Miss Marple's final cases - Agatha Christie [55]
Desperately Lou pounded on the door, calling and shouting. There was no creeper or drain-pipe outside the window that could help her to get out that way.
Tired at last of beating on the door, she returned to the window. From the window of her sitting-room farther along, the housekeeper’s head appeared.
‘Come and let me out, Mrs Oxley. I’m locked in.’
‘So am I.’
‘Oh dear, isn’t it awful? I’ve telephoned the police. There’s an extension in this room, but what I can’t understand, Mrs Oxley, is our being locked in. I never heard a key turn, did you?’
‘No. I didn’t hear anything at all. Oh dear, what shall we do? Perhaps Alfred might hear us.’ Lou shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Alfred, Alfred.’
‘Gone to his dinner as likely as not. What time is it?’
Lou glanced at her watch.
‘Twenty-five past twelve.’
‘He’s not supposed to go until half past, but he sneaks off earlier whenever he can.’
‘Do you think—do you think—’
Lou meant to ask ‘Do you think she’s dead?’ but the words stuck in her throat.
There was nothing to do but wait. She sat down on the window-sill. It seemed an eternity before the stolid helmeted figure of a police constable came round the corner of the house. She leant out of the window and he looked up at her, shading his eyes with his hand. When he spoke his voice held reproof.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked disapprovingly.
From their respective windows, Lou and Mrs Cresswell poured a flood of excited information down on him.
The constable produced a note-book and pencil. ‘You ladies ran upstairs and locked yourselves in? Can I have your names, please?’
‘No. Somebody else locked us in. Come and let us out.’
The constable said reprovingly, ‘All in good time,’ and disappeared through the window below.
Once again time seemed infinite. Lou heard the sound of a car arriving, and, after what seemed an hour, but was actually three minutes, first Mrs Cresswell and then Lou, were released by a police sergeant more alert than the original constable.
‘Miss Greenshaw?’ Lou’s voice faltered. ‘What—what’s happened?’
The sergeant cleared his throat.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, madam,’ he said, ‘what I’ve already told Mrs Cresswell here. Miss Greenshaw is dead.’
‘Murdered,’ said Mrs Cresswell. ‘That’s what it is—murder.’
The sergeant said dubiously:
‘Could have been an accident—some country lads shooting with bows and arrows.’
Again there was the sound of a car arriving. The sergeant said:
‘That’ll be the MO,’ and started downstairs.
But it was not the MO. As Lou and Mrs Cresswell came down the stairs a young man stepped hesitatingly through the front door and paused, looking round him with a somewhat bewildered air.
Then, speaking in a pleasant voice that in some way seemed familiar to Lou—perhaps it had a family resemblance to Miss Greenshaw’s—he asked:
‘Excuse me, does—er—does Miss Greenshaw live here?’
‘May I have your name if you please,’ said the sergeant advancing upon him.
‘Fletcher,’ said the young man. ‘Nat Fletcher. I’m Miss Greenshaw’s nephew, as a matter of fact.’
‘Indeed, sir, well—I’m sorry—I’m sure—’
‘Has anything happened?’ asked Nat Fletcher.
‘There’s been an—accident—your aunt was shot with an arrow—penetrated the jugular vein—’
Mrs Cresswell spoke hysterically and without her usual refinement:
‘Your h’aunt’s been murdered, that’s what’s ’appened. Your h’aunt’s been murdered.’
III
Inspector Welch drew his chair a little nearer to the table and let his gaze wander from one to the other of the four people in the room. It was the evening of the same day. He had called at the Wests’ house to take Lou Oxley once more over her statement.
‘You are sure of the exact words? Shot—he shot me—with an arrow—get help?’
Lou nodded.
‘And the time?’
‘I looked at my watch a minute or two later—it was then twelve twenty-five.’
‘Your watch keeps good