I Could Murder Her

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “I do the whole blooming lot, seventy of ’em, bang off. Never did fancy doing jobs by ’alves. I always says if everyone did as they ought in this ’ouse, these stairs’d be done by them what uses them most: one flight Mrs. Tony, one flight Mrs. Philip, one flight the twins, leaving the basement to me. But if you knew the words they’d ’ad, and the complaints they makes, why, you wouldn't believe it. Same with the bathrooms. Always someone else’s fault. I wouldn’t live in this ’ouse, not for any money.”

  Mrs. Pinks stood up to let Macdonald pass, adding: “And if you’ve got a minute to spare some time, I’d like a word with you meself.”

  “I’ve got plenty of time,’1 replied Macdonald. “It’s my job to listen to anybody who’s got a word to say.”

  “Well, say if we pop up into the box room, along to the right on the next floor. Mrs. Philip’s gone out, and Miss Paula’s still in bed. Never met such a girl for stopping in bed. Gives me the fair fidgets.”

  She led the way along the passage on the second floor to a little room which was used for storing suitcases and trunks, and having closed the door, she turned and faced Macdonald, her skinny arms folded across the bib of her apron.

  “You’re a C.I.D. man?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re asking about things because you believe that someone bumped off old Mrs. F.?”

  “I’m asking about things because old Mrs. Farrington did not die a natural death, and the doctors can’t give a burial certificate. Will you tell me your name and address and how long you’ve been employed here?”

  “Mrs. Pinks—109A Culworth Buildings, N.W. I been here three years. Miss Madge engaged me. She heard of me from Mrs. Baines, wife of one of the painters they ’ad working ’ere. You’d better get this straight. I’d been in trouble, see. I worked in Polton’s, one o’ them chain stores. Me ’usband was sick and I couldn't make do with four kids on the insurance money. I was run in for pinching—fruit and that. My Gert ’ad ’ad measles and me old man couldn’t eat the usual, and fruit was perishin’ dear. So I pinched them some grapes and that. Got bound over. I told Miss Madge the ‘ole story and she said she’d risk it, and I worked for ’er three years. And if ever there’s a Christian, it’s Miss Madge. She's been proper decent to me, and I'll never forget it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you told me all about that,” said Macdonald. “What’s the matter with your husband?”

  “Diabetes.”

  “I see,” said Macdonald. “Did Miss Madge tell you what caused her mother’s death?”

  “Yes. That's why I came to you. I want you to get this straight. She never done it, not Miss Madge. They’ll all try to put it on her. But she never done it.”

  “Why do you say, ‘They'll all try to put it on her’?”

  “Because they will. You just wait. Not the Colonel. He won’t. He’s a gentleman, and he's fond of Miss Madge. He understands ’er and ’e loves ’er. She’s ’is own child, and ’e knows ’er, same’s ’e knows hisself. I want to make you see what things is like here.” she burst out. It’s only me can tell you. The others won’t.”

  “It’s my job to know what things have been like here,” said Macdonald. “So go ahead. Tell me the truth as you’ve seen it. Don’t exaggerate, and don’t repeat what other people have said. Only what you’ve seen yourself.”

  He sat down on the ledge of the window sill, and Mrs. Pinks seated herself on an old bedroom chair and began: “When they came back to this ’ouse after the war, Miss Madge ’ad been ill. That’s why she couldn’t go on wiv her nursing. At first it was only Colonel and Mrs. F. Then the twins came ’ome. Then Mr. and Mrs. Strange came. Then young Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, Mrs. Philip we calls 'er. And Miss Madge cooked for the lot of ’em, with me and Milly Pardon doing the ’ouse. Then Milly got married and left only me. Work? I tell you we fair slaved, and never a thank you from no one, only complaints about this, that, and the other. I don’t wonder Miss Madge said some bitter-things. She’s got a tongue and she used it. You see, all them others, Joyce and Tony and Paula and Peter, they was Mrs. F.’s children. All tarred with the same brush. Selfish they is. the whole boiling of them. Won't do a hand’s turn for no one. It was ‘Madge can do this and Madge should do that,’ from morning to night. And old Mrs. F. was the worst of the lot. She liked having them all together for meals—one big ’appy family she called ’em, I don’t think.”

  “Do you mean that they quarrelled?” asked Macdonald.

  “Bickered, backchat, and that,” said Mrs. Pinks. “The old lady played them off one against the other. First one’d be favourite, then another, but if anything was wrong, always blame Miss Madge. You know ’ow it is with some women when they gets old; they lives on the young, so to speak. Old Mrs. F., she liked ’aving ’em all together; she could keep tabs on ’em, everlasting asking questions an’ prying. Well, at last there’s a proper blow-up. Mrs. Strange say she must ’ave her own kitchenette and do 'er own meals, and then Mrs. Duncan says she'll do ditto, and because they was both afraid of offending the old lady, they blames everything on to Miss Madge and says she’d been that disagreeable they couldn't stand it no longer.”

  Macdonald listened with lively interest to Mrs. Pinks’ vigorous cockney speech. Even allowing for the charwoman’s obvious devotion to Madge, she yet gave a good picture of the resentments which had animated the family living in this dignified house.

  “It’s rather surprising that Miss Madge put up with things for so long,” he said. “She seems a very competent person. She could have got many an easier job elsewhere.”

  “If I told ’er so once, I told ’er an ’undred times,” said Mrs. Pinks. “She’s a tiptop cook, a good manager, and she’s easy to work under. She didn’t want to go away because of ’er dad. She’s real fond of ’er dad, and I don’t wonder, because a kinder man never lived. But she’d got just about fed-up, and I reckon she’d’ve chucked it pretty soon. And now what’s ’appened? All this to-do about the old lady, and Miss Madge says she can’t leave ’er dad. And them others whispering together. Oh, it makes me that mad, I know what they’re getting at. Blame Miss Madge. The same old story. Don't you listen to ’em.”

  “It’s my business to listen to everybody, and to sort out the truth from the falsehood,” said Macdonald quietly. “Now here's a plain question. If Mrs. Farrington was killed, have you any idea who killed her?”

  Mrs. Pinks twisted her apron round and round her work' worn hands. “You call it a plain question,” she said slowly. “I reckon it’s an horrible question. I'm not one o’ those to go calling other folks murderers light’earted like. It’s a shocking thing to point at someone and say they killed their own mother.”

  “You’re perfectly right. It’s a shocking thing,” replied Macdonald gravely; “but if you know anything, it’s your duty to tell it. It’s my business to find out if what you tell me is true, and if it means what you think it means.”

  “Well, that’s straight,” she said slowly. “There’s something about you I can trust, so I’ll tell you what I knows and you can sort it out. But I’m not saving she did it. I got daughters of me own, and I’d never say a thing like that.” She gave her thumb an upward jerk. “That Miss Paula, you knows of her? Had a party on Monday night and borrowed the sherry glasses. Locked up, them glasses is. The old lady always locked things up. Miss Paula got the key somehow; I reckon she pinched it when her ma wasn’t looking. Mrs. F. wouldn’t never ’ave let the twins ’ave them sherry glasses. Well, the next morning the glasses was back in the cabinet, some of them. Reckon the others got smashed. And the cabinet was locked. Miss Madge asks Paula where she put the key after she’d put the glasses back, and Paula says, ‘You've got the key. I left it on the kitchen table.’ Now that’s a lie. Paula didn’t get dressed till after nine, and I was here before that. And Miss Madge and the Colonel came down here just after six that morning, and the key wasn’t on the kitchen table then. I reckon Paula tried to put the key back where she got it from
, in the old lady’s bedroom. And that room’s been locked ever since. You look and see if that key’s in the bedroom. Because if it is, I reckon one of them twins put it there after their party, and they say they never went into the bedroom. I know I’m not much of an ’and at telling things, but d’you see what I mean?”

  “Yes. I understand. It’s important, and I’ll see it’s cleared up.”

  “I know it cuts both ways,” said Mrs, Pinks sadly: “but that Paula, she’s telling lies and trying to put things on Miss Madge, and I won’t stand for that. And then there’s something else. You know it was old Mrs. F. had the money. The Colonel’s not got a bean. It's the twins and Mrs. Philip who want the money. The twins special, because Peter’s got his-self into some sort of a mess. You’ll find out about that.”

  “How do you know about it?” asked Macdonald.

  “Because they’re silly young fools. Up till the day the old lady died Peter’d been going out to work every morning at ’arf-past eight, same’s he’s done for months. On Tuesday he stayed at home, and Wednesday, too. I told you I do the bathrooms. The bathroom on this floor’s a new one, put in when Mrs. Duncan created because she and ’er ’usband ’ad to share with Mrs. Strange. Mrs. Duncan ’as to share with the twins now, and she don’t like that, either. But that bathroom’s just under Miss Paula’s bedroom, and you can hear voices same as if you was in the same room, and I heard Mister Peter saying, M got to have that money somehow and I got to have it quick. Can’t you borrow on the will?’ and Paula she says, ‘I’ll see what I can do, but I daren’t let anybody know. There’s all this fuss over the post-mortem.’ I won’t swear to them being the exact words, but it’s near enough. You find out why them twins needs the money. They’ve been up to something. That Peter’s ’ad a job in a lawyer’s office, but i reckon they chucked ’im out and ’e’s doing something in the painting line. ’E didn’t let on, though— went out at ’arf-past eight regular, as tho’ ’e was going to ’is office, but I knew ’e wasn’t.”

  “How’ did you know?”

  “Common sense. I does his bedroom. The twins ’as the attic floor between them. This past month Peter’s bedroom's been all in a muck with paints and sketches, and ’e’s fixed up that room under the leads as a sort of studio—great enormous sheets ’e’s got up there, and such drawings as you never did see. Indecent I calls ’em, and ’ideous at that.”

  3

  “Now for a few plain questions,” said Macdonald, "Were you in the kitchen when Mrs. Farrington came down to speak to Miss Madge on Monday morning?”

  “I was in the scullery—same thing. I could ’ear all that was said, and I told Miss Madge so afterwards. And I said if she’d got any gump she’d walk out right away. ‘You go up them basement steps with what’s left of the ’ousekeeping money,’ I says. ‘You’ve earned it, if ever a girl did.’ Eight to dinner, if you please, and that .meant soup, bird, and et ceteras; two sweets, savoury, and dessert. And all the washing up afterwards, single’anded. When a girl’s dog-tired. I asks you. She said, ‘No, I won’t*—and I could 'a cheered when I ’ear'd ’er.”

  “You mean that she was really angry?”

  “No. I don’t. She was quiet, but quite decided. ‘I won’t do it,’ she says. And between you and me, she’d no need. She’d been offered a decent job. and she told her ma so. And the old lady started ’orf on ’er heart-attack line. And then the Colonel comes in and takes madam off upstairs to lie down.” Macdonald, with an inward chuckle, meditated that if ever Mrs. Pinks were put in the witness box she would brighten the dreariest of dreary cases. Shrewd, trenchant, and yet not excessively voluble, she was the type to give a cross-examining counsel a run for his money.

  “You came back here on Monday evening?” he inquired-, but his question did not seem to worry Mrs. Pinks at all.

  “Yes. I did. I brought Miss Madge some shrimps.”

  “And a bunch of daffodils.”

  “Oh, that. Fancy ’er telling you that. I do like a nice hunch o’ flowers. She was real down’earted. Just cooked supper for six and no one to eat it. She told me and my two kids to sit down and polish it orf. And we did, not ’arf. She’s a lovely cook, Miss Madge is. Then I ’elped ’er wash up our plates and off we went ’ome. Saw the doctor's car go off just as we went up the area steps. ’Arf-past seven that was. I ’ad to get back to my old man by eight. I was glad we popped in. Cheered Miss Madge up to see my two tuck into that supper she'd cooked.”

  SEVEN

  AT THE CLOSE OF HER INTERVIEW with Macdonald, Mrs. Pinks undertook to go upstairs to see if Paula were dressed, “I know she’s up now,” said the charwoman, “because I 'eard the bath water a-running while you and me was talking. That’d be Miss Paula; always likes to ’ave ’er bath just when I cleaned the bathroom, and mucks it all up again. Peter’s not that fond of baths; a real mess, ’e is. Why not come up and see them paintings? I’d like you to see them, just give you an idea.”

  Nothing loath, Macdonald followed Mrs. Pinks up a steep narrow stairway which led to the attics, the one-time servants’ quarters of Windermere House. On the small landing at the top of the stairs Mrs. Pinks gestured with an expressive thumb. “That way. The bedrooms is this side.”

  Thus encouraged, Macdonald opened a door and found himself in a long room immediately under the rafters. The huge cistern was here, in a wooden casing, and the place was lighted by a long skylight. Against one wall sheets of cartoon paper had been pinned up. On these sheets a lively design had been roughed out consisting of a series of grotesques based on human and feline forms. Macdonald, who had a bowing acquaintance with the eccentricities of modern decor, recognised some merit in the vigour of the design, while understanding the feelings of Mrs. Pinks. The cartoons seemed to him to combine a natural sense of rhythm and form with a deliberate perversion of feeling which was almost base. While he stood there meditating what he felt was the abuse of natural facility—for the design was certainly facile in its flowing lines—the door was pushed open and a girl stood staring at him with apprehensive eyes. Then Mrs. Pinks called to her: “I'd better do Mr. Peter’s room, miss. Wasn't done yesterday.”

  The girl turned swiftly. “You can't do it, Mrs. Pinks. He locked it when he went out. He doesn’t want his things to be moved. I’ll do it when he comes in.”

  “And when did ’e go out, I’d like to know? I been doing these stairs ever since I ’eard you talking to ’im up here.”

  ’You haven’t. You were in the box room when he went out. Go and finish your old stairs and don’t fuss.”

  Paula was dressed in a plain woollen frock of deep blue, very full and rather long in the skirt, fitting tightly about the bodice and waist. Macdonald thought the frock did two things: it emphasised her youth by displaying her extreme slenderness and brought out some quality for which the word “medieval” flashed through his mind before he had time to analyse it: something not of today. She turned back to him and smiled, and he was almost shocked by the disquiet of her eyes, deep-sunken in their shadowed sockets, at once so young and so old.

  “You are Inspector Macdonald? I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting. I was dancing last night and didn’t get home till morning. Shall we go downstairs?”

  ‘Why not stay up here?” inquired Macdonald. “I think it’s rather a good idea to see people against their own background. This is a design for a ballet set, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s only experimental. It’ll never be used. Peter’s never had any training. Do you like ballet?”

  “Yes. The first dancer I saw was Nijinsky. That’s a long time ago—long before you were born.”

  “Yes, but ballet isn’t a new art.” She stood with her head on one side. “I never thought of a detective liking ballet.” “We’re very ordinary people, Miss Farrington, having likes and dislikes of our own, like everybody else. You know why I am here?”

  “Yes. Daddy told me. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it. I was up here all Monday eve
ning.”

  “Shall we sit down?” Macdonald perched himself on an old stool, and Paula sat down on a wooden box. Her full skirts arranged themselves in flowing lines, and against the background of the white paper with the bold red and black lines of the, monstrous cartoon she looked like part of the decor.

  “You went in to see your mother when you asked for the key to the glass cabinet,” began Macdonald. “What time was that?”

  She replied in a rush, almost breathlessly: '‘Oh, quite early. Before the doctor came. She was all right then. I just asked if I might have the key, and she gave it to me. I didn’t stay more than a minute.”

  “Was your father in the room?”

  “No. I think he was telephoning or something. I came straight up here after I’d seen Mother.”

  “Didn’t you go and get the sherry glasses from the cabinet?”

  “Oh . . . yes. I did.”

  “Did you see anybody, in the hall or on the stairs?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I came straight up here. We were having a party, and I was busy cutting sandwiches and getting things ready.”

  “How many guests did you have?”

  “Four. Two girls and two men. They all dance in the cabaret show I’ve been in. I have to take what jobs I can get.”

  “And where did you have your party?”

  “In here and in my bedroom. We ate and danced in here and sat in my bedroom in between. It was a birthday party for one of the girls. We would have liked to take them out and do it properly, but it costs too much. And it was more fun up here than downstairs. Mummy didn’t like my friends. I suppose they are rather a mixed lot.”

  “How long did the party go on?”

  “Oh . . . rather late. They went between one and two . . . about.”

  “All together?”

  “Yes. I crept down and let them out. We really did creep. I made them all take their shoes off, and they didn’t put them on again until they got outside. I didn’t put the lights on, either. I took a torch.”