them. In the end I feared I had drawn a blank.
âAnd youâve really nothing else?â I asked, gazing pathetically into the clerkâs eyes. âSomething right on the river, and with a fair amount of garden and a small lodge.â I added, summing up the main points of the Mill House, as I had gathered them from the papers.
âWell, of course, thereâs Sir Eustace Pedlerâs place,â said the man doubtfully. âThe Mill House, you know.â
âNotânot whereââ I faltered. (Really, faltering is getting to be my strong point.)
âThatâs it! Where the murder took place. But perhaps you wouldnât likeââ
âOh, I donât think I should mind,â I said with an appearance of rallying. I felt my bona fides was now quite established. âAnd perhaps I might get it cheapâin the circumstances.â
A master touch that, I thought.
âWell, itâs possible. Thereâs no pretending that it will be easy to let nowâservants and all that, you know. If you like the place after youâve seen it, I should advise you to make an offer. Shall I write you out an order?â
âIf you please.â
A quarter of an hour later I was at the lodge of the Mill House. In answer to my knock, the door flew open and a tall middle-aged woman literally bounced out.
âNobody can go into the house, do you hear that? Fairly sick of you reporters, I am. Sir Eustaceâs orders areââ
âI understood the house was to let,â I said freezingly, holding out my order. âOf course, if itâs already takenââ
âOh, Iâm sure I beg your pardon, miss. Iâve been fairly pestered with these newspaper people. Not a minuteâs peace. No, the house isnât letânor likely to be now.â
âAre the drains wrong?â I asked in an anxious whisper.
âOh, Lord, miss, the drains is all right! But surely youâve heard about that foreign lady as was done to death here?â
âI believe I did read something about it in the papers,â I said carelessly.
My indifference piqued the good woman. If I had betrayed any interest, she would probably have closed up like an oyster. As it was she positively bridled.
âI should say you did, miss! Itâs been in all the newspapers. The Daily Budget âs out still to catch the man who did it. It seems, according to them, as our police are no good at all. Well I hope theyâll get himâalthough a nice-looking fellow he was and no mistake. A kind of soldierly look about himâah, well, I dare say heâd been wounded in the war, and sometimes they go a bit queer aftwards; my sisterâs boy did. Perhaps sheâd used him badâtheyâre a bad lot, those foreigners. Though she was a fine-looking woman. Stood there where youâre standing now.â
âWas she dark or fair?â I ventured. âYou canât tell from these newspaper portraits.â
âDark hair, and a very white faceâtoo white for nature, I thoughtâhad her lips reddened something cruel. I donât like to see itâa little powder now and then is quite another thing.â
We were conversing like old friends now. I put another question.
âDid she seem nervous or upset at all?â
âNot a bit. She was smiling to herself, quiet like, as though she was amused at something. Thatâs why you could have knocked me down with a feather when, the next afternoon, those people came running out calling for the police and saying thereâd been murder done. I shall never get over it, and as for setting foot in that house after dark I wouldnât do it, not if it was ever so. Why, I wouldnât even stay here at the lodge, if Sir Eustace hadnât been down on his bended knees to me.â
âI thought Sir Eustace Pedler was at Cannes?â
âSo he was, miss. He came back to England when he heard the