Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie [77]
I understood her perfectly. Taking advantage of the fact that the house was empty, Miss Hartnell had given unbridled rein to her curiosity and had gone round the house examining the garden and peering in at all the windows to see as much as she could of the interior. She had chosen to tell her story to me, believing that I should be a more sympathetic and lenient audience than the police. The clergy are supposed to give the benefit of the doubt to their parishioners.
I made no comment on the situation. I merely asked a question.
‘What time was this, Miss Hartnell?’
‘As far as I can remember,’ said Miss Hartnell, ‘it must have been close on six o’clock. I went straight home afterwards, and I got in about ten past six, and Mrs Protheroe came in somewhere round about the half-hour, leaving Dr Stone and Mr Redding outside, and we talked about bulbs. And all the time the poor Colonel lying murdered. It’s a sad world.’
‘It is sometimes a rather unpleasant one,’ I said.
I rose.
‘And that is all you have to tell me?’
‘I just thought it might be important.’
‘It might,’ I agreed.
And refusing to be drawn further, much to Miss Hartnell’s disappointment, I took my leave.
Miss Wetherby, whom I visited next, received me in a kind of flutter.
‘Dear Vicar, how truly kind. You’ve had tea? Really, you won’t? A cushion for your back? It is so kind of you to come round so promptly. Always willing to put yourself out for others.’
There was a good deal of this before we came to the point, and even then it was approached with a good deal of circumlocution.
‘You must understand that I heard this on the best authority.’
In St Mary Mead the best authority is always somebody else’s servant.
‘You can’t tell me who told you?’
‘I promised, dear Mr Clement. And I always think a promise should be a sacred thing.’
She looked very solemn.
‘Shall we say a little bird told me? That is safe isn’t it?’
I longed to say, ‘It’s damned silly.’ I rather wish I had. I should have liked to observe the effect on Miss Wetherby.
‘Well, this little bird told that she saw a certain lady, who shall be nameless.’
‘Another kind of bird?’ I inquired.
To my great surprise Miss Wetherby went off into paroxysms of laughter and tapped me playfully on the arm saying:
‘Oh, Vicar, you must not be so naughty!’
When she had recovered, she went on.
‘A certain lady, and where do you think this certain lady was going? She turned into the Vicarage road, but before she did so, she looked up and down the road in a most peculiar way – to see if anyone she knew were noticing her, I imagine.’
‘And the little bird –’ I inquired.
‘Paying a visit to the fishmonger’s – in the room over the shop.’
I know where maids go on their days out. I know there is one place they never go if they can help – anywhere in the open air.
‘And the time,’ continued Miss Wetherby, leaning forward mysteriously, ‘was just before six o’clock.’
‘On which day?’
Miss Wetherby gave a little scream.
‘The day of the murder, of course, didn’t I say so?’
‘I inferred it,’ I replied. ‘And the name of the lady?’
‘Begins with an L,’ said Wetherby, nodding her head several times.
Feeling that I had got to the end of the information Miss Wetherby had to impart, I rose to my feet.
‘You won’t let the police cross-question me, will you?’ said Miss Wetherby, pathetically, as she clasped my hand in both of hers. ‘I do shrink from publicity. And to stand up in court!’
‘In special cases,’ I said, ‘they let witnesses sit down.’
And I escaped.
There was still Mrs Price Ridley to see. That lady put me in my place at once.
‘I will not be mixed up in any police court business,’ she said grimly, after shaking my hand coldly. ‘You understand that, on the other hand, having come across a circumstance which needs explaining, I think it should be brought to the notice of the authorities.’
‘Does it concern Mrs Lestrange?’ I asked.
‘Why should it?’ demanded Mrs Price Ridley coldly.