No Business of Mine

“Someone dead in there?” I asked, jerking my thumb to the cottage.

He nodded. “A young lady,” he returned, moving closer to the Buick. “Pretty little thing. Suicide, of course. Put ’er ’ead in the gas oven. Been dead three or four days I should say.”

“Never mind what you say,” I returned. “What did the doc say.”

The policeman grinned a little sheepishly. “That’s wot ’e did say as a matter of fact.”

I grunted. “Is it Anne Scott?”

“I dunno. The doc couldn’t identify ’er. That’s why Bert’s gone for this ’ere Mrs. Brambee.”

“What’s comrade Corridan doing in there?” I asked.

“Sniffing around,” the policeman returned, shrugging. From the expression on his face I guessed Corridan wasn’t his favourite person. “I bet ’e’s trying to make out there’s more to this than meets the eye. The Yard men always do. It ’elps their promotion.”

I thought this was a little unfair, but didn’t say so, turned around to watch two figures coming down the lane. One of them was Bert, the policeman, the other was a tall, bulky woman in a pink sack-like dress.

“Here they come,” I said, nodding in their direction.

The woman was walking quickly. She had a long stride, and the policeman seemed pressed to keep up with her. As they drew nearer, I could see her face. She was dark, sun-tanned, about forty, with a mass of black greasy hair, rolled up in an untidy bun at the back of her head. Straggling locks of hair fell over her face, and she kept brushing them back with a hand as big as a man’s.

She ran up the flagged path. Her eyes were wild, her mouth was working. She looked as if she were suffering from acute grief and shock.

Bert winked at the other policeman as he followed the woman into the cottage.

I lit another cigarette, settled down in the car, waited a little anxiously.

A sudden animal-like cry drifted through the open windows, and was followed by the sound of wild hysterical sobbing.

“It must be Anne Scott,” I said, troubled.

“Looks like it,” the policeman returned, staring in the direction of the cottage.

After a long while the sobbing died down. We waited almost half an hour before the woman appeared again. She walked slowly, her face hidden by a dirty handkerchief, her shoulders sagging.

The policeman opened the gate for her, helped her through by taking her elbow. It was meant sympathetically, but she immediately shook him off.

“Take your bloody hands off me,” she said in a muffled voice, went on down the lane.

“A proper lady,” the policeman said, chewing his chin-strap and going red.

“Maybe she’s been reading Macbeth,” I suggested, but that didn’t seem to console him.

It was how almost an hour and a half since I had seen Corridan. I was hungry. It was past one-thirty; but I decided to wait, hopeful I might see something more or get a chance of telling Corridan what I thought of him.

Ten minutes later he came to the door and waved to me. I was out of the car, past the policeman in split seconds.

“All right,” he said curtly as I dashed up to him. “I suppose you want to look around. But for God’s sake don’t tell anyone I’ve let you in.”

I decided that after all I hadn’t wasted my money feeding this lug.

“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t tell a soul.”

There was still a strong smell of gas in the cottage, which grew stronger as we entered the kitchen.

“It’s Anne Scott all right,” Corridan said gloomily, pointing to a huddled figure lying on the floor.

I stood over her, felt inadequate, could think of nothing to say.

She wore a pink dressing-gown and white pyjamas, her feet were bare, her hands clenched tightly into fists. Her head lay hidden in the gas oven. By moving around, carefully stepping over her legs, I could see into the oven. She was a blonde, about twenty-five; even in death she was attractive, although I could see no resemblance to Netta in the serene rather lovely face.

I stepped back, looked at Corridan. “Sure she’s Anne Scott?” I asked.

He made an impatient movement. “Of course,” he said. “The woman identified her. You’re not trying to make out there’s a mystery in this, are you?”

“Odd they should both commit suicide, isn’t it?” I said, feeling in my bones that something was very wrong.

He jerked his head, walked into the sitting-room.

“Read that,” he said, handed me a sheet of note-paper. “It was found by her side.”

I took the note, read:

Without Netta life means nothing to me. Please forgive me.

ANNE.

I handed it back. “After fifty years in the police force, I feel justified in saying that’s a plant,” I said.

He took the paper. “Don’t try to be funny,” he said coldly.

I grinned. “Who do you suppose it was addressed to?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Mrs. Brambee tells me a lot of men used to come down here. There was one fellow-Peter-who Anne used to talk a lot about. Maybe it was for him.”

“Would that be Peter Utterly?” I asked. “The guy who gave Netta the gun?”

Corridan rubbed his chin. “Doubtful,” he said. “Utterly went back to the States a month or so ago.”