A Murder Is Announced

‘Try the switches, Swettenham,’ he ordered.

Edmund, near the door, obediently jerked the switch up and down.

‘Off at the main, or a fuse,’ said the Colonel. ‘Who’s making that awful row?’

A female voice had been screaming steadily from somewhere beyond the closed door. It rose now in pitch and with it came the sound of fists hammering on a door.

Dora Bunner, who had been sobbing quietly, called out:

‘It’s Mitzi. Somebody’s murdering Mitzi…’

Patrick muttered: ‘No such luck.’

Miss Blacklock said: ‘We must get candles. Patrick, will you-?’

The Colonel was already opening the door. He and Edmund, their lighters flickering, stepped into the hall. They almost stumbled over a recumbent figure there.

‘Seems to have knocked him out,’ said the Colonel. ‘Where’s that woman making that hellish noise?’

‘In the dining-room,’ said Edmund.

The dining-room was just across the hall. Someone was beating on the panels and howling and screaming.

‘She’s locked in,’ said Edmund, stooping down. He turned the key and Mitzi came out like a bounding tiger.

The dining-room light was still on. Silhouetted against it Mitzi presented a picture of insane terror and continued to scream. A touch of comedy was introduced by the fact that she had been engaged in cleaning silver and was still holding a chamois leather and a large fish slice.

‘Be quiet, Mitzi,’ said Miss Blacklock.

‘Stop it,’ said Edmund, and as Mitzi showed no disposition to stop screaming, he leaned forward and gave her a sharp slap on the cheek. Mitzi gasped and hiccuped into silence.

‘Get some candles,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘In the kitchen cupboard. Patrick, you know where the fusebox is?’

‘The passage behind the scullery? Right, I’ll see what I can do.’

Miss Blacklock had moved forward into the light thrown from the dining-room and Dora Bunner gave a sobbing gasp. Mitzi let out another full-blooded scream.

‘The blood, theblood!’ she gasped. ‘You are shot-Miss Blacklock, you bleed to death.’

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ snapped Miss Blacklock. ‘I’m hardly hurt at all. It just grazed my ear.’

‘But Aunt Letty,’ said Julia, ‘the blood.’

And indeed Miss Blacklock’s white blouse and pearls and her hands were a horrifyingly gory sight.

‘Ears always bleed,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘I remember fainting in the hairdresser’s when I was a child. The man had only just snipped my ear. There seemed to be a basin of blood at once. But wemust have some light.’

‘I get the candles,’ said Mitzi.

Julia went with her and they returned with several candles stuck into saucers.

‘Now let’s have a look at our malefactor,’ said the Colonel. ‘Hold the candles down low, will you, Swettenham? As many as you can.’

‘I’ll come the other side,’ said Phillipa.

With a steady hand she took a couple of saucers. Colonel Easterbrook knelt down.

The recumbent figure was draped in a roughly made black cloak with a hood to it. There was a black mask over the face and he wore black cotton gloves. The hood had slipped back disclosing a ruffled fair head.

Colonel Easterbrook turned him over, felt the pulse, the heart…then drew away his fingers with an exclamation of distaste, looking down on them. They were sticky and red.

‘Shot himself,’ he said.

‘Is he badly hurt?’ asked Miss Blacklock.

‘H’m. I’m afraid he’s dead…May have been suicide -or he may have tripped himself up with that cloak thing and the revolver went off as he fell. If I could see better-’

At that moment, as though by magic, the lights came on again.

With a queer feeling of unreality those inhabitants of Chipping Cleghorn who stood in the hall of Little Paddocks realized that they stood in the presence of violent and sudden death. Colonel Easterbrook’s hand was stained red. Blood was still trickling down Miss Blacklock’s neck over her blouse and coat and the grotesquely sprawled figure of the intruder lay at their feet…

Patrick, coming from the dining-room, said, ‘It seemed to be just one fuse gone…’ He stopped.

Colonel Easterbrook tugged at the small black mask.

‘Better see who the fellow is,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t suppose it’s anyone we know…’

He detached the mask. Necks were craned forward. Mitzi hiccuped and gasped, but the others were very quiet.

‘He’s quite young,’ said Mrs Harmon with a note of pity in her voice.

And suddenly Dora Bunner cried out excitedly:

‘Letty, Letty, it’s the young man from the Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells. The one who came out here and wanted you to give him money to get back to Switzerland and you refused. I suppose the whole thing was just a pretext-to spy out the house…Oh, dear-he might easily have killed you…’

Miss Blacklock, in command of the situation, said incisively:

‘Phillipa, take Bunny into the dining-room and give her a half-glass of brandy. Julia dear, just run up to the bathroom and bring me the sticking plaster out of the bathroom cupboard-it’s so messy bleeding like a pig. Patrick, will you ring up the police at once?’

Chapter 4. The Royal Spa Hotel