Blue Murder (11 page)

Arnold nodded.

“About that will, though,” he said. “Haven't you found it yet? Didn't she make one?”

“Oh yes, she made one, and we've found it,” replied Cheam. “It's dated on the day that you saw someone threatening her with a horsewhip. And she left all her money unconditionally to her husband.”

“By God!” exclaimed Arnold. “Then that's what he was forcing her to sign. The dirty swine!”

The Superintendent shook his head.

“Then how did he get it witnessed?” he asked.

“Oh, some trickery. Don't let a little detail like that worry you. I tell you that man would stop at nothing to get his own way. Do you mean to tell me that you're not going to arrest him?”

Cheam shrugged his shoulders.

“I've no evidence,” he said. “Now, if you'd only looked through that window a bit more carefully—”

“Window be damned!” exclaimed Arnold with a violence which Cheam thought unjustified. “I tell you I
know
he was in that room. Of course he murdered her, and if you don't arrest him, I shall do something about it myself!”

From the Cook, Cheam evoked nothing but a long eulogy on Mrs. Hardstaffe, to whom, rightly or wrongly, she ascribed all the virtues and none of the vices.

And what were things coming to, she'd like to know, when a nice, kind lady like the poor mistress was murdered in cold blood in her bed?

She supposed it was all on account of that there 'Itler and his New Order putting such ideas into people's minds, and it was a crying shame, for a better mistress than Mrs 'Ardstaffe she'd never met with nor she wasn't likely to again.

She'd been in service for longer than she'd care to remember, and she'd known mistresses who'd spend their time in the kitchen pulling your Apple Amber to pieces, m a manner of speaking, and turning up their noses at your Rabbit Pie. But Mrs. Ardstaffe had never been like that. Not that she came into the kitchen much nowadays on account of Miss Leda not liking it, but in the old days she came in regular with always a kind word for your fish sauce, or a “however do you get the meringue on the Queen Pudding so crisp, Cook?” when she knew as well as yourself that it was the sprinkling of castor sugar on top before baking that did it.

Then she always remembered to ask after your sister Polly's little boy, who wasn't quite the same as other children, Polly having been frightened by a mad dog before he was born. But, there you were, it was all on account of the mistress being a Lady Born and she'd be sadly missed in Nether Naughton.

Not that you'd grudge the poor lady a rest from all the trouble she had for so many years, and she never being in good health neither, though there was few people in the house to believe it.

No, the old house wasn't the same nowadays. When the mistress had the running of it, there'd been fresh flowers in every room, not forgetting the kitchen, mind, and the drawing-room looked a fair treat with one set of covers for Winter and another for Summer.

But ever since Miss Leda had took to dogs, the place hadn't been the same, and the new covers were no sooner on than they were sprinkled with dog-hairs, and worse! As for carpets! There wasn't one in the whole house fit for the mistress to put her little shoes down on. It used to worry the mistress something dreadful. But Miss Leda was that strong-willed, there was no doing anything with her. Her father had spoiled her since she was a child, and he'd live to rue it to his dying day.

But there, talking of dying made her think of the poor mistress, and many a tear she'd shed over her, and that was more than the master or Miss Leda could say, she'd be bound.

Well, she was going to give in her notice at the end of the month. She wouldn't stay in a house where the cooking wouldn't be appreciated any more, and though she said as shouldn't, the way she managed with the rations was worth a bit of praise now and again. She'd only stayed on so long after the dogs came, to oblige the poor mistress who'd have starved if it hadn't been for her smuggling tasty little bits of food to her upstairs when she was feeling ill, poor dear. Miss Leda always seemed to delight in sending up sausages or kippers when she felt like that.

Besides... there had been Goings On.

“Well, if you insist, Mr. Cheam,” she went on, “I must tell you, I suppose, but, mind, I'm not one to be gossiping about people's private affairs like some of them I could mention in this village; but there's no denying that there have been Goings On in this house on and off for years. Women, sir. The master couldn't leave a pretty girl alone and that's a fact. The first one I remember was a maid we had, called Lily. The mistress went into the study unbeknownst and found her sitting on the master's knee. That time it was the poor mistress who did the raving. Sacked the girl, and fair read the riot act to him. But she never put a stop to it, and well she knew it. Now it's that young Charity Fuller, and I wouldn't be prepared to say it's any better than the other Goings On. You'd think that any presentable girl'd have more sense than to take up with a man older than her own father, especially with all these different uniforms about, but I suppose there's something about him like that band leader who invented the trilby hat. Disraeli, I saw a play about him and it fair gave me the creeps.”

The Superintendent, ignoring this libel on the worthy Prime Minister, interposed a question, and wondered whether he was likely to find any clue among the spate of words which inevitably must follow.

“When did I last see the mistress alive? On the Saturday morning it would be. Miss Leda was out with the dogs and she brought her morning coffee with her, and sat in the rocking chair in the kitchen as though she felt lonely-like. I tried to cheer her up reading out some of the Ministry of Food's hints, to make her laugh, but as I said, how can you expect a lot of men to know anything about food, except how to eat it? Very depressed she was because Miss Fuller was coming to dinner, and you'll never make me believe that the mistress had anything to do with inviting her. It was some monkey-trick of the master's more like.

“Frieda? Oh no, she never did it. A bit queer she is, right enough, but so'd we be if we'd been through half what she has. I never did hold with Jews, me being a good Church of England Christian, but I don't hold with torturing an animal, let alone a decent-living human-being, and the bits of tales that girl manages to tell you would fair make your hair curl. She hadn't had a good meal for months before she got to this country. As for murdering anyone, why, the girl's at her wits' end to stay here. She might kill herself if Miss Leda gave her the sack, but she was fond of the mistress like we all were in the kitchen. She's slow over her work, I'll admit, but she'd learn if Miss Leda would give over tormenting her: a fair down on her she has, her being a foreigner, but as I say, you might as well have a down on a sausage-dog for being a German. They can't neither of them help it. The girl's all nerves. And tired...! She falls asleep whenever she sits down. It isn't fair the way Miss Leda goes on at her. She never calls her by her name in the kitchen. ‘Jew', she calls her. ‘Come here, Jew', and ‘Go and do that, Jew'. It isn't right, sir.”

“But what about these violent rages she flings herself into? Mightn't she do some harm to anyone then?”

“Bless you, no,” was the comfortable reply. “They're no more than a child's tantrums. If she'd been going to murder anyone in this household, it would have been Miss Leda. It's my belief that she puts on these little ways just to annoy Miss Leda, and I don't blame her, though it's not my place to say so.”

The Cook paused for breath.

“Did you hear anything strange on the night Mrs. Hardstaffe died?” asked Cheam.

“Me? Not a thing, nor likely to. Our bedrooms are over the kitchens and we go up by a different staircase. Vicky—that's Briggs, but you'll know that—did come into my bedroom when I was in bed reading ‘Maria Marten or The Murder in the Red Barn'. A fair start she gave me, I can tell you. She said the mistress had been fair wiping the floor with the master, but I told her to get to bed and mind her own business.”

“Have you any idea who killed your mistress?”

“No, nor nothing anyone says will make me believe she was murdered. She did it herself, the poor soul. Tired of struggling against them two and their Goings On, that's what it was, you can depend on it, sir. Why don't you let her be? She's happier now than she's been for years.”

The little Jewish maid entered the room furtively, and stood with her back to the door. In her dark eyes was the kind of expression you see in the eyes of a back-alley cat, which wonders why any human being wearing boots refrains from kicking it, and, suspecting a trap, keeps its distance.

“Come over here,” requested Cheam.

“Please?”

He beckoned, and pointed to the chair in front of his own.

The girl moved forward heavily on her black wardroom slippers, and stood, perspiring and afraid, before him.

“I want to ask you a few questions,” he said.

Frieda clasped her hands together.

“But I know nothing,” she said vehemently. “Nothing!”

“You know that Mrs. Hardstaffe is dead?”

She nodded.

“And you know that she did not die naturally. Someone has killed her.”

“I know, I know. It is dreadful!”

“Do you know anything about it?”

The dark brown eyes dilated.

“Me? But I tell you I know nothing.”

Cheam sighed. It was difficult to frame his questions within the three-hundred-word vocabulary of a two-year-old child.

“Did you like Mrs. Hardstaffe?”

For the first time since she had entered, the haunted look faded from her eyes.

“But yes. I like her so much. Very kind. Always I do things for her and she say ‘tank you' so nice. Her voice soft not like that other.
She
....”

Her gesture made her opinion of Leda quite clear, and Cheam, reflecting that such gestures seemed international and universal, wondered whether the British Navy was responsible for inventing them.

“Mrs. Hardstaffe was killed by morphia,” he stated.

“I understand.”

“You know what morphia is?”

She nodded.

“It is an unusual word in English. Where did you learn it?”

“Please?” She frowned in some perplexity, then her face cleared as his meaning became clear to her. “But it is German. In Germany we say always morphium.”

“I see.” (Must get hold of an English-German Dictionary, he thought). “And what do you know about—er —morphium?”

“I know. I have it,” she replied eagerly.

“Where did you get it from?”

“But I bring it from Germany. My doctor, a friend, he give it.”

“Why?” persisted Cheam.

“For me to eat.” She became animated. “You do not understand? No. Because you are not German Jew. You say 'Itler is bad man, must be kill. But if you are not Jew, you do not know how bad. You understand bombs and Luftwaffe, but you do not understand Gestapo and torture if you are not Jew like me. I am told to get up from my bed one night. I must go to the frontier. If I do not go, I am sent to Poland in cattletruck or to concentration camp. I am not pretty enough to keep for Germans. But perhaps I do not get to frontier, and so I must have morphium. It is better then to die, being a Jew.”

She gazed at his unaltered expression, and with a shrug of her shoulders, reverted to her former manner.

“You do not understand,” she said. “You are not German Jew.”

Cheam, feeling considerably shocked and endeavouring successfully to conceal it, continued with his questions.

“When did you last see Mrs. Hardstaffe?”

“Please?”

He repeated the question in altered form.

“Saturday night it is when I am in bed.”

“In bed? She came to your bedroom?” asked Cheam, in some surprise.

“No. I go to her room. I am asleep. I hear voices. I awake. Cook is talking to Briggs. They say he quarrel with her, so when they are quiet, I go to see Mrs. 'Ardstaffe.” 

“Whatever for?”

“To see she is all right. I like her so much. She is so kind to me.”

“What an extraordinary thing to do!” exclaimed Cheam. “Why did you do that?”

“She is kind. I have no friend but her. I am afraid the Gestapo kill her.”

Poor thing, thought Cheam. It's turned her brain.

Frieda achieved a smile.

“I make joke,” she explained. “You not understand? Miss 'Ardstaffe I call Miss 'Itler: Mr. 'Ardstaffe is Gestapo.”

“You don't like Mr. Hardstaffe?”

“Like him? I hate him! But she! She is worse.” Her face grew fiendish. “She is evil. One day I kill her!”

“With morphia?” asked Cheam.

“With morphia, no. With my hands—so!”

My God! she means it, thought Cheam. She's capable of murder all right. Needs watching.

So you went to Mrs. Hardstaffe's bedroom. Did you see her?”

“I knock, but no answer. I open the door. It is dark. I go away. In the morning, I know they have kill her, and I am afraid.”

“Why?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I know Miss 'Itler will say it is me who kill her. ‘The Jew is not safe, she shall say, and she shall put me in concentration camp or madhouse.”

“That's nonsense!” exclaimed Cheam. “Why should she want to do that?”

“You do not know her. She is not what you think. She is evil. I know. I am young and she is old, but I know. I have seen much evil.”

Cheam rose to his feet.

“This morphia,” he said. “Where do you keep it?”

“Upstairs: I shall show you.”

He followed her up the main staircase and through the swing door into the servants' carpetless wing.