The Blind Side

Chapter XXII

Mrs. Green came in in her old Burberry with her battered black felt hat mournfully askew. The port-wine mark on her cheek showed up against the puffy pallor of the rest of her face. Her grey hair fuzzed out wildly in all directions. About her neck she wore, in lieu of the crochet shawl reserved for “turns,” the aged black feather boa which marked a return to the normal. A sallow handkerchief was clasped in one hand. On being invited to sit down she gulped and applied it to her eyes.

“Thank you kindly, sir. I’m sure it’s all so ’orrible, I don’t hardly know where I am. And on top of one of my turns too, and this one so bad, and if it hadn’t been for the mite of brandy I come by just in time there’s no saying whether I’d be here now.”

The Inspector relaxed.

“Ah-it takes a good bit of brandy to pull you round out of one of those turns, doesn’t it, Mrs. Green?”

Mrs. Green wiped her eyes.

“If it’s Mrs. Smith where I lodge that’s been telling your young man that I drink, then she’s no lady,” she said with dignity. “I don’t wish her nor no one else to go through the h’agony that I go through when I gets one of my turns, and what they told me in the ’orspital was to take a mite of brandy and lay down quiet, and so I done. And if I’m to get the sack for it, well, it’s a cruel shame, and maybe they won’t find it so easy to get a respectable woman to come into an ’ouse like this, what with murders and goings on. And if it comes to getting the sack, there’s more than me was for it, if it wasn’t for Mr. Craddock being done in.”

“And what do you mean by that, Mrs. Green?” said the Inspector.

Mrs. Green eyed him sideways.

“There’s those that gives themselves airs and talks haughty now that’d be singing on the other side of their mouth if it wasn’t for pore Mr. Craddock lying a mortual corpse at this moment instead of standing up on his two feet and telling them to be off out of here because they wasn’t wanted any longer.”

“I really think you had better tell me what you mean, Mrs. Green.”

The sideways look became a downcast one. The pale mouth primmed and said with mincing gentility,

“I’m sure I was never one to put myself forward, sir.”

The Inspector became hearty.

“Pity there aren’t more like you in that way, Mrs. Green. But it’s everyone’s duty to help the police, you know, so I’m sure you’re going to tell me what this is all about. If you know of someone who was going to be dismissed by Mr. Craddock, I think you ought to tell me who it is.”

“And him taking it on himself to say as how he’d see to it I got my notice!” said Mrs. Green with an angry toss of the head.

“Were you alluding to Rush?”

The head was tossed again.

“If it was the last word I was h’ever to speak, I was, sir.”

Detective Abbott began to write.

“Rush was under threat of dismissal by Mr. Craddock?”

“I heard him with my own ears, sir, as I was coming across the landing. The door of the flat was open, and the door of this room we’re in was on the jar, and Mr. Craddock, he was in a proper shouting rage, and you’ll excuse me repeating his language, which wasn’t fit for a lady to hear let alone to repeat. He says as loud as a bull, ‘You’ve been mucking up my papers!’ he says. And Rush, he answers him back as bold as brass. ‘And what would I want with your papers, Mr. Ross?’ he says. And Mr. Craddock says, ‘How do I know what you want? Blackmail, I shouldn’t wonder!’ And Rush ups and says, ‘You did ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Ross, talking to me like that!’ And Mr. Craddock says, ‘Get to hell out of here!’ And Rush come out, and when he see me, if ever there was a man that looked like murder, it was him, and he went down the stairs swearing to himself all the way.”

The Inspector said, “H’m! Mr. Craddock had missed some of his papers. Is that what you made of it?”

Mrs. Green sniffed.

“I couldn’t say, sir. That’s what I heard. I can’t say more and I can’t say less. What I hears I remembers. And there’s more things than that I could tell you if I thought it my duty like you said.”

“It is undoubtedly your duty,” said the Inspector in a most encouraging voice.

Mrs. Green sniffed again.

“I’m not one to listen, nor yet to poke my nose into other people’s business, but I’ve got my work to do, and if a lady leaves her door open and talks into her telephone that’s just inside, well, it’s not my business to put cotton wool in my ears. And no later than the very evening before poor Mr. Craddock was murdered what did I hear but Miss Lucy Craddock say-”

“Wait a minute, Mrs. Green. When you say the evening before Mr. Craddock was murdered, do you mean the Tuesday evening? He was murdered some time after midnight of that night.”

“Yes, sir-the Tuesday evening. It would be about a quarter to half past six, and a shocking long day I’d had on account of cleaning up after Mr. and Mrs. Connell.”

“You were on the landing, and Miss Craddock’s door was open?”

“Half open, sir. She was all ready to start-going abroad she was-and Rush had just been up for the luggage, when the telephone bell went, and there she was, talking, and never give a thought to the door.”

“Well now, what did she say?”

“You could have knocked me down with a feather,” said Mrs. Green. “Dusting the banisters I was, and I heard her say quite plain, ‘Oh, my dear, you know Ross is turning me out.’ And then something about there being nothing in the will to stop him, and he wouldn’t turn Miss Mary out on account of her being an invalids-that’s the one that died-but as for Miss Lucy, he said she’d got to go. Getting on thirty years she’s been there, and I don’t wonder she was put about. She said as how he’d written her a horrible cruel letter, and it was all about Miss Mavis Grey that he didn’t mean no good to. Ever so worked up she sounded. And, ‘I’ve got quite a desperate feeling,’ she says. It was Miss Fenton she was talking to, and there was a lot about her wanting to come here while Miss Lucy was away. I’d my dusting to do and I didn’t trouble to listen, but I heard Miss Craddock say as how she was feeling desperate, and desperate she sounded-I’ll swear to that. And now they’re saying she never went off to the Continent at all. Looks as meek as a mouse she does, but there-it’s often the quiet ones that’s the worst when they’re roused.”

The Inspector let her go after that.

“Every blessed one of ’em might have done it as far as I can see,” he said in a disgusted tone as Detective Abbott came back after making sure that both doors were shut. “Talented lot of eavesdroppers they’ve got in this house too!”

“Yes, sir.”

The Inspector took a decision, a very minor decision, but one that was to have an unforeseen result. Getting out of his chair, he said,

“I’ll go down and have a word with Rush. Perhaps he’ll be easier to handle in his own quarters. And I’d rather like to see that wife of his. I suppose she is bedridden.”

“Haven’t you got enough suspects without her, sir?” said Detective Abbott.