She told her she would make herself ill, and Mrs Graham called out, “You wouldn’t care if I died! You wouldn’t care if you killed me! You only think about yourself!” Mr Carey said he was sorry but she wouldn’t let him come to the house, and he had to see Miss Graham. He called her Allie – her name is Althea, you know. He said he would go away and come back and talk to her in the morning. Mrs Graham was properly worked up, crying and carrying on. She said he mustn’t come and she wouldn’t see him if he did. She told Miss Graham to send him away – said she couldn’t stand it – “He’ll kill me – send him away!” ’ She paused and said with a shade of embarrassment, ‘It doesn’t sound very good me standing and listening like that, but it all seemed to happen so quickly, and if she had worked herself into an attack they might have been glad of my help. I didn’t feel I could just ride on and leave them.’

‘No, of course not, Miss Cotton. Please go on.’

‘Miss Graham said something about getting her back to the house. I didn’t catch it all, but I think she was asking Mr Carey to help her, because Mrs Graham called out, “No – no! Don’t dare to touch me – don’t dare!” After that I could just hear Miss Graham’s voice, but I couldn’t hear what she said, only at the end there was something about getting her mother to bed and making her comfortable. And that was all, except that I heard them going off down the garden together, and Miss Graham was having her work cut out.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, every way. Mrs Graham was crying and catching her breath, and by the sound of it I should say Miss Graham was three parts carrying her. So I waited to see if she could get her into the house, and when I heard the door shut I got on my bicycle and went on to the Burford’s, and it was a false alarm, just as I thought it would be, so I made her a cup of tea and had one myself and came along home.’

Frank Abbott was reflecting a little sardonically upon the difference between the living spoken word and the stiff dead stuff to which the average police statement reduced it. There was no actual discrepancy between what Miss Cotton had just been saying and what she had signed at the police station last night, but there was exactly the same difference between them as there is between a living person and a corpse. The paper lay on the table before him. His eye picked out a sentence – ‘As I was proceeding along Hill Rise upon my bicycle…’ He was prepared to bet that Miss Cotton had never proceeded anywhere in her life. He said,

‘Did you come back the same way as you went?’

‘Well, I did.’

‘You passed along the garden of No. 1 Belview Road – were you bicycling or walking?’

‘I got off my bicycle and walked. There’s quite a bit of a rise there.’

‘See anything – hear anything?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Any lights on in the house?’

‘Not that I could see. There would be one on the upstair landing – they used to keep it on all night.’

There was a pause. Then he said,

‘I take it you know that Mrs Graham was found dead in that summerhouse you spoke of, and that she had been strangled.’

‘That was what I heard.’

‘Miss Graham found her, but not until something after seven in the morning. She says she left her comfortably in bed, and that she had no idea she had gone out again. She searched the house, and when she found that her mother’s outdoor coat and shoes were missing she searched the garden. She discovered her mother’s body in the summerhouse and rang up Dr Barrington. That is her story. Now what I want to know is this – what sort of terms was Mrs Graham on with her daughter?’

Miss Cotton looked at him out of those very blue eyes.

‘Miss Graham did everything she could for her.’

‘Mrs Graham was trying?’

Miss Cotton nodded.

‘She was just about the most selfish person I’ve ever known. It was Thea do this and Thea do that, from the first thing in the morning till the last thing at night. I don’t know how the poor girl stood it, I’m sure. And it was common talk that Mrs Graham had got her engagement broken off.’

‘To Mr Nicholas Carey?’

‘That’s right – and a real shame too. Always about together from the time they were in school, and fond of each other – well, it stuck out all over them.’

‘So you would say that Miss Graham was a good daughter. Was she fond of her mother?’

‘It was a miracle if she was.’

‘Oh, well, miracles happen. The question is, was she?’

‘She did everything she could for her.’

‘I see. Now tell me – you say you heard Mrs Graham say a number of things like “You wouldn’t care if I died – you wouldn’t care if you killed me!” That was talking to her daughter. Did you hear Miss Graham say anything to account for that?’

‘No, I didn’t. She was telling her mother that she would make herself ill.’

‘It wasn’t said in any threatening way?’

‘Of course it wasn’t! She was doing her best to soothe her down like she always did.’

‘She always tried to soothe her mother?’

‘Yes, she did. Anyone will tell you that.’

‘I just wanted to know. Now with regard to Mr Carey. Speaking of him to her daughter, she said, “He’ll kill me – send him away!” And, speaking to him, “Don’t dare to touch me – don’t dare!” Did you hear him say anything that would account for her speaking to him like that?’

‘No, I didn’t. Mr Carey is a gentleman and he spoke like one – kept his temper and said he was sorry but she wouldn’t let him come to the house and he had to see Allie, meaning Miss Graham, and he would come back and talk to her tomorrow. There wasn’t anything to make Mrs Graham say what she did. She was right down hysterical, that’s all.’

‘And you are sure that Miss Graham took her mother back to the house?’

‘I heard them all the way down the garden, and I heard them go in and shut the door. When I got to the corner I looked down Belview Road and I saw the light go on in Mrs Graham’s bedroom.’

‘Then it seems as if Mrs Graham must have gone back to the summerhouse later on. Are you quite sure you didn’t see or hear anything on your return journey when you walked the length of the garden as far as the crest of the hill?’

‘I didn’t see anything or hear anything.’

‘And there was no light on in the house?’

She stopped for a moment before she answered that – looking back – trying to remember. Then she said,

‘If the landing light was on, I wouldn’t see it – there’s a thick curtain there. The house looked dark.’

WHAT ARE WE going to do, Nicky?’

They sat close together on the deep sofa in the drawing-room. They were not leaning back; Althea’s left hand rested palm downwards on the stuff of the seat. Nicky’s right hand covered it. He said.

‘There isn’t anything very much that we can do.’ He didn’t like to say, ‘It will pass,’ but the thought was in his mind. They would have to get through the inquest and the funeral, and then they could get married and he would take her away. He wondered if she would want to sell the house, and whether the two lots of people who were after it would still be so anxious to buy now that there had been a murder there. The sooner he could get Allie away the better – right away. These things filled his mind, but it was a bit soon to start talking about them to Allie, so he just said there wasn’t much they could do and left it at that.

He wasn’t so stupid as to think they were clear out of the wood either. Miss Cotton’s statement was all right in a way and as far as it went. Fortunately, it did go far enough to make it clear that Allie had taken her mother back into the house and shut the door. It also made it perfectly clear that there had been a frightful row. He had an unpleasantly sharp impression in his mind of Mrs Graham screaming out that he wanted to kill her, and a few other helpful things like that. There really wasn’t any way out of the police having their eye on him as suspect number one. And he couldn’t blame them, since look where he would, he couldn’t for the life of him think of reasons why Nicholas Carey should want Mrs Graham out of the way, but as far as he could see, no reason at all why anyone else should.