Free Furious Old Women by Leo Bruce

straight round with them. It’s my belief they were left behind by some visitor a long while back.”
    â€œWouldn’t you have found them, in that case?”
    â€œI might have if what I was paid for looking after the church was enough for me to be looking everywhere morning, noon and night, but it’s not. I can’t go washing and polishing on my hands and knees every day in every square inch of that yewje building, can I?”
    â€œI suppose not. Did you do all the cleaning in the church?”
    â€œAll except the brass, I did. Miss Griggs liked to do that herself.”
    â€œDo you remember going over to the church on the morning when your husband found her body? The Friday morning, I mean.”
    â€œI’m not likely to forget it.”
    â€œDid you notice then whether the brass had been cleaned recently or not?”
    â€œNot then, I didn’t, but later in the day I did. I noticed it hadn’t been done for a week or more and I thought, I suppose that’ll be expected of me now that Miss Griggs isn’t any longer here to do it. Well, I can only do so much, I thought.”
    â€œYou are quite sure no one had cleaned it or started to clean it on the previous afternoon?”
    â€œCertainly Miss Griggs hadn’t. She always started with the lectern which is a neagle with its wings holding up the Bible. Her father gave it to the church and she thought a lot of it. It was that I noticed that day. It was ever so tarnished all over.”
    â€œThank you. That’s very helpful.”
    â€œAre you from the police, then?” asked Mrs. Rumble.
    â€œNo. I’m just trying to find out who killed Miss Griggs.”
    â€œYou don’t need to say anything about those galoshes, do you? It might be thought bad of.”
    â€œCertainly not. But if I may suggest it, I think you should report finding them.”
    Mrs Rumble looked at him dubiously then seemed to take a momentous decision.
    â€œI’d just put the kettle on when you knocked,” she said.
    Carolus waited.
    â€œI don’t know whether you’d like a cup of tea. Only you’d better come through to the kitchen where there’s a fire.”
    Comfortably seated in what he supposed was Rumble’s chair, Carolus prepared to ask more questions while the unprecedented affability of Mrs Rumble lasted.
    â€œI understand you work for Miss Vaillant?”
    â€œWell, I do, yes. I can’t give all my time to the church and it helps.”
    â€œYou share her religious views, I believe?”
    â€œI wouldn’t call it that. Only I do think it brightens things up to have a bit of colour and music instead of psalms, psalms, psalms all the time. I don’t say I should want to go as far as what she would, especially when she came back from Spain last year and wanted to start teaching the choir to do a dance in the middle of the chancel. But if those Miss Griggses had their way it would be one long Bible meeting.”
    â€œYou think Miss Vaillant sincere in what she wanted?”
    â€œWell, if the truth were known … I don’t know whether I ought to Speak …”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe truth is, she Drinks,” whispered Mrs Rumble. “There. Truth will out. Secret, of course. No one ever had any idea about it except Forster’s Stores over at Burley where she got the stuff and brought it away in her own car. Gin it was. She used to put lime juice in it to take the taste away. I wouldn’t have known myself if I hadn’t happened to have a key which fitted the cupboard and could see the bottle. But she wasn’t the only one.”
    â€œShe wasn’t?”
    â€œNo. And this will surprise you. Old Miss Griggs Liked a Drop, too. What do you think brought them together right at the end? Miss Griggs went to see her twice after they hadn’t been speaking for I don’t know how long. The first time I met her coming out. All flushed up she