Free She Died a Lady by John Dickson Carr Page B

throbbed out against stillness, growing to its steady pop-pop-pop which carried as far as the High Street. It had an instant response. Ears were on the alert, tails quivered, bodies grew tense. A distant din of barking rose in challenge. H.M. squinted round evilly.
    ‘Grr, you little blighters!’ he said. Then his sense of grievance bubbled up. ‘Looky here, son: I got a protest to make. Can’t you for the flamin’ love of Esau do something about those ruddy DOGS ?’
    It was evident that Superintendent Craft found the great man sometimes difficult to deal with.
    ‘You’ll be all right, sir, if you just take it slowly! I told you yesterday, when you were cutting figure-eights on Mr Ferrars’ lawn –’
    ‘I’m a mild-mannered bloke,’ said H.M., ‘known far and wide for the urbanity of my temper and the ease of my bearing. I love animals like St Francis of Assisi, blast their ears. But fair’s fair and enough’s enough. Those faithful friends of man out there nearly made me break my neck this morning. If I got to go through this business like a Russian grand duke in a sleigh pursued by wolves, I say it’s a goddam persecution.’
    ‘I’ll go ahead of you, and keep them off.’
    ‘Then there’s another thing,’ said H.M. very quietly. ‘When we see the gal down there’ – again he nodded towards Molly’s – ‘what are we going to tell her? People still think the thing was a suicide-pact. Do we let on it’s murder yet, or do we keep it up our sleeves?’
    Craft rubbed his chin.
    ‘I don’t very well see how we can keep it back, he decided. ‘There’ll be the inquest on Wednesday anyway. And if we want to learn anything beforehand –’
    ‘Let her have it straight, then?’
    ‘I should say so, yes.’
    H.M. bumped up the garden path like a man on a pogo-stick, and navigated the distance pretty well. The Granges – father, mother, and daughter – live in a modest house, very trim and tidy. The long bay windows of the sitting-room stood open; somebody was playing a piano inside.
    When we had hoisted H.M. up the front step, a trim maid admitted us to the hall and then the sitting-room. The furnishing of that white room showed means and taste. In Steve Grange’s house, nothing was ever untidy or out of place. Molly, looking surprised to see us, got up from the grand piano in the bay windows.
    All three of us, I think, were a little uncertain and inclined to clear our throats. Eventually, I was the goat who spoke.
    ‘Molly,’ I said, ‘you told me this morning you had some ideas about this unfortunate business. Rita Wainright and Barry Sullivan, I mean. You had something you wanted to show me.
    ‘Oh, that!’ said Molly, without interest. She reached down with one finger and plinked at a treble key on the piano. ‘I was wrong about that, Dr Luke. I – I’m rather glad I was wrong. It was beastly.’
    ‘But what was it you wanted to show me?’
    ‘Nothing,’ replied Molly. ‘Only an old puzzle-book.’
    ‘Wow!’ said H.M., with such lively interest that we all turned towards him. Molly flashed him a quick glance, and then fell to tapping at the piano keys again. ‘I wonder if we were thinking of the same puzzle? But it won’t work, my gal. It’s too easy. Burn me, if only it were as easy as that!’ H.M. groaned and shook his fist. ‘All the same, I wonder if we were thinking of the same puzzle?’
    Somewhere at the back of my mind, hazy and tantalizing, drifted a recollection that someone else in this affair had once mentioned puzzles in some way. I could not place it.
    ‘I wonder too,’ smiled Molly. ‘But please sit down! I’ll go and call mother. She’s only in the garden.’
    ‘We’d rather you didn’t do that, miss,’ said Superintendent Craft in a sepulchral voice. ‘Our business is with you alone.’
    Molly laughed a little.
    ‘Well!’ she said rather breathlessly, and plumped down on the piano-bench. ‘Do sit down anyway! What was it you wanted?’
    ‘Do you