Chapter Eleven

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(1)

WHILE Macdonald had been talking to Colonel Farrington and Joyce Duncan, Reeves had been busy testing for fingerprints in Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom. Having photographed all those surfaces where his insufflator had shown up the prints, he began to sort out their most probable originators. As was to be expected, Mrs. Farrington’s own prints were the most frequent, and Reeves was able to identify these from the photograph already taken after the autopsy. The frequent prints of a man’s fingers Reeves assumed to be those of Colonel Farrington, and an occasional print of very plump fingers he guessed to have been made by Mrs. Pinks. In addition to these he found a few more occasional prints, particularly on the door and window frames, which he was unable to identify and which caused him to ponder considerably. At length he left the bedroom, locking the door behind him, and went upstairs again to the attics. The house was very quiet, but on the second floor he met Madge Farrington, coming downstairs from the top floor as silently as a ghost. She wore her neat white coat, and her face was pale above it with the ugly pallor of a piece of newspaper lying on fresh snow. She met Reeves’ eyes deliberately and said:

“If you are going upstairs again, will you be as quiet as you can, please? We’ve had enough hysterics for one day, and I’ve just got my sister Paula quiet. Your woman’s up there, so you needn’t worry.” Her low voice was hard and terse, her eyes dark and weary.

Reeves replied: “I needn’t go up at all at the moment, Miss Farrington, if you will answer some questions for me.”

“I’d rather do anything than have you set Paula off again,” she replied; “but someone’s got to cook the dinner, so will you come downstairs to the kitchen?”

“Thanks, I will,” replied Reeves. “Sorry to be a nuisance, but it’s the way things are.”

A half-smile lightened the bleakness of her eyes as she glanced at him and preceded him down the stairs.

“What a house,” thought Reeves as he followed her down the steep stairs into the basement and along a stone passage into the kitchen. “Give me a prefab any day, though it’s a nice kitchen.”

As Madge entered it, Mrs. Pinks called out from the scullery: “I’ve done the spuds, Miss Madge, and popped a rice pudding in the oven. I should give ’em soup out of a tin and that there bully you’ve been saving up. And do these ’ere police want me to get on with me work, or not? There’s Mister Peter’s room not touched, and Miss Paula’s ditto, and the mess in the top bathroom you’d not believe.”

“Oh, yes, I would,” said Reeves cheerfully. “Mister Peter’s room’s not so bad now. I’ve had a good smack at tidying it.”

Mrs. Pinks emerged from the scullery. “You ’ave, ’ave you? And who’re you, might I ask? Another of ’em?”

“That’s it. You might have been worse off. My mother taught me to be tidy.”

“Well, you’re cheerful, that’s one thing,” said Mrs. Pinks. “It’s bad enough, but you two blokes are much better than some cops I’ve known. Always believe in saying what I think, and what I didn’t say to that there Inspector wasn’t worth saying. Very nice he was about it, too.”

Madge began to laugh. “Mrs. Pinks, this house is just a loony bin. Peter’s doped himself, Paula’s screamed herself asleep. Anne’s having a first-class row with her husband, and Father’s telling the Chief Inspector that his children are the salt of the earth. If you really want some work to do, go and clean all the brass in the hall. Then you won’t have to listen to me answering questions. And get me the mincer out. I’m damn well not going to give Father cold bully beef on top of everything else.”

“That’s sense, that is,” said Reeves cheerfully. “When there’s a spot of bother, food does help. And if Mrs. Pinks cleans the brass in the hall, she can tell the Chief Inspector I’m in the kitchen if he happens to ask.”

“All right. I’ll tell ’im. The one bright spot, he is,” said Mrs. Pinks. “Here’s the mincer. And I’ll just get me Brasso and leave you two to a nice heart-to-heart.”

Madge seized the tin of bully and a tin opener, saying: “I’m late already, so I’m going to get on with it. What do you want to know?”

“Who cleans Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom, please?” asked Reeves.

“Mrs. Pinks. I never touch it. I do the drawing room and the kitchen, and we take turns over the attics,” replied Madge. “Why? Or am I not supposed to ask?”

“I’m sorting out the fingerprints,” replied Reeves. “I thought some of them were Mrs. Pinks’.”

“If you want our fingerprints, you’ll find hers all over that cup she’s just put down by the sink, and my own on the tumbler beside it,” replied Madge calmly.

“Thanks very much,” said Reeves sedately. “Now, you were in Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom on Tuesday morning, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t think I touched anything, if that’s what you want to know. I opened the door, of course, but several other people did that. I pulled back the curtains and I turned the bedclothes down a little. It was obvious that nothing could be done, so I didn’t mess about.”

“Which was very sensible of you,” replied Reeves.

“On the whole, nurses are taught to be sensible, particularly about corpses,” replied Madge dryly. “The one thing which I am not going to do is to get emotional or het up. We’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Yes. Have there been any workmen in Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom in the last week or so? Window cleaner, electrician, gas company’s man, or anybody like that?”

“I haven’t ordered anybody to come in, but I don’t know if my stepmother did. I shouldn’t think she did; if anything goes wrong, I am generally the first to be told about it because I have to get it put right. The window cleaner hasn’t been here for three weeks; he’s due again next week.”

“Thanks very much,” said Reeves. “Now I’ll leave you in peace to get on with the mince. I like your Mrs. Pinks. She’s champion, as they say up north.”

“Mrs. Pinks is worth all the other women in this house put together,” said Madge. She left off what she was doing and faced Reeves deliberately. “Whatever else happens, I hope we don’t bring trouble to her, because she has brought nothing but kindness to me. Apart from her, one and all of us has earned what’s coming to us, whatever it may happen to be. We’ve all been mean and spiteful and hateful in some ways. Mrs. Pinks never has.”

“I like the way you said that,” observed Reeves. “Contents noted, as they say at the office. It’s not strictly my job to be chatty at the moment, but I could never resist playing ball. When you said, ‘what’s coming to us,’ what did you really mean?”

“You should know, shouldn’t you?” she retorted. “But I wasn’t thinking about hangings, if that’s what you mean. I was thinking about all the small horrors: newspapers, and reporters with their living to earn; neighbours staring and tradesmen nudging each other; one’s friends and acquaintances saying, ‘I always believed there was something queer about her.’ One of the reasons I’m grateful to Mrs. Pinks is that when she goes home and people stop her and try to pump her---as they will---she’ll tell them in her own language just where to go.”

“She will, with knobs on,” replied Reeves. “And she’s got neighbours of her own, you know, and so has her old man.”

Madge stood very still, looking down at her cooking utensils, an arrested-motion study.

“I’m glad she told the Chief Inspector about her husband’s diabetes,” she said. “She’s got a lot of sense.”

“So has he,” replied Reeves, “and you don’t seem to be lacking, either.”

“You won’t find that’s the general opinion in this house,” she retorted tersely, and then went on, almost as though she were thinking aloud: “I suppose situations like this are as commonplace to you as curried beef is to me. You’re used to seeing people tying themselves up into knots until their nerves go like fiddlestrings. And then somebody confesses, because they can’t stand it any longer. But if Mrs. Pinks says she did it, tell her not to be a fool, because she couldn’t have.” And with that she slapped her tin down on the scrubbed table with a bang.

(2)

Reeves went up again to the hall, where Mrs. Pinks was busy polishing a great copper urn. She grinned cheerfully at Reeves. “I done this once a week for three years. A good ’arf hour it takes me. ’Ow long d’you make that altogether?”

“Seventy-eight hours; call it two weeks solid by the end of the month, reckoning a forty-hour week,” replied Reeves promptly, “and nothing to show for it. My wife’d get a pot of lacquer---eighteen pence at the chain stores. Cheaper, y’know.”

Mrs. Pinks chuckled delightedly. “Not ’arf. They pays me two bob an hour. Seventy-eight hours; jiminy, what’s it cost ’em?”

“I make it over seven quid, and that’s not counting insurance,” replied Reeves.

“Sinful waste, isn’t it?” she said. “Never ’ad any common sense, the old lady ’adn’t. Always a-telling me as ’ow she’d ’ad a cook and three good maids to run this ’ouse, and if that wasn’t enough to give a woman like me the proper pip, what was? And fuss, you’d never believe. Three kinds o’ furniture cream and two ditto for the floors. Give me elbow grease and a spot o’ beeswax and turpentine, I told ’er, and didn’t ’arf get a dirty look. Wicked old woman, she was, and I’ll say it even tho’ she ’as got ’ers. Nice peaceful death, when all’s said and done. Not that I ’olds wiv that sort of thing.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Reeves. “When you say wicked, what do you mean?”

“When I sez wicked, I means wicked,” she retorted, “and if you’re not old enough to know that some sorts o’ wickedness drives decent folks demented you’ve no business to be where you are. What’s they all been muttering in this ’ouse ever since Tuesday? Madge. That’s what they’ve been saying, all bar the Colonel, and he’s as simple as a child for all he’s the kindest gent God ever made. More’s the pity, maybe. If ’e’d leathered ’er when she was still capable of learning, this might never’ve ’appened.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Reeves; “but seeing it has happened, what about it? Seems to me there’s not much you miss of the goings on.”

“Now don’t you think I’m nosy, because I’m not,” she replied, “and anything I’ve got to say’s been said to your boss, supposing ’e is your boss,” she added, with a gesture towards the drawing-room door.

“He’s my boss all right, and I wouldn’t ask for a better,” rejoined Reeves.

“Nice fellow he is, too,” said Mrs. Pinks; “but there’s one thing I might say to you, seeing you’re handy, and what I’d call easy. You’d better keep your eye on them ’ere. There’s going to be trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?” asked Reeves.

“Well, you’ve seen a bit of the goings on today---them twins. You see, they’ve all been in a fair old state ever since Tuesday morning. They pretended it was the old lady’s ’eart; might’ve happened any time, they sez to me. All but Madge. She didn’t say nothing, but she’d the sense to know it wasn’t ’eart they was fussing about. And she didn’t like it. No more did I. And them others are all trying to put it on to Madge. And if they’re bad enough for that, they’re bad enough for anything. So you just watch ’em. And now I’m goin’ down to ’elp in the kitchen, seeing you’ve upset all me work.”

“Sorry and all that,” said Reeves. “It’s just the way things happen. Now can you tell me this. Have there been any workmen on this floor recently, electricians, window cleaners, or so forth?”

“Not any I’ve seen, but I don’t ’ang about on this floor. I do the old lady’s bedroom at nine sharp; did, I mean, before all this. She was punctual, I’ll say that for ’er, and Miss Madge, she did the drorin’ room at ’arf-past eight reg’lar, and turnout once a week, me on Monday in the bedroom and ’er on Tuesday the drorin’ room, when the old lady went to ’er ’airdresser’s and was out of the way. But I’d be through with this floor by ’arf-past ten, and then up I’d go to them twins, and a fair waste of time it was, with the mess they made an’ all. And I’m not ’ere at all after two o’clock, so I can’t answer for afternoons. Better ask the Colonel. ’E’s in ’is study, and Mrs. Duncan’s in there with your boss. And I’ll ’op it before she comes out, if it’s all the same to you. And just you watch out, see? We’ve ’ad enough of it. We don’t want any more, and that’s flat.”

(3)

When Macdonald left the drawing room he found Reeves in Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom.

“There’s something I don’t quite cotton on to here, Chief,” said Reeves. He showed Macdonald the fingerprints he had “brought up” on the window frame and door. “That’s a man’s prints. Fairly big chap, too. They’re not the Colonel’s. They’re too big for Strange. I noticed his hands---long and thin. What about this other bloke, Duncan?”

“He’s still out---1but I doubt if these will be his prints,” replied Macdonald. “They’re more like the prints of a chap who works with his hands---wide and flattened.”

“That’s what I think. But according to all accounts, there haven’t been any workmen in the house lately. What have we got here? The ready-made explanation?”

“Prefabricated,” said Macdonald. “Got them all photographed?”

Reeves nodded. “And most of the family’s, too. They’re easy to sort out. I got the twins’ from the attics, the Colonel’s from his dressing room, Miss Farrington’s and Mrs. Pinks’ from the kitchen, both sets volunteered.”

“You can get Mrs. Duncan’s from the drawing room; the chair she was sitting in had polished wooden arms,” said Macdonald, “and you can go up and ask the Stranges if they object to having theirs taken. Their reaction to the request may be more informative than the prints, but we’d better get them all sorted out.”

Reeves nodded. “Mrs. Pinks cleaned this room at nine o’clock every morning,” he said. “From what I’ve seen of her, she’s a good worker. Very thorough.”

“Then this room was cleaned on Monday morning,” said Macdonald. “At eleven o’clock Mrs. Farrington went down to the kitchen to see Madge. Half an hour later she came back here to lie down, and here she stayed until her body was carried out the next morning. If Mrs. Pinks does do her work properly, there’s not much time for those extra prints to have been made.”

Reeves nodded. “Mrs. Pinks cleans Peter’s room. We know the sort of muck it was in, but there wasn’t any old dust, if you take me. You can always tell the careless cleaner: they leave dust all along the wainscot, and on the moulding of the doors and along window ledges. She doesn’t do that. Also, it’s worth remembering Mrs. Thing was a proper fusser. Three sorts of furniture polish, and two other sorts for the floors. She’d never have stayed quiet in bed all day if she could have seen dust and smuts on the window ledge. Look at them now.”

Macdonald looked, and nodded. “You do pick up the chirp and chat of an establishment faster than any chap I know,” he replied. “I think you’ve got a point there. I’ll go and ask the Colonel what his wife did when she got up on Monday morning. It’ll cheer him up. He loves concrete questions and he’s very good at answering them.”

“O.K., Chief. I’ll go up and see the Stranges. I have a feeling he won’t oblige. Too much red tape in his composition. Not like Miss Madge. She’s got a lot of common sense, she has.”

“I quite agree,” said Macdonald. “Incidentally, the Colonel denies categorically that his wife ever kept a notebook about Madge’s symptoms.”

“Does he? That’s interesting. Who’s the liar? The old lady herself? Might be. Mrs. Pinks says she was a wicked woman, and Mrs. P.’s a good old trout.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” rejoined Macdonald. “The difficulty in this house is to get an unbiased opinion. Mrs. Pinks is Madge’s devoted adherent, and vice versa. Tony hates Madge, and he’s all out to prove she’s both guilty and mentally unsound. Mrs. Tony also hates Madge, though she’s careful not to display the fact, and Mrs. Duncan muttered ‘Madge’ with appropriate melodrama as soon as she got the chance. Paula is in such a state that it’s no use relying on anything she says at all.”

“According to Mrs. P., the whole boiling of them have been jittering themselves up ever since Tuesday,” said Reeves, “and by general agreement, Madge is the safest bet for their money. Well, I’ll go and see the civil servant and test his reactions.”

(4)

Macdonald went to Colonel Farrington’s study and found the latter busy writing letters.

“It’s a very simple matter, sir,” said Macdonald. “We always check up on fingerprints, as you know. Can you tell me exactly who could have been in Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom on Monday morning?”

“Yes, I think I should be able to tell you that,” agreed the Colonel. “We were very regular in our habits, y’know, a real old-fashioned pair. We had breakfast at eight-thirty, in the dining room. There was nobody in the bedroom between then and nine o’clock, when Mrs. Pinks came. Mrs. Pinks always does our bedroom; the bathroom, and my dressing room. My wife used to say that she---the charwoman---was one of the most thorough cleaners she’d ever had. A most conscientious woman she is, never neglects a thing. Now, Monday---yes, it was the day when the bedroom had its weekly turnout, so Mrs. Pinks would have spent longer on it than usual, well over an hour. So she would have been in the bedroom until after ten. My wife always went and had a word with Mrs. Pinks in the bedroom after breakfast---say about nine-fifteen---and then Muriel went to the drawing room to answer any letters and to do a little telephoning. Ever since her heart gave her trouble and she couldn’t get about very easily, she depended a lot on the telephone to keep contact with her friends. Let me think, now. Yes, on Monday she was in the drawing room until Mrs. Pinks had finished the bedroom. I remember that now, because I wanted to go to the phone myself. When Mrs. Pinks had finished, my wife went straight into the bedroom to see that everything was satisfactory, and she stayed there, tidying drawers and so forth, until I went in there myself to see about my shoes---repairing, you know. So we were both of us in the bedroom until Muriel went down to the kitchen to have a word with Madge about her birthday party, and I followed her there in about twenty minutes’ time. It was then that I noticed how ill Muriel looked, and I persuaded her to come and lie on her bed. So now you have the answer to your question: The only people who were in the bedroom on Monday morning were my wife, myself, and Mrs. Pinks. That holds for most of the day, until after tea, when Tony looked in to see her, and Paula, and later on, of course, Baring was there. Nobody else at all. Oh, except Madge, who just looked in at eleven o’clock at night.”

“Thank you, sir. That is admirably clear,” said Macdonald.

“And if you want to take our fingerprints, Chief Inspector, of course we shall all be ready to co-operate. I know it’s part of your routine and I have no feelings in the matter at all.”

“Thank you, sir. My colleague, Reeves, is dealing with prints. He will ask you if need arises. Another point. Were you in the bedroom when your wife’s body was moved by the stretcher men?”

“I was,” rejoined the Colonel quietly. “Scott was with me all the time. Quite rightly. He was very kind.”

“I’m sure he was, and I am sorry to take you back to painful memories, but can you remember just how the men moved about the room? Did any of them open the window?”

“No. I don’t mind talking to you about it, Chief Inspector. You have your duty to do, and no one could have been more considerate than you have. Then there’s this to it. After the initial shock, and it was a shock, I think the philosophy of a lifetime comes to one’s aid. We all have to die. I’m an old man, and my own call will come in due course. There’s nothing to fear in death. That’s how I see it. Now about the stretcher men. They were very quick and very skilful. They took the stretcher to the bed, lifted the body, covered it, and carried it straight out. They didn’t cross the room to the window, and to the best of my recollection, they touched nothing at all---none of the furniture, that is. Madge stripped the bed. Scott closed the window, using the cord for that purpose. He latched it. I think he took away certain things. After that the room was locked and sealed until you opened it today.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Macdonald quietly.

The Colonel rumpled up his grey hair, as though thinking hard, and Macdonald waited. Then the old man said; “I’ve been thinking over what you said about me having it out with Tony. You were right, of course. Better leave it alone, at any rate for today. They’re all on edge. Not responsible for what they’re saying. I told you that Tony was a damned liar to say such an infamous thing, but I realise now I was wrong. Exaggerating, just as Tony himself had been exaggerating. It’s possible my wife did say something to him about being worried over Madge. The girl works too hard, I know that, and Tony got it all out of focus and made up this story about the notebook. Natural enough. I dare say, considering the state he’s in. One thing’s a great comfort to me. Chief Inspector, and that’s Madge herself. Perfectly calm, perfectly sensible. She’s a tower of strength to us. When everybody else loses their heads, she keeps hers.”

“Yes,” agreed Macdonald, “that’s perfectly true. I think her behaviour today has been admirable.”

“She’s a fine girl. I’ve always had a particular affection for Madge. It’s hard for a girl to lose her own mother as Madge did, and though Muriel was devoted to her, it’s not quite the same thing. Her own children were bound to come first.” He sighed heavily, the sigh of a tired old man, and then added: “I don’t know if I ought to ask. Chief Inspector, but can you see any daylight at all in this problem?”

“It’s too early to formulate any opinion, sir. Some of the evidence is still confused, and it’s far from complete. We like to get corroborative evidence of every statement. For instance, it’s desirable to get independent testimony, wherever possible, of everybody’s movements, and that takes time. May I give you some instances?”

“By all means do.”

“Take the hour between nine-fifteen and ten-fifteen on Monday evening,” said Macdonald. “You were out. Miss Farrington was out. Mrs. Strange was alone in the drawing room. Mr. Strange was alone upstairs. The twins were entertaining their friends. All those statements need to be corroborated where corroboration is possible.”

“Well, you can start with me,” said the Colonel. “I went out of this house, turned left, took the first on the left and the second on the right into St. John’s Wood, High Street, and went into the Red Lion. I dare say the barmaid would remember me. I asked for some sandwiches, told her my wife was ill and I’d had no supper, and she was very good about it and gave me a very decent meal. There’s a lot of kindness in the world if you go halfway to meet it. I stayed there until nearly ten o’clock, talking politics to the chaps there in the way we all do these days, and then I walked straight back here and joined Anne in the drawing room.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” rejoined Macdonald.

“I’ve no doubt that Madge will be able to give you all the details you want,” went on the Colonel. “She’s like me---plain and decided. About the young people upstairs. Paula told me they were all dancers in her own show. They’ve been doing a turn at the Black Domino Club on three evenings a week. I can give you the name of their manager, I’ve got it written down here; outlandish sort of name. One of the boys calls himself Boris, and they’ve been doing a quintet dance with Paula as solo dancer. So if you want to find them, you shouldn’t have any difficulty. As for Tony, I’ll lay any money he was doing the Times crossword. He always does. Hardly ever takes his wife out these days, lazy chap. And Joyce and Philip were together upstairs. So perhaps that sorts it out a bit.”

“You’ve been very helpful, sir,” said Macdonald.

“It’s my duty to be helpful, isn’t it?” replied the Colonel. “As I see it, it’s plain common sense to answer all your questions as plainly and fully as possible. I’m very much ashamed that the twins have behaved as they have. I feel it’s a reflection on their parents. Perhaps I deserved it, I don’t know . . . I haven’t kept an eye on them as I should---there’s nothing like fear to show up the weak points in young people’s characters.”

“Or anybody else’s character, for that matter,” agreed Macdonald.