Read Three Blind Mice for Free Online Page B

Mrs. Davis!”
    “Danger?” Giles spoke increduously.
    “It’s like this, sir. A notebook was picked up near the scene of the crime. In it were written two addresses. The first was Seventy-Four Culver Street.”
    “Where the woman was murdered?” Molly put in.
    “Yes, Mrs. Davis. The other address was Monkswell Manor.”
    “What?” Molly’s tone was incredulous. “But how extraordinary.”
    “Yes. That’s why Superintendent Hogben thought it imperative to find out if you knew of any connection between you, or between this house, and the Longridge Farm case.”
    “There’s nothing—absolutely nothing,” said Giles. “It must be some coincidence.”
    Sergeant Trotter said gently, “Superintendent Hogben doesn’t think it is a coincidence. He’d have come himself if it had been at all possible. Under the weather conditions, and as I’m an expert skier, he sent me with instructions to get full particulars of everyone in this house, to report back to him by phone, and to take all measures I thought expedient for the safety of the household.”
    Giles said sharply, “Safety? Good Lord, man, you don’t think somebody is going to be killed here? ”
    Trotter said apologetically, “I didn’t want to upset the lady, but yes, that is just what Superintendent Hogben does think.”
    “But what earthly reason could there be—”
    Giles broke off, and Trotter said, “That’s just what I’m here to find out.”
    “But the whole thing’s crazy. ”
    “Yes, sir, but it’s because it’s crazy that it’s dangerous.”
    Molly said, “There’s something more you haven’t told us yet, isn’t there, Sergeant?”
    “Yes, madam. At the top of the page in the notebook was written, ‘Three Blind Mice.’ Pinned to the dead woman’s body was a paper with ‘This is the first’ written on it. And below it a drawing of three mice and a bar of music. The music was the tune of the nursery rhyme ‘Three Blind Mice.’ ”
    Molly sang softly:
    “Three Blind Mice,
    See how they run.
    They all ran after the farmer’s wife!
    She—”
    She broke off. “Oh, it’s horrible— horrible. There were three children, weren’t there?”
    “Yes, Mrs. Davis. A boy of fifteen, a girl of fourteen, and the boy of twelve who died.”
    “What happened to the others?”
    “The girl was, I believe, adopted by someone. We haven’t been able to trace her. The boy would be just on twenty-three now. We’ve lost track of him. He was said to have always been a bit—queer. He joined up in the army at eighteen. Later he deserted. Since then he’s disappeared. The army psychiatrist says definitely that he’s not normal.”
    “You think that it was he who killed Mrs. Lyon?” Giles asked. “And that he’s a homicidal maniac and may turn up here for some unknown reason?”
    “We think that there must be a connection between someone here and the Longridge Farm business. Once we can establish what that connection is, we will be forearmed. Now you state, sir, that you yourself have no connection with that case. The same goes for you, Mrs. Davis?”
    “I—oh, yes—yes.”
    “Perhaps you will tell me exactly who else there is in the house?”
    They gave him the names. Mrs. Boyle. Major Metcalf. Mr. Christopher Wren. Mr. Paravicini. He wrote them down in his notebook.
    “Servants?”
    “We haven’t any servants,” said Molly. “And that reminds me, I must go and put the potatoes on.”
    She left the study abruptly.
    Trotter turned to Giles. “What do you know about these people, sir?”
    “I—We—” Giles paused. Then he said quietly, “Really, we don’t know anything about them, Sergeant Trotter. Mrs. Boyle wrote from a Bournemouth hotel. Major Metcalf from Leamington. Mr. Wren from a private hotel in South Kensington. Mr. Paravicini just turned up out of the blue—or rather out of the white—his car overturned in a snowdrift near here. Still, I suppose they’ll have identity cards, ration books, that sort of