Sleeping Murder, стр. 20

 Lily Kimble spread a couple of old newspapers on the kitchen table in readiness for draining the chipped potatoes which were hissing in the pan. Humming tunelessly a popular melody of the day she leaned forward aimlessly studying the newsprint spread out before her.

Then suddenly she stopped humming and called: ‘Jim-Jim. Listen here, will you?’

Jim Kimble, an elderly man of few words, was washing at the scullery sink. To answer his wife, he used his favourite monosyllable.

‘Ar?’ said Jim Kimble.

‘It’s a piece in the paper. Will anyone with any knowledge of Helen Spenlove Halliday, nee Kennedy, communicate with Messrs Reed and Hardy, Southampton Row! Seems to me they might be meaning Mrs Halliday as I was in service with at St Catherine’s. Took it from Mrs Findeyson, they did, she and’er’usband.Her name was Helen right enough-Yes, and she was sister to Dr Kennedy, him as always said I ought to have had my adenoids out.’

There was a momentary pause as Mrs Kimble adjusted the frying chips with an expert touch. Jim Kimble was snorting into the roller towel as he dried his face.

‘Course, it’s an old paper, this,’ resumed Mrs Kimble. She studied its date. ‘Nigh on a week or more old. Wonder what it’s all about? Think as there’s any money in it, Jim?’

Mr Kimble said, ‘Ar,’ noncommittally.

‘Might be a will or something,’ speculated his wife. ‘Powerful lot of time ago.’

‘Ar.’

‘Eighteen years or more, I shouldn’t wonder…Wonder what they’re raking it all up for now? You don’t think it could bepolice, do you, Jim?

‘Whatever?’ asked Mr Kimble.

‘Well, you know what I always thought,’ said Mrs Kimble mysteriously. ‘Told you at the time, I did, when we was walking out. Pretending that she’d gone off with a feller. That’s what they say, husbands, when they do their wives in. Depend upon it, it was murder. That’s what I said to you and what I said to Edie, but Edie she wouldn’t have it at any price. Never no imagination, Edie hadn’t. Those clothes she was supposed to have took away with her-well, they weren’t right, if you know what I mean. There was a suitcase gone and a bag, and enough clothes to fill ’em, but they wasn’t right, those clothes. And that’s when I said to Edie, “Depend upon it,” I said, “the master’s murdered her and put her in the cellar.” Only not really the cellar, because that Layonee, the Swiss nurse, she saw something. Out of the window. Come to the cinema along of me, she did, though she wasn’t supposed to leave the nursery-but there, I said, the child never wakes up-good as gold she was, always, in her bed at night. “And madam never comes up to the nursery in the evening,” I says. “Nobody will know if you slip out with me.” So she did. And when we got in there was ever such a schemozzle going on. Doctor was there and the master ill and sleeping in the dressing-room, and the doctor looking after him, and it was then he asked me about the clothes, and it seemed all right at the time. I thought she’d gone off all right with that fellow she was so keen on-and him a married man, too-and Edie said she did hope and pray we wouldn’t be mixed up in any divorce case. What was his name now? I can’t remember. Began with an M-or was it an R? Bless us, your memory does go.’

Mr Kimble came in from the scullery and ignoring all matters of lesser moment demanded if his supper was ready.

‘I’ll just drain the chips…Wait, I’ll get another paper. Better keep this one. ’Twouldn’t be likely to be police-not after all this time. Maybe it’s lawyers-and money in it. It doesn’tsay something to your advantage…but it might be all the same…Wish I knew who I could ask about it. It says write to some address in London-but I’m not sure I’d like to do a thing like that…not to a lot of people in London…What do you say, Jim?’

‘Ar,’ said Mr Kimble, hungrily eyeing the fish and chips.

The discussion was postponed.