telephone?’
‘There is a call-box about fifty yards down the road just before you come to the corner.’
‘Of course. I remember passing it. I’ll go and ring the police. Will you—’ I hesitated.
I didn’t know whether to say ‘Will you remain here?’ or to make it ‘Will you be all right?’
She relieved me from my choice.
‘You had better bring the girl into the house,’ she said decisively.
‘I don’t know that she will come,’ I said doubtfully.
‘Not into this room, naturally. Put her in the dining-room the other side of the hall. Tell her I am making some tea.’
She rose and came towards me.
‘But—can you manage—’
A faint grim smile showed for a moment on her face.
‘My dear young man. I have made meals for myself in my own kitchen ever since I came to live in this house—fourteen years ago. To be blind is not necessarily to be helpless.’
‘I’m sorry. It was stupid of me. Perhaps I ought to know your name?’
‘Millicent Pebmarsh—Miss.’
I went out and down the path. The girl looked up at me and began to struggle to her feet.
‘I—I think I’m more or less all right now.’
I helped her up, saying cheerfully:
‘Good.’
‘There—there was a dead man in there, wasn’t there?’
I agreed promptly.
‘Certainly there was. I’m just going down to the telephone box to report it to the police. I should wait in the house if I were you.’ I raised my voice to cover her quick protest. ‘Go into the dining-room—on the left as you go in. Miss Pebmarsh is making a cup of tea for you.’
‘So that was Miss Pebmarsh? And she’s blind?’
‘Yes. It’s been a shock to her, too, of course, but she’s being very sensible. Come on, I’ll take you in. A cup of tea will do you good whilst you are waiting for the police to come.’
I put an arm round her shoulders and urged her up the path. I settled her comfortably by the dining-room table, and hurried off again to telephone.
An unemotional voice said, ‘Crowdean Police Station.’
‘Can I speak to Detective Inspector Hardcastle?’
The voice said cautiously:
‘I don’t know whether he is here. Who is speaking?’
‘Tell him it’s Colin Lamb.’
‘Just a moment, please.’
I waited. Then Dick Hardcastle’s voice spoke.
‘Colin? I didn’t expect you yet awhile. Where are you?’
‘Crowdean. I’m actually in Wilbraham Crescent. There’s a man lying dead on the floor of Number 19, stabbed I should think. He’s been dead approximately half an hour or so.’
‘Who found him. You?’
‘No, I was an innocent passer-by. Suddenly a girl came flying out of the house like a bat out of hell. Nearly knocked me down. She said there was a dead man on the floor and a blind woman was trampling on him.’
‘You’re not having me on, are you?’ Dick’s voice asked suspiciously.
‘It does sound fantastic, I admit. But the facts seem to be as stated. The blind woman is Miss Millicent Pebmarsh who owns the house.’
‘And was she trampling on the dead man?’
‘Not in the sense you mean it. It seems that being blind she just didn’t know he was there.’
‘I’ll set the machinery in motion. Wait for me there. What have you done with the girl?’
‘Miss Pebmarsh is making her a cup of tea.’
Dick’s comment was that it all sounded very cosy.
At 19, Wilbraham Crescent the machinery of the Law was in possession. There was a police surgeon, a police photographer, fingerprint men. They moved efficiently, each occupied with his own routine.
Finally came Detective Inspector Hardcastle, a tall, poker-faced man with expressive eyebrows, godlike, to see that all he had put in motion was being done, and done properly. He took a final look at the body, exchanged a few brief words with the police surgeon and then crossed to the dining-room where three people sat over empty tea-cups. Miss Pebmarsh, Colin Lamb and a tall girl with brown curling hair and wide, frightened eyes. ‘Quite pretty,’ the inspector noted, parenthetically as it were.
He introduced himself to Miss Pebmarsh.
‘Detective Inspector Hardcastle.’
He knew a little about Miss Pebmarsh, though their paths had never crossed professionally. But he had seen her about, and he was aware that she was an ex-school teacher, and that she had a job connected with the teaching of Braille at the Aaronberg Institute for handicapped children. It seemed wildly unlikely that a man should be found murdered in her neat, austere house—but the unlikely happened more often than one would be disposed to believe.
‘This is a terrible thing to have happened, Miss Pebmarsh,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it must have been a great shock to you. I’ll need to get a clear statement of exactly what occurred from you all. I understand that it was Miss—’ he glanced quickly at the note-book the constable had handed him, ‘Sheila Webb who actually discovered the body. If you’ll allow me to use your kitchen, Miss Pebmarsh, I’ll take Miss Webb in there where we can be quiet.’
He opened the connecting door from the dining-room to the kitchen and waited until the girl had passed through. A young plain-clothes detective was already established in the kitchen, writing unobtrusively at a Formica-topped small table.
‘This chair looks comfortable,’ said Hardcastle, pulling forward a modernized version of a Windsor chair.
Sheila Webb sat down nervously, staring at him with large frightened eyes.
Hardcastle very nearly said: ‘I shan’t eat you, my dear,’ but repressed himself, and said instead:
‘There’s nothing to worry about. We just want to get a clear picture. Now your name is Sheila Webb—and your address?’
‘14, Palmerstone Road—beyond the gasworks.’
‘Yes, of course. And you are employed, I suppose?’
‘Yes. I’m a shorthand typist—I work at Miss Martindale’s Secretarial Bureau.’
‘The Cavendish Secretarial and Typewriting Bureau—that’s its full name, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And how long have you been working there?’
‘About a year. Well, ten months actually.’
‘I see. Now just tell me in your own words how you came to be at 19, Wilbraham Crescent today.’
‘Well, it was this way.’ Sheila Webb was speaking now with more confidence. ‘This Miss Pebmarsh rang up the Bureau and asked for a stenographer to be here at three o’clock. So when I came back from lunch Miss Martindale told me to go.’
‘That was just routine, was it? I mean—you were the next on the list—or however you arrange these things?’