A Murder Is Announced - Christie Agatha - Страница 23

Craddock went obediently. He was a little shaken in his suspicions of Mitzi. Her story about Phillipa Haymes had been told with great conviction. Mitzi might be a liar (he thought she was), but he fancied that there might be some substratum of truth in this particular tale. He resolved to speak to Phillipa on the subject. She had seemed to him when he questioned her a quiet, well-bred young woman. He had had no suspicion of her.

Crossing the hall, in his abstraction, he tried to open the wrong door. Miss Bunner, descending the staircase, hastily put him right.

‘Not that door,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t open. The next one to the left. Very confusing, isn’t it? So many doors.’

‘There are a good many,’ said Craddock, looking up and down the narrow hall.

Miss Bunner amiably enumerated them for him.

‘First the door to the cloakroom, and then the cloaks cupboard door and then the dining-room-that’s on that side. And on this side, the dummy door that you were trying to get through and then there’s the drawing-room door proper, and then the china cupboard and the door of the little flower room, and at the end the side door. Most confusing. Especially these two being so near together. I’ve often tried the wrong one by mistake. We used to have the hall table against it, as a matter of fact, but then we moved it along against the wall there.’

Craddock had noted, almost mechanically, a thin line horizontally across the panels of the door he had been trying to open. He realized now it was the mark where the table had been. Something stirred vaguely in his mind as he asked, ‘Moved? How long ago?’

In questioning Dora Bunner there was fortunately no need to give a reason for any question. Any query on any subject seemed perfectly natural to the garrulous Miss Bunner who delighted in the giving of information, however trivial.

‘Now let me see, really quite recently-ten days or a fortnight ago.’

‘Why was it moved?’

‘I really can’t remember. Something to do with the flowers. I think Phillipa did a big vase-she arranges flowers quite beautifully-all autumn colouring and twigs and branches, and it was so big it caught your hair as you went past, and so Phillipa said, “Why not move the table along and anyway the flowers would look much better against the bare wall than against the panels of the door.” Only we had to take down Wellington at Waterloo. Not a print I’m really very fond of. We put it under the stairs.’

‘It’s not really a dummy, then?’ Craddock asked, looking at the door.’

‘Oh, no, it’s areal door, if that’s what you mean. It’s the door of the small drawing-room, but when the rooms were thrown into one, one didn’t need two doors, so this one was fastened up.’

‘Fastened up?’ Craddock tried it again, gently. ‘You mean it’s nailed up? Or just locked?’

‘Oh, locked, I think, and bolted too.’

He saw the bolt at the top and tried it. The bolt slid back easily-too easily…

‘When was it last open?’ he asked Miss Bunner.

‘Oh, years and years ago, I imagine. It’s never been opened since I’ve been here, I know that.’

‘You don’t know where the key is?’

‘There are a lot of keys in the hall drawer. It’s probably among those.’

Craddock followed her and looked at a rusty assortment of old keys pushed far back in the drawer. He scanned them and selected one that looked different from the rest and went back to the door. The key fitted and turned easily. He pushed and the door slid open noiselessly.

‘Oh, do be careful,’ cried Miss Bunner. ‘There may be something resting against it inside. We never open it.’

‘Don’t you?’ said the Inspector.

His face now was grim. He said with emphasis:

‘This door’s been opened quite recently, Miss Bunner. The lock’s been oiled and the hinges.’

She stared at him, her foolish face agape.

‘But who could have done that?’ she asked.

‘That’s what I mean to find out,’ said Craddock grimly. He thought-‘X from outside? No-X was here-in this house-X was in the drawing-room that night…’