Have a few words before I have to get on." "Oh, do do that," said Marlene. "She'd be ever so pleased.
I'm sorry I can't leave here and come with you, but I don't think-well, it wouldn't be viewed very well. You know, I can't get off for another hour and a half." "Oh, well, some other time," said Mrs. Oliver. "Anyway, I can't quite remember-was it Number Seventeen or has it got a name?" "It's called Laurel Cottage." "Oh, yes, of course. How stupid of me. Well, nice to have seen you." She hurried out plus one unwanted lipstick in her bag, and drove her car down the main street of Chipping Bartram and turned, after passing a garage and a hospital building, down a rather narrow road which had quite pleasant small houses built on either side of it.
She left the car outside Laurel Cottage and went in. A thin, energetic woman with gray hair, of about fifty years of age, opened the door and displayed instant signs of recognition.
"Why, so it's you, Mrs. Oliver. Ah, well, now. Not seen you for years and years, I haven't." "Oh, it's a very long time." "Well, come in then; come in. Can I make you a nice cup of tea?" "I'm afraid not," said Mrs. Oliver, "because I've had tea already with a friend, and I've got to get back to London. As it happened, I went into the chemist for something I wanted and I saw Marlene there." "Yes, she's got a very good job there. They think a lot of her in that place. They say she's got a lot of enterprise." "Well, that's very nice. And how are you, Mrs. Buckle? You look very well. Hardly older than when I saw you last." "Oh, I wouldn't like to say that. Gray hairs, and I've lost a lot of weight." "This seems to be a day when I meet a lot of friends I knew formerly," said Mrs. Oliver, going into the house and being led into a small, rather overclustered sitting room. "I don't know if you remember Mrs. Carstairs-Mrs. Julia Carstairs." "Oh, of course I do. Yes, rather. She must be getting on." "Oh, yes, she is, really. But we talked over a few old days, you know. In fact, we went as far as talking about that tragedy that occurred. I was in America at the time so I didn't know much about it. People called Ravenscroft." "Oh, I remember that well." "You worked for them, didn't you, at one time, Mrs. Buckle?" "Yes. I used to go in three mornings a week. Very nice people they were. You know, really military lady and gentleman, as you might say. The old school." "It was a very tragic thing to happen." "Yes, it was, indeed." "Were you still working for them at that time?" "No. As a matter of fact, I'd given up going there. I had my old Aunt Emma come to live with me and she was rather blind and not very well, and I couldn't really spare the time any more to go out doing things for people. But I'd been with them up to about a month or two before that." "It seemed such a terrible thing to happen," said Mrs.
Oliver. "I understand that they thought it was a suicide pact." "I don't believe that," said Mrs. Buckle, "I'm sure they'd never have committed suicide together. Not people that age.
And living so pleasantly together as they did. Of course, they hadn't lived there very long." "No, I suppose they hadn't," said Mrs. Oliver. "They lived somewhere near Bournemouth, didn't they, when they first came to England?" "Yes, but they found it was a bit too far for getting to London from there, and so that's why they came to Chipping Bartram. Very nice house it was, and a nice garden." "Were they both in good health when you were working for them last?" "Well, they felt their age a bit as most people do. The General, he'd had some kind of heart trouble or a slight stroke. Something of that kind, you know. They'd take pills, you know, and lie up a bit from time to time." "And Mrs, Ravenscroft?" "Well, I think she missed the life she'd had abroad, you know. They didn't know so very many people there, although they got to know a good many families, of course, being the sort of class they were. But I suppose it wasn't like India or those places. You know, where you have a lot of servants. I suppose gay parties and that sort of thing." "You think she missed her gay parties?" "Well, I don't know that exactly." "Somebody told me she'd taken to wearing a wig." "Oh, she'd got several wigs," said Mrs. Buckle, smiling slightly. "Very smart ones and very expensive. You know, from time to time she'd send one back to the place she'd got it from in London, and they'd redress it for her again and send it. There were all kinds. You know, there was one with auburn hair, and one with little gray curls all over her head, Really, she looked very nice in that one. And two-well, not so attractive really but useful for-you know-windy days when you wanted something to put on when it might be raining. Thought a lot about her appearance, you know, and spent a lot of her money on clothes." "What do you think was the cause of the tragedy?" said Mrs. Oliver. "You see, not being anywhere near here and not seeing any of my friends at that time because I was in America, I missed hearing anything about it and, well, one doesn't like to ask questions or write letters about things of that kind. I suppose there must have been some cause. I mean, it was General Ravenscroft's own revolver that was used, I understand."
"Oh, yes, he had two of those in the house because he said that no house was safe without. Perhaps he was right there, you know. Not that they'd had any trouble beforehand as far as I know. One afternoon a rather nasty sort of fellow came along to the door. Didn't like the look of him, I didn't. Wanted to see the General. Said he'd been in the General's regiment when he was a young fellow. The General asked him a few questions and I think thought as how he didn't-well, thought he wasn't very reliable. So he sent him off." "You think then that it was someone outside that did it?" "Well, I think it must have been, because I can't see any other thing. Mind you, I didn't like the man who came and did the gardening for them very much. He hadn't got a very good reputation and I gather he'd had a few jail sentences earlier in his life. But of course the General took up his references and he wanted to give him a chance." "So you think the gardener might have killed them?" "Well, I--I always thought that. But then I'm probably wrong. But it doesn't seem to me- I mean, the people who said there was some scandalous story or something about either her or him and that either he'd shot her or she'd shot him, that's all nonsense, I'd say. No, it was some outsider.
One of these people that-well, it's not as bad as it is nowadays because that, you must remember, was before people began getting all this violence idea. But look at what you read in the papers every day now. Young men, practically only boys still, taking a lot of drugs and going wild and rushing about, shooting a lot of people for nothing at all, asking a girl in a pub to have a drink with them and then they see her home and next day her body's found in a ditch. Stealing children out of prams from their mothers, taking a girl to a dance and murdering her or strangling her on the way back.
If anything, you feel as anyone can do anything. And anyway, there's that nice couple, the General and his wife, out for a nice walk in the evening, and there they were, both shot through the head." "Was it through the head?" "Well, I don't remember exactly now and of course I never saw anything myself. But anyway, just went for a walk as they often did." "And they'd not been on bad terms with each other?" "Well, they had words now and again, but who doesn't?" "No boy friend or girl friend?" "Well, if you can use that term of people of that age, oh, I mean there was a bit of talk here and there, but it was all nonsense. Nothing to it at all. People always want to say something of that kind." "Perhaps one of them was-ill." "Well, Lady Ravenscroft had been up to London once or twice consulting a doctor about something and I rather think she was going into hospital, or planning to go into hospital for an operation of some kind, though she never told me exactly what it was. But I think they managed to put her right-she was in this hospital for a short time. No operation, I think.