The Clocks - Agatha Christie [59]
“But why should she come to see me just because she had seen me at the inquest?”
“Well—” the inspector smiled a little, then hastily tried to put the smile in his voice as he realized that Miss Pebmarsh could not appreciate its disarming quality. “One never knows with these girls. She might just have wanted an autograph. Something like that.”
“An autograph!” Miss Pebmarsh sounded scornful. Then she said, “Yes … Yes, I suppose you’re right. That sort of thing does happen.” Then she shook her head briskly. “I can only assure you, Inspector Hardcastle, that it did not happen today. Nobody has been here since I came back from the inquest.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Pebmarsh. We thought we had better check up on every possibility.”
“How old was she?” asked Miss Pebmarsh.
“I believe she was nineteen.”
“Nineteen? Very young.” Her voice changed slightly. “Very young … Poor child. Who would want to kill a girl of that age?”
“It happens,” said Hardcastle.
“Was she pretty—attractive—sexy?”
“No,” said Hardcastle. “She would have liked to be, I think, but she was not.”
“Then that was not the reason,” said Miss Pebmarsh. She shook her head again. “I’m sorry. More sorry than I can say, Inspector Hardcastle, that I can’t help you.”
He went out, impressed as he always was impressed, by Miss Pebmarsh’s personality.
II
Miss Waterhouse was also at home. She was also true to type, opening the door with a suddenness which displayed a desire to trap someone doing what they should not do.
“Oh, it’s you!” she said. “Really, I’ve told your people all I know.”
“I’m sure you’ve replied to all the questions that were asked you,” said Hardcastle, “but they can’t all be asked at once, you know. We have to go into a few more details.”
“I don’t see why. The whole thing was a most terrible shock,” said Miss Waterhouse, looking at him in a censorious way as though it had been all his doing. “Come in, come in. You can’t stand on the mat all day. Come in and sit down and ask me any questions you want to, though really what questions there can be, I cannot see. As I told you, I went out to make a telephone call. I opened the door of the box and there was the girl. Never had such a shock in my life. I hurried down and got the police constable. And after that, in case you want to know, I came back here and I gave myself a medicinal dose of brandy. Medicinal,” said Miss Waterhouse fiercely.
“Very wise of you, madam,” said Inspector Hardcastle.
“And that’s that,” said Miss Waterhouse with finality.
“I wanted to ask you if you were quite sure you had never seen this girl before?”
“May have seen her a dozen times,” said Miss Waterhouse, “but not to remember. I mean, she may have served me in Woolworth’s, or sat next to me in a bus, or sold me tickets in a cinema.”
“She was a shorthand typist at the Cavendish Bureau.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had occasion to use a shorthand typist. Perhaps she worked in my brother’s office at Gainsford and Swettenham. Is that what you’re driving at?”
“Oh, no,” said Inspector Hardcastle, “there appears to be no connection of that kind. But I just wondered if she’d come to see you this morning before being killed.”
“Come to see me? No, of course not. Why should she?”
“Well, that we wouldn’t know,” said Inspector Hardcastle, “but you would say, would you, that anyone who saw her coming in at your gate this morning was mistaken?” He looked at her with innocent eyes.
“Somebody saw her coming in at my gate? Nonsense,” said Miss Waterhouse. She hesitated. “At least—”
“Yes?” said Hardcastle, alert though he did not show it.
“Well, I suppose she may have pushed a leaflet or something through the door … There was a leaflet there at lunchtime. Something about a meeting for nuclear disarmament, I think. There’s always something every day. I suppose conceivably she might have come and pushed something through the letter box; but you can’t blame me for that,