Free Death in High Heels by Christianna Brand Page A

’im what he done with the rest of the poison, I suppose, sir,” suggested Sergeant Bedd, respectfully.
    3
    After an exhausting morning, Charlesworth had some lunch and, picking up the sergeant, headed the little car for Hampstead. “My brain’s whizzing round and round like a propeller,” he said. “Fresh air and solitude, that’s what we need … and I don’t want to set eyes on another woman for a month. Unless it’s Victoria David,” he amended, laughing, “or the adorable Mrs. Best or Rachel Gay, or even Judy, the Yorkshire lass, with her golden hair. I never saw so many lovelies as there are in that place in all my life.…” He rambled on happily until they came to the Vale of Health, and there, snuffing joyfully at the pleasant, clean air, he stopped the car and got down to business.
    “Now, let’s try and get this thing straight. I’ve been concentrating most of this morning on how the stuff was administered, and altogether here’s what I’ve arrived at: it appears that the staff in this damn shop are paid so much, whatever their salaries are, inclusive of lunch on the premises; apparently quite a few of the big shops do it, and Bevan is very keen on it, the idea being that the girls have a good meal once a day at least, and don’t save up for silk stockings and what not at the expense of their little turns. He says that the output of work is a lot higher since he started this racket, especially, as a matter of interest, towards the end of the week, when it used to go down appreciably, for the simple reason that the kids had spent all their pennies and were living till Friday on buns and a cup of tea. Of course, it’s done chiefly for the workroom—they have about fifty girls up there—but as the food is being cooked for them, the executive staff may as well benefit too. The workroom girls are fed upstairs in relays and don’t come into this at all. Bevan has a tray sent up to his office and Cecil often has lunch with him there. Occasionally, however, he stays and eats with the girls and so it was on Monday.”
    “Feels more at ’ome, I dare say,” suggested the sergeant, with a grin.
    “I shouldn’t be surprised. Also, on the rare occasions when the executives are indulged with a chicken or a duck or something like that, he presides over the fortunate fowl with a carving knife. I tell you this to explain that it was fairly normal for Cissie to have been messing about with the unmanly job of dishing out lunch for a pack of shop girls.”
    “As far as the kitchen’s concerned, Bedd, you saw it for yourself, and I think we can wash that out as a possible source of infection. The meat and vegetables were handed out in bulk and a certain jelly was the only thing sent into the dining-room earmarked for Miss Doon. I think the crystals would have shown up on that, and anyway they would have tasted terribly bitter on such anæmic stuff as jelly. Apart from that, the cook and her little bottlewasher can give each other perfectly good alibis for the entire morning, and couldn’t possibly have got hold of any of the poison; and even granting the possibility of collusion, they were never seen outside their kitchen during the whole day; don’t you agree that the people in the kitchen and the workroom can be washed out entirely?”
    “Yes, I do, sir. I think we can concentrate on the showroom, and, of course, Mrs. Harris and the seckerterry.”
    “Good. Well, then I think we can start off with ten possibles and ten only. Mrs. Harris and Macaroni, as you say; Bevan, Cecil and Miss Gregory; the three salesgirls, Victoria, Rachel and Irene—I trust they’ll excuse my using their Christian names but it makes life so much less complicated—and the mannequins, Aileen and Judy. There’s a larger staff, actually, but a lot of them are away on their holidays, and I don’t think we need count them at all. So there we are, ten little nigger boys; and the more I think about it the more I’m convinced that