Sleeping Murder, стр. 31

‘I dunno, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Kimble.

Her husband, driven into speech by what was neither more nor less than an outrage, became vocal.

He shoved his cup forward.

‘What you thinking of, Lily?’ he demanded. ‘No sugar!’

Mrs Kimble hastily remedied the outrage, and then proceeded to elaborate on her own theme.

‘Thinking about this advert, I am,’ she said. ‘Lily Abbott, it says, plain as plain. And ‘formerly house-parlourmaid at St Catherine’s Dillmouth’. That’s me, all right.’

‘Ar,’ agreed Mr Kimble.

‘After all these years-you must agree it’s odd, Jim.’

‘Ar,’ said Mr Kimble.

‘Well, what am I going to do, Jim?’ 

‘Leave it be.’

‘Suppose there’s money in it?’

There was a gurgling sound as Mr Kimble drained his teacup to fortify himself for the mental effort of embarking on a long speech. He pushed his cup along and prefaced his remarks with a laconic: ‘More.’ Then he got under way.

‘You went on a lot at one time about what ’appened at St Catherine’s. I didn’t take much account of it-reckoned as it was mostly foolishness-women’s chatter. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe something did ’appen. If so it’s police business and you don’t want to be mixed up in it. All over and done with, ain’t it? You leave well alone, my girl.’

‘All very well to say that. It may be money as has been left me in a will. Maybe Mrs Halliday’s alive all the time and now she’s dead and left me something in ’er will.’

‘Left you something in ’er will? What for? Ar!’ said Mr Kimble, reverting to his favourite monosyllable to express scorn.

‘Even if it’s police…You know, Jim, there’s a big reward sometimes for anyone as can give information to catch a murderer.’

‘And what could you give? All you know you made up yourself in your head!’

‘That’s what you say. But I’ve been thinking-’

‘Ar,’ said Mr Kimble disgustedly. 

‘Well, I have. Ever since I saw that first piece in the paper. Maybe I got things a bit wrong. That Layonee, she was a bit stupid like all foreigners, couldn’t understand proper what you said to her-and her English was something awful. If she didn’t mean what I thought she meant…I’ve been trying to remember the name of that man…Now if it was him she saw…Remember that picture I told you about?Secret Lover. Ever so exciting. They tracked him down in the end through his car. Fifty thousand dollars he paid the garage man to forget he filled up with petrol that night. Dunno what that is in pounds…And the other one was there, too, and the husband crazy with jealousy. All mad about her, they were. And in the end-’

Mr Kimble pushed back his chair with a grating sound. He rose to his feet with slow and ponderous authority. Preparatory to leaving the kitchen, he delivered an ultimatum-the ultimatum of a man who, though usually inarticulate, had a certain shrewdness.

‘You leave the whole thing alone, my girl,’ he said. ‘Or else, likely as not, you’ll be sorry.’

He went into the scullery, put on his boots (Lily was particular about her kitchen floor) and went out.

Lily sat on at the table, her sharp foolish little brain working things out. Of course she couldn’t exactly go against what her husband said, but all the same…Jim was so hidebound, so stick-in-the-mud. She wished there was somebody else she could ask. Someone who would know all about rewards and the police and what it all meant. Pity to turn up a chance of good money.

That wireless set…the home perm…that cherry-coloured coat in Russell’s (ever so smart)…even, maybe, a whole Jacobean suite for the sitting-room…

Eager, greedy, shortsighted, she went on dreaming…What exactlyhad Layonee said all those years ago?

Then an idea came to her. She got up and fetched the bottle of ink, the pen, and a pad of writing paper.

‘Know what I’ll do,’ she said to herself. ‘I’ll write to the doctor, Mrs Halliday’s brother. He’ll tell me what I ought to do-if he’s alive still, that is. Anyway, it’s on my conscience I never told him about Layonee-or about that car.’

There was silence for some time apart from the laborious scratching of Lily’s pen. It was very seldom that she wrote a letter and she found the composition of it a considerable effort.

However it was done at last and she put it into an envelope and sealed it up.

But she felt less satisfied than she had expected. Ten to one the doctor was dead or had gone away from Dillmouth.

Was there anyone else?

What was the name, now, of that fellow?

If she could only rememberthat…