Free Silence Observed by Michael Innes Page A

she look as if she might have done the shooting?”
    “Not in the least. She had a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other.”
    “Was she agitated?”
    “She certainly didn’t seem to be. She turned to me as I came in and said: ‘Shot ’im ’e ’as’.” Heffer paused. “Do I make that intelligible? ‘Shot him he has’ was what was intended.”
    “Quite so. And then?”
    “She said: ‘Perlice work that is and no cleaning ’ere neither not till they’re through’. And she turned and walked out of the shop and into this inner room. She wasn’t seen again.”
    Inspector Parker could be heard breathing heavily. Appleby gave him a restraining glance and then turned again to the young man.
    “You realize, Mr Heffer, that you are ascribing a somewhat improbable course of conduct to this old woman?”
    “Well, it was certainly surprisingly phlegmatic. Perhaps she was feeble-minded. I hadn’t time to think about it, you know, because the policeman came in from the street a moment later. You’ll be able to settle the point when you find her.”
    “If we ever do find her,” Parker said. “And if you ask–”
    He broke off at a gesture from Appleby. From somewhere in the rear of the premises two sounds were making themselves heard. One was a clanking. The other could be described as a slip-slopping. Their association could conjure up one image only. And this was almost instantly vindicated. A door opened, and there stood in it an old woman. She was wearing carpet slippers, and she carried a pail, a mop, a broom, a contrivance for kneeling on, and a number of dusters. The appearance of the four men revealed to her was something which she seemed to find wholly unsurprising.
    “That there Mr Trechmann’s corpus,” the old woman said, “would it ’av been taken to the morguary?”
    Parker’s difficulty in the matter of respiration increased. Nor did he seem better pleased when Heffer, without obtrusiveness, rose, tipped a pile of books and papers from a chair, and invited the new arrival to sit down.
    “No,” Appleby said. “Not yet. But it won’t be long now.”
    “I got to thorough through that there shop, I ’ave.” The old woman, who was plainly gratified by Heffer’s attention, had sat down composedly. “And ’uffkins my name is. ’arriet ’uffkins. And Missus, although in a widowed state.”
    “Mrs Huffkins,” Appleby asked gravely, “will you explain to us how you came to leave these premises immediately after having come upon Mr Trechmann’s body?”
    “Give it time to settle, was what I said to myself. And I went to the pichers. Mark you, ’ e was ’ere.” Mrs Huffkins pointed a grubby finger at Heffer. “Gentleman, if ever I saw one, and well able to ’andle the perlice.”
    “So you felt,” Appleby asked, “that you could leave it all to him, and you downed bucket and brooms and went off to the cinema? And now, at this late hour, you have simply returned to get on with your job?”
    “That’s it, mister. That’s it in a coconut.”
    At this the sweating sergeant spoke for the first time.
    “Nutshell,” he said. “That’s what she means, sir. Nutshell. Not literate, she isn’t.”
    “No doubt you are right, Sergeant.” Appleby paused to get his pipe going again. “Mrs Huffkins, there is one point I must get quite clear. Could this gentleman – whose name is Mr Heffer – have shot Mr Trechmann, withdrawn from the shop, and then given the appearance of just having entered when you first saw him?”
    “In course ’e couldn’t.” Mrs Huffkins answered as one who, whatever her intellectual limitations, would make a rock-like and impregnable witness. “It couldn’t ’av ’appened – not in the time between when I ’eard the shot and saw what I saw. Besides, I saw ’im that done it, didn’t I?”
    “You saw ’im that done it?” Once more the sergeant was unable to refrain from interrupting. “You mean you saw ’im that done it a-doing of it, and then