Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie [76]
His words reminded me of my calls, and I took leave of him. It was about the solitary instance when I had seen him in a genial mood.
My first call was on Miss Hartnell. She must have been watching me from the window, for before I had time to ring she had opened the front door, and clasping my hand firmly in hers, had led me over the threshold.
‘So good of you to come. In here. More private.’
We entered a microscopic room, about the size of a hencoop. Miss Hartnell shut the door and with an air of deep secrecy waved me to a seat (there were only three). I perceived that she was enjoying herself.
‘I’m never one to beat about the bush,’ she said in her jolly voice, the latter slightly toned down to meet the requirements of the situation. ‘You know how things go the rounds in a village like this.’
‘Unfortunately,’ I said, ‘I do.’
‘I agree with you. Nobody dislikes gossip more than I do. But there it is. I thought it my duty to tell the police inspector that I’d called on Mrs Lestrange the afternoon of the murder and that she was out. I don’t expect to be thanked for doing my duty, I just do it. Ingratitude is what you meet with first and last in this life. Why, only yesterday that impudent Mrs Baker –’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, hoping to avert the usual tirade. ‘Very sad, very sad. But you were saying.’
‘The lower classes don’t know who are their best friends,’ said Miss Hartnell. ‘I always say a word in season when I’m visiting. Not that I’m ever thanked for it.’
‘You were telling the Inspector about your call upon Mrs Lestrange,’ I prompted.
‘Exactly – and by the way, he didn’t thank me. Said he’d ask for information when he wanted it – not those words exactly, but that was the spirit. There’s a different class of men in the police force nowadays.’
‘Very probably,’ I said. ‘But you were going on to say something?’
‘I decided that this time I wouldn’t go near any wretched inspector. After all, a clergyman is a gentleman – at least some are,’ she added.
I gathered that the qualification was intended to include me.
‘If I can help you in any way,’ I began.
‘It’s a matter of duty,’ said Miss Hartnell, and closed her mouth with a snap. ‘I don’t want to have to say these things. No one likes it less. But duty is duty.’
I waited.
‘I’ve been given to understand,’ went on Miss Hartnell, turning rather red, ‘that Mrs Lestrange gives out that she was at home all the time – that she didn’t answer the door because – well, she didn’t choose. Such airs and graces. I only called as a matter of duty, and to be treated like that!’
‘She has been ill,’ I said mildly.
‘Ill? Fiddlesticks. You’re too unworldly, Mr Clement. There’s nothing the matter with that woman. Too ill to attend the inquest indeed! Medical certificate from Dr Haydock! She can wind him round her little finger, everyone knows that. Well, where was I?’
I didn’t quite know. It is difficult with Miss Hartnell to know where narrative ends and vituperation begins.
‘Oh, about calling on her that afternoon. Well, it’s fiddlesticks to say she was in the house. She wasn’t. I know.’
‘How can you possibly know?’
Miss Hartnell’s face turned redder. In someone less truculent, her demeanour might have been called embarrassed.
‘I’d knocked and rung,’ she explained. ‘Twice. If not three times. And it occurred to me suddenly that the bell might be out of order.’
She was, I was glad to note, unable to look me in the face when saying this. The same builder builds all our houses and the bells he installs are clearly audible when standing on the mat outside the front door. Both Miss Hartnell and I knew this perfectly well, but I suppose decencies have to be preserved.
‘Yes?’ I murmured.
‘I didn’t want to push my card through the letter box. That would seem so rude, and whatever I am, I am never rude.’
She made this amazing statement without a tremor.
‘So I thought I would just go round the house and – and tap on the window pane,’ she continued unblushingly. ‘I went all round the house and looked in at all the windows,