Miss Waterhouse shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t see him or any other caller.’ 

‘What were you doing between half past one and three o’clock?’

‘I spent about half an hour doing the crossword inThe Times, or as much of it as I could, then I went out to the kitchen and washed up the lunch. Let me see. I wrote a couple of letters, made some cheques out for bills, then I went upstairs and sorted out some things I wanted to take to the cleaners. I think it was from my bedroom that I noticed a certain amount of commotion next door. I distinctly heard someone screaming, so naturally I went to the window. There was a young man and a girl at the gate. He seemed to be embracing her.’

Sergeant Lamb shifted his feet but Miss Waterhouse was not looking at him and clearly had no idea that he had been that particular young man in question.

‘I could only see the back of the young man’s head. He seemed to be arguing with the girl. Finally he sat her down against the gate post. An extraordinary thing to do. And he strode off and went into the house.’

‘You had not seen Miss Pebmarsh return to the house a short time before?’

Miss Waterhouse shook her head. ‘No. I don’t really think I had looked out the window at all until I heard this extraordinary screaming. However, I didn’t pay much attention to all this. Young girls and men are always doing such extraordinary things-screaming, pushing each other, giggling or making some kind of noise-that I had no idea it was anything serious. Not until some cars drove up with policemen did I realize anything out of the ordinary had occurred.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Well, naturally I went out of the house, stood on the steps and then I walked round to the back garden. I wondered what had happened but there didn’t seem to be anything much to see from that side. When I got back again there was quite a little crowd gathering. Somebody told me there’d been a murder in the house. It seemed to me most extraordinary.Most extraordinary!’ said Miss Waterhouse with a great deal of disapproval.

‘There is nothing else you can think of? That you can tell us?’

‘Really, I’m afraid not.’

‘Has anybody recently written to you suggesting insurance, or has anybody called upon you or proposed calling upon you?’

‘No. Nothing of the kind. Both James and I have taken out insurance policies with the Mutual Help Assurance Society. Of course one is always getting letters which are really circulars or advertisements of some kind but I don’t recall anything of that kind recently.’

‘No letters signed by anybody called Curry?’ 

‘Curry? No, certainly not.’

‘And the name of Curry means nothing to you in any way?’

‘No. Should it?’

Hardcastle smiled. ‘No. I really don’t think it should,’ he said. ‘It just happens to be the name that the man who was murdered was calling himself by.’

‘It wasn’t his real name?’

‘We have some reason to think that it was not his real name.’

‘A swindler of some kind, eh?’ said Miss Waterhouse.

‘We can’t say that till we have evidence to prove it.’

‘Of course not, of course not. You’ve got to be careful. I know that,’ said Miss Waterhouse. ‘Not like some of the people around here. They’d say anything. I wonder some aren’t had up for libel all the time.’

‘Slander,’ corrected Sergeant Lamb, speaking for the first time.

Miss Waterhouse looked at him in some surprise, as though not aware before that he had an entity of his own and was anything other than a necessary appendage to Inspector Hardcastle.

‘I’m sorry I can’t help you, I really am,’ said Miss Waterhouse.

‘I’m sorry too,’ said Hardcastle. ‘A person of your intelligence and judgement with a faculty of observation would have been a very useful witness to have.’

‘I wish Ihad seen something,’ said Miss Waterhouse.

For a moment her tone was as wistful as a young girl’s.

‘Your brother, Mr James Waterhouse?’

‘James wouldn’t know anything,’ said Miss Waterhouse scornfully. ‘He never does. And anyway he was at Gainsford and Swettenhams in the High Street. Oh no, James wouldn’t be able to help you. As I say, he doesn’t come back to lunch.’

‘Where does he lunch usually?’

‘He usually has sandwiches and coffee at the Three Feathers. A very nice respectable house. They specialize in quick lunches for professional people.’

‘Thank you, Miss Waterhouse. Well, we mustn’t keep you any longer.’

He rose and went out into the hall. Miss Waterhouse accompanied them. Colin Lamb picked up the golf club by the door.

‘Nice club, this,’ he said. ‘Plenty of weight in the head.’ He weighed it up and down in his hand. ‘I see you are prepared, Miss Waterhouse, for any eventualities.’

Miss Waterhouse was slightly taken aback.

‘Really,’ she said, ‘I can’t imagine how that club came to be there.’

She snatched it from him and replaced it in the golf bag. 

‘A very wise precaution to take,’ said Hardcastle.

Miss Waterhouse opened the door and let them out.

‘Well,’ said Colin Lamb, with a sigh, ‘we didn’t get much out of her, in spite of you buttering her up so nicely all the time. Is that your invariable method?’

‘It gets good results sometimes with a person of her type. The tough kind always respond to flattery.’

‘She was purring like a cat that has been offered a saucer of cream in the end,’ said Colin. ‘Unfortunately, it didn’t disclose anything of interest.’

‘No?’ said Hardcastle.

Colin looked at him quickly. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘A very slight and possibly unimportant point. Miss Pebmarsh went out to the post office and the shops but she turnedleft instead ofright, and that telephone call, according to Miss Martindale, was put through about ten minutes to two.’

Colin looked at him curiously.

‘You still think that in spite of her denial she might have made it? She was very positive.’

‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle. ‘She was very positive.’

His tone was non-committal.

‘But if she did make it, why?’

‘Oh, it’s allwhy,’ said Hardcastle impatiently. ‘Why, why?Why all this rigmarole? If Miss Pebmarsh made that call, why did she want to get the girl there? If it was someone else, why did they want to involve Miss Pebmarsh? We don’t know anything yet. If that Martindale woman had known Miss Pebmarsh personally, she’d have known whether it was her voice or not, or at any rate whether it was reasonably like Miss Pebmarsh’s. Oh well, we haven’t got much from Number 18. Let’s see whether Number 20 will do us any better.’

In addition to its number, 20, Wilbraham Crescent had a name. It was called Diana Lodge. The gates had obstacles against intruders by being heavily wired on the inside. Rather melancholy speckled laurels, imperfectly trimmed, also interfered with the efforts of anyone to enter through the gate.

‘If ever a house could have been called The Laurels, this one could,’ remarked Colin Lamb. ‘Why call it Diana Lodge, I wonder?’

He looked round him appraisingly. Diana Lodge did not run to neatness or to flower-beds. Tangled and overgrown shrubbery was its most salient point together with a strong catty smell of ammonia. The house seemed in a rather tumbledown condition with gutters that could do with repairing. The only sign of any recent kind of attention being paid to it was a freshly painted front door whose colour of bright azure blue made the general unkempt appearance of the rest of the house and garden even more noticeable. There was no electric bell but a kind of handle that was clearly meant to be pulled. The inspector pulled it and a faint sound of remote jangling was heard inside.

‘It sounds,’ said Colin, ‘like the Moated Grange.’

They waited for a moment or two, then sounds were heard from inside. Rather curious sounds. A kind of high crooning, half singing, half speaking.