Mary removed her hand, and said quietly to the Inspector: "Mrs. Carter is rather overwrought. Perhaps I can help you? What exactly do you wish to know?"
"Well, miss," replied the Inspector, "when a gentleman is shot dead practically in his own grounds, the police want to know everything. Mr. Carter was related to you, I believe?"
"He was my cousin, and until I came of age, my guardian."
"I take it you were on pretty intimate terms with him?"
"I think so - up to a point. I live here, you know."
"Yes, miss. Now, did you ever have any reason to think he might have enemies?"
"No," Mary replied. "I know that many people - rather disliked him, but I can't imagine anyone having any cause to murder him."
"Oh, Mary, what a shocking word to use!" gasped Ermyntrude. "Oh, whatever have I done to deserve a thing like this coming upon me, and Lady Dering asking me to be Chairwoman of the Hospital Committee, and all!"
"Had he private means, miss?" asked the Inspector.
"Not a penny!" said Ermyntrude. "And if he had he'd have gone through it inside of a week! The money I've squandered - well, I don't mean that exactly, but no one would believe the sums he's had out of me, and all spent on things I won't mention, let alone what found its way into White's pocket! Oh, you needn't look like that, Mary! I'm not such a fool but what I can see what's been under my nose since I don't know when! It was him led Wally to his ruin, not but what he didn't need much leading, but at least he wasn't ever so bad till he took up with White! Everything's been his fault, and if you ask me you'll find he's at the bottom of this, too!"
"What makes you say that, madam?" asked the Inspector.
Ermyntrude laid a hand on her breast. "I feel it here! A woman's instinct is never wrong! I've always hated that man!"
"But, Aunt Ermy, really that isn't fair!" expostulated Mary. "Why on earth should he murder Wally?"
"Don't ask me!" said Ermyntrude. "I don't trust him, that's all I know."
The Inspector said in a dry tone: "I see, madam. You have, I understand, a foreign gentleman staying in the house?"
Ermyntrude gave a start. "Alexis! If I hadn't forgotten him! That shows you the state my nerves are in!" Tears sprang to her eyes. "And I wanted everything to be so nice - a real glimpse of English country-house life! Oh dear, Mary, you know the trouble I took over Alexis's coming, and Wally being as disagreeable as he knew how! And as though it wasn't enough for him to carry on like he did, spoiling everything, but he must needs go and get himself murdered! Whatever will Alexis think?"
"Ah!" said the Inspector. "Mr. Carter, then, didn't like the foreign gentleman?"
"Oh, I don't know what he liked, but if you ask me he'd have liked him well enough if it hadn't been for all that silly fuss about the dog. It sort of put him against poor Alexis."
"Fuss about the dog?" repeated the Inspector, struggling to keep pace with Ermyntrude's erratic utterances.
Hugh, who had been listening entranced to these disclosures, met Mary's eye for a pregnant moment.
"Aunt Ermy, that can't possibly interest the Inspector," said Mary. "It has absolutely no bearing on the case!"
"I wouldn't be too sure of that, miss," said the Inspector darkly. "If there was some sort of a quarrel over the dog, foreign gentlemen not treating dumb animals the way we do, and Mr. Carter took exception to it, as well he might, it may have a very important bearing on the case, for we all know that foreigners are hasty-tempered, and take offence where none's intended. Mind you, I don't say.."
"The man's mad!" exclaimed Ermyntrude, her tears arrested by astonishment. "Whoever said there was a quarrell about the dog? The idea!"
"You misunderstood what Mrs. Carter meant," said Mary. "Our guest is a Prince, and unfortunately my cousin's spaniel's called Prince. It was just that my cousin felt that it might be a little awkward." She saw a look of bewilderment on the Inspector's face, and added desperately: "On account of them both answering to the same name, I mean."
Hugh gripped his underlip between his teeth, and gazed rigidly at the opposite wall.
The Inspector was obviously shaken. He stared very hard at Mary, and said severely: "I'm bound to say, it doesn't make sense to me, miss."
"No. No, it was very silly and trivial. I told you it had no bearing on the case."
The Inspector turned back to Ermyntrude. "This Prince, madam, is a friend of yours, I take it?"
"Well, of course he is!" replied Ermyntrude. "He's a very dear friend of mine!"
"I should like to see him, if you please," said the Inspector, feeling that he was nearing the centre of the labyrinth at last.
"You can't see him; he's gone out to tea with Dr Chester. Besides, what's the use of your seeing him? You don't suppose he killed my husband, do you?"
"I don't suppose anything, madam," said the Inspector stiffly. "But it's my duty to interrogate everyone staying in this house. If he's out, I'll wait for him to come back; and in the meantime I wish to ask Miss Fanshawe a few questions."
"Don't you think you're going to drag my girl into this!" said Ermyntrude, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. "I'll put up with a good deal, but I won't put up with that! My Vicky's an innocent child, just on the threshold of life, and if you imagine I'm going to stand by while you rub the bloom off her, you'll very soon find out where you get off, and so I warn you!"
The Inspector turned a dull red. "There's no call for you to talk like that, madam. I'm sure I don't want to rub any bloom off anybody! But I've got my duty to do, and I'm bound to tell you that I can't have you trying to obstruct me the way you're trying to!"
A voice from above made him look quickly up the staircase. "Oh, darling Ermyntrude, I do think that's so dear and quaint of you!" said Vicky. "Only I simply haven't got any bloom left after what's happened, and anyway you can see what a nice man he probably is in his off time." She bestowed one of her more angelic smiles upon the Inspector, and said confidingly: "I dare say you've got daughters of your own?"
The Inspector was not unnaturally put off his balance by the sudden and enchanting vision of a fragile beauty, ethereally fair in a frock of unrelieved black, and said that he was not a family man.
"Oh, aren't you? I quite thought you must be," said Vicky.. "Do you want to talk to me? Shall I come down?"
"If you please, miss."
Ermyntrude, whose wrath had given way to the fondest maternal admiration, watched her daughter float downstairs in a drift of black chiffon, and said involuntarily: "Oh, Vicky, I am glad you've changed out of those trousers! Somehow they didn't seem right to me."
"Oh no, they were utterly anomalous!" agreed Vicky. Her gaze fell upon Hugh. "I can't imagine why you've come back. I think you're frightfully uncalled-for."
"You ought to be grateful to me for swelling your audience," replied Hugh.
"I must have people in sympathy with me," said Vicky. "All great artistes are like that."
"What's that got to do with it?" inquired Hugh unkindly.
The Inspector interrupted this exchange without ceremony. "You are Miss Victoria Fanshawe?" he said.
"Yes, didn't you know? Only not Victoria, if you don't mind, because I practically never feel like that."
"My information," pursued the Inspector relentlessly, "is that at the time of your stepfather's death you were walking by the stream with your dog. Is that correct?"
"Yes, and I definitely heard the shot, only I quite thought it was someone potting rabbits."
"Did you see anyone amongst the bushes, miss?"
"No, but I don't think I could have. They're awfully thick by the stream. Besides, I didn't look, and as a matter of fact I wasn't paying any attention at all, until I heard Mr. White's voice, and Janet White sobbing. That's what made me go down to the bridge."
"And this dog of yours, miss: he didn't bark, or anything, as though he knew there was a stranger prowling about?"
Vicky shook her head. "No, he didn't, which makes it look rather as though it wasn't a
stranger, now I come to think of it. Unless, of course, he kept jolly still, and Roy didn't get wind of him."
Ermyntrude said uneasily: "But, lovey, it can't have been other than a stranger. Not anyone belonging to us, I mean, and it isn't to be supposed any of our friends would go and do a thing like that."
"No, I worked it all out while I was changing," said Vicky. "I think Percy must have done it."
"Vicky, we don't want to go into that!" said Ermyntrude hurriedly. "It'll be all over the country once anyone gets wind of it! Now, you hold your tongue, sweetie, like a good girl!"
"Oh, darling, did you want me not to mention Percy? I'm so sorry, but I haven't myself got any compunction, because he said he was the declared enemy of all our class, so that it seems awfully likely he did it."
"I must request you, miss, to give me a plain answer!" said the Inspector, regarding her with such an alert expression on his face that Mary's heart sank. "Who is this person you refer to as Percy?"
"Well, he's a Communist," said Vicky. "He's Percy Baker, and he works at Gregg's, in Burntside."
"What makes you suppose he might have had something to do with Mr. Carter's death? Had he got a grudge against him?"
"Yes, but it's a very sordid story," said Vicky softly. "You wouldn't like to hear it from an innocent girl's lips."
"I don't mind whose lips - look here, miss, are you trying to make game of me? Because, if so '
"Oh no, no, no!" faltered Vicky, looking the picture of scared virginity.
Ermyntrude arose majestically from the couch. "Is nothing sacred to you?" she demanded of the Inspector. "Won't you be satisfied until you've crucified me?"
"No, I won't - I mean, there's no question of me doing anything of the sort!" said the exasperated Inspector. "What I want, and what I'm going to have, is the truth! And I warn you, madam, you're doing yourself no good by carrying on in this unnatural way!"
"Don't think that you can bully me!" begged Ermyntrude. "I may look to you like a defenceless woman, but you'll find your mistake if you try me too far!"
"Oh, Aunt Ermy, do, do control yourself!" said Mary wearily. "Percy Baker, Inspector, is the brother of a girl whom my cousin, I'm sorry to say, had got into trouble. But as all he wanted from my cousin was money, I can't see why he should have killedd him."
"No, that's what I thought at first," agreed Vicky, "but I must say he did seem to me to be frightfully undecided about his racket, when I saw him. I wouldn't wonder at all if he suddenly made up his mind to go all out for revenge, because he rather approves of massacring people, and thinks the French Revolution was a pretty good act, "specially while the Terror Lasted."
"The girl's name and address?" said the Inspector, holding his pencil poised above his notebook.
"Well, we're not, as a matter of fact, on calling-terms," said Vicky. "She works at the Regal Cinema, in Fritton."
"That's right: brandish my shame over the whole countryside!" said Ermyntrude, tottering back to the couch. "Pillory me as much as you like!"
"Darling Ermyntrude, it isn't your shame at all. You don't mind my brandishing Gladys's shame, do you?"
"I can assure you, madam, I shall, so far as I am able, conduct my inquiries with the utmost discretion," said the Inspector.
"Yes, I wish I may see you!" retorted Ermyntrude tartly. "And if you're going to interview that - that - well, never mind what, but if you're going to see that girl, you can tell her that she can sing for her five hundred pounds, for she won't get it out of me, not after this!"
"Is that the sum that was demanded from Mr. Carter, madam?"
"Yes, you may well look surprised!" said Ermyntrude. "And the young man coming up here, as bold as brass, to blackmail my husband in the middle of a dinner-party, and him having the face to tell me as cool as you please that he'd have to ask me for five hundred to get rid of this Gladys with!"
"Mr. Carter told you what he wanted this sum for?" said the Inspector incredulously.
"Well, he had to, or I wouldn't have given it to him."
The Inspector coughed. "No doubt that was the cause of your disagreement with Mr. Carter, madam?"
"Of course it was!" replied Ermyntrude. "Well, I ask you, wouldn't you be a bit upset if you found that your husband was carrying on like a Mormon all over the town, and expecting you to provide for a pack of - well, I don't want to be coarse, so we'll leave it at that!"
The Inspector was staring at her. "Yes, madam, I'm bound to say I would. But - but - did you tell Mr. Carter you would give him this money?"
"Well, what else was I to do?" demanded Ermyntrude. "Faults I may have, and I don't deny it, but thank God no one's ever said I was mean!"
A new train of thought had been set up in the Inspector's mind. He said in a suspiciously mild voice: "I don't think I need to ask you any more questions at present, madam, except what you were doing at the time of Mr. Carter's death - just a matter of routine!" he added, perceiving a spark in Ermyntrude's eye.
"How do I know when he died? What are you trying to get at?"
Judging from the evidence I've heard so far, madam, and the time of Mr. White's phone call to the police station, Mr. Carter was shot at about five minutes to five."
"It makes no difference to me when he was shot," said Ermyntrude. "I've been lying down the whole afternoon on my bed."
"And you, miss?" said the Inspector, turning suddenly towards Mary.
"I came downstairs just before my cousin set out to go to the Dower House. When he left, I went out to get some tomatoes from one of the hot-houses."
"Where is this hot-house, miss?"
"By the kitchen-garden, on the other side of the house."
"I take it you heard nothing?"
"No, nothing at all."
"I see, miss." The Inspector shut his notebook. "I should like to interview the servants, if you please."
"Certainly," Mary replied. "But only the butler and his wife, and the under-housemaid are in. The rest of them went out immediately after luncheon. If you'll come into the morning-room, I'll send the butler to you at once."
The Inspector thanked her, and followed her to the morning-room. Ermyntrude, after commenting acridly on the effrontery of policemen who behaved as though the place belonged to them, allowed herself to be persuaded to go into the drawing-room.
When Mary came back to the hall she found Hugh alone there. "I think I ought to clear out," he said. "But if there's anything I can do, you know you've only to tell me."
"Oh, don't go!" said Mary, who was feeling a good deal shaken. "I can't cope with them! It's like being in a madhouse, and when that awful Prince gets back, it'll be worse. Wasn't Aunt Ermy ghastly? And as for that little beast, Vicky, I'd like to wring her neck! She deliberately dragged Wally's affair with Gladys Baker into it! The one thing we wanted to keep quiet about!"
"I don't think you could have done that, though I admit I was a trifle startled when Vicky flung the bomb into our midst. She seems to have recovered from her first shock."
"Of course she's recovered! She's probably enjoying all the sensation. But, Hugh, what are we going to do? Who did kill Wally? And how am I to stop Aunt Ermy making foolish admissions?"
"I shouldn't think you could do that," said Hugh frankly. "You might have a shot at quelling Vicky, though. As for who killed Wally, I haven't the faintest idea, unless Vicky was right, and it was Baker."
"Oh, I hope it was!" Mary said, pressing her hands to her temples.
Hugh lifted his brows. "Like that, is it? Not keeping anything back from the police, are you, Mary? Because, if so, don't."
"No, no, of course I'm not! Only we've been living in a sort of atmosphere of drama, and repressions, and I expect I've let it get on my nerves. Hugh, couldn't it have been an accident?"
"Hardly," he replied. "The only persons who could conceivably have been shooting at rabbits in the Dower House grounds - five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, too! - are White, or his son. Well, it wasn't White, and I don't see why it shoul
d have been his son."
"Where was Alan?"
"I don't know. Not present."
"Anyway, there isn't the slightest reason why he should want to kill Wally," said Mary, with a sigh.
Vicky came out of the drawing-room just then, with a large box of chocolates, which she offered both to Mary and Hugh. When they declined this form of refreshment, she perched herself on the back of the sofa, with her feet on the cushioned seat, and laid the box across her knees. "Poor darling Ermyntrude is a bit exhausted," she remarked, selecting a truffle from the box. "Myself, I thought the scene was too long for her, and much too heavy."
"Need you talk as though we were taking part in theatricals?" snapped Mary.
"Yes, because we're bound to be, with Ermyntrude and me in the thick of it. We simply can't help it, darling. Particularly Ermyntrude, because she always wanted to play in heavy tragedy, and no one ever gave her the chance, so you can't blame her for letting herself go now."
"It's so false!" Mary exclaimed. "You know as well as I do that she didn't care tuppence about Wally!"
"No, I do think she had got awfully sick of him," agreed Vicky, choosing another chocolate from the box.
"Very well then, all this pretence of tragedy is in the worst of bad taste!"
"Don't be silly, darling: if she still cared about Wally I don't think she'd do it. I'm not sure, mind you, but I rather believe not. And after all, you can't very well expect her to go all hard-boiled, and let everyone know she doesn't care a bit."
"I don't expect it, but a little reticence, and dignity…"
Vicky raised her eyes from the chocolates. "Oh, Mary, you must be completely addled! Why on earth should poor Ermyntrude suddenly become reticent and dignified, when that isn't her line at all? She couldn't put over an act like that, which is why I think it's so right of her just to play herself, if you know what I mean."
"Leaving your mother out of the discussion," said Hugh, "what part are you proposing to play?"
"It depends," replied Vicky. "How hellish! I've struck a hard chocolate which is wholly inedible. What on earth will I do with it?"
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