Miss Blacklock had left for her on the kitchen table because Miss Blacklock had been in to Milchester in the car that day and always gets Mrs. Swettenham’s horse meat for her. That make sense to you?”
Craddock considered.
“Why didn’t Miss Blacklock leave the horse meat when she passed Mrs. Swettenham’s house on her way back from Milchester?”
“I don’t know, but she didn’t. Mrs. Swettenham says she (Miss B.) always leaves it on the kitchen table, and she (Mrs. S.) likes to fetch it when Mitzi isn’t there because Mitzi is sometimes so rude.”
“Hangs together quite well. And the next?”
“Miss Hinchcliffe. Says she wasn’t there at all lately. But she was. Because Mitzi saw her coming out of the side door one day and so did a Mrs. Butt (she’s one of the locals). Miss H. then admitted she might have been there but had forgotten. Can’t remember what she went for. Says she probably just dropped in.”
“That’s rather odd.”
“So was her manner, apparently. Then there’s Mrs. Easterbrook. She was exercising the dear dogs out that way and she just popped in to see if Miss Blacklock would lend her a knitting pattern but Miss Blacklock wasn’t in. She says she waited a little.”
“Just so. Might be snooping round. Or might be oiling a door. And the Colonel?”
“Went there one day with a book on India that Miss Blacklock had expressed a desire to read.”
“Had she?”
“Her account is that she tried to get out of having to read it, but it was no use.”
“And that’s fair enough,” sighed Craddock. “If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!”
“We don’t know if Edmund Swettenham was up there. He’s extremely vague. Said he did drop in occasionally on errands for his mother, but thinks not lately.”
“In fact, it’s all inconclusive.”
“Yes.”
Rydesdale said, with a slight grin:
“Miss Marple has also been active. Fletcher reports that she had morning coffee at the Bluebird. She’s been to sherry at Boulders, and to tea at Little Paddocks. She’s admired Mrs. Swettenham’s garden—and dropped in to see Colonel Easterbrook’s Indian curios.”
“She may be able to tell us if Colonel Easterbrook’s a pukka Colonel or not.”
“She’d know, I agree—he seems all right. We’d have to check with the Far Eastern Authorities to get certain identification.”
“And in the meantime”—Craddock broke off—“do you think Miss Blacklock would consent to go away?”
“Go away from Chipping Cleghorn?”
“Yes. Take the faithful Bunner with her, perhaps, and leave for an unknown destination. Why shouldn’t she go up to Scotland and stay with Belle Goedler? It’s a pretty unget-at-able place.”
“Stop there and wait for her to die? I don’t think she’d do that. I don’t think any nice-natured woman would like that suggestion.”
“If it’s a matter of saving her life—”
“Come now, Craddock, it isn’t quite so easy to bump someone off as you seem to think.