The sideways look became a downcast one. The pale mouth primmed and said with mincing gentility,

“I’m sure I was never one to put myself forward, sir.”

The Inspector became hearty.

“Pity there aren’t more like you in that way, Mrs. Green. But it’s everyone’s duty to help the police, you know, so I’m sure you’re going to tell me what this is all about. If you know of someone who was going to be dismissed by Mr. Craddock, I think you ought to tell me who it is.”

“And him taking it on himself to say as how he’d see to it I got my notice!” said Mrs. Green with an angry toss of the head.

“Were you alluding to Rush?”

The head was tossed again.

“If it was the last word I was h’ever to speak, I was, sir.”

Detective Abbott began to write.

“Rush was under threat of dismissal by Mr. Craddock?”

“I heard him with my own ears, sir, as I was coming across the landing. The door of the flat was open, and the door of this room we’re in was on the jar, and Mr. Craddock, he was in a proper shouting rage, and you’ll excuse me repeating his language, which wasn’t fit for a lady to hear let alone to repeat. He says as loud as a bull, ‘You’ve been mucking up my papers!’ he says. And Rush, he answers him back as bold as brass. ‘And what would I want with your papers, Mr. Ross?’ he says. And Mr. Craddock says, ‘How do I know what you want? Blackmail, I shouldn’t wonder!’ And Rush ups and says, ‘You did ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Ross, talking to me like that!’ And Mr. Craddock says, ‘Get to hell out of here!’ And Rush come out, and when he see me, if ever there was a man that looked like murder, it was him, and he went down the stairs swearing to himself all the way.”

The Inspector said, “H’m! Mr. Craddock had missed some of his papers. Is that what you made of it?”

Mrs. Green sniffed.

“I couldn’t say, sir. That’s what I heard. I can’t say more and I can’t say less. What I hears I remembers. And there’s more things than that I could tell you if I thought it my duty like you said.”

“It is undoubtedly your duty,” said the Inspector in a most encouraging voice.

Mrs. Green sniffed again.

“I’m not one to listen, nor yet to poke my nose into other people’s business, but I’ve got my work to do, and if a lady leaves her door open and talks into her telephone that’s just inside, well, it’s not my business to put cotton wool in my ears. And no later than the very evening before poor Mr. Craddock was murdered what did I hear but Miss Lucy Craddock say-”

“Wait a minute, Mrs. Green. When you say the evening before Mr. Craddock was murdered, do you mean the Tuesday evening? He was murdered some time after midnight of that night.”

“Yes, sir-the Tuesday evening. It would be about a quarter to half past six, and a shocking long day I’d had on account of cleaning up after Mr. and Mrs. Connell.”

“You were on the landing, and Miss Craddock’s door was open?”

“Half open, sir. She was all ready to start-going abroad she was-and Rush had just been up for the luggage, when the telephone bell went, and there she was, talking, and never give a thought to the door.”

“Well now, what did she say?”

“You could have knocked me down with a feather,” said Mrs. Green. “Dusting the banisters I was, and I heard her say quite plain, ‘Oh, my dear, you know Ross is turning me out.’ And then something about there being nothing in the will to stop him, and he wouldn’t turn Miss Mary out on account of her being an invalids-that’s the one that died-but as for Miss Lucy, he said she’d got to go. Getting on thirty years she’s been there, and I don’t wonder she was put about. She said as how he’d written her a horrible cruel letter, and it was all about Miss Mavis Grey that he didn’t mean no good to. Ever so worked up she sounded. And, ‘I’ve got quite a desperate feeling,’ she says. It was Miss Fenton she was talking to, and there was a lot about her wanting to come here while Miss Lucy was away. I’d my dusting to do and I didn’t trouble to listen, but I heard Miss Craddock say as how she was feeling desperate, and desperate she sounded-I’ll swear to that. And now they’re saying she never went off to the Continent at all. Looks as meek as a mouse she does, but there-it’s often the quiet ones that’s the worst when they’re roused.”

The Inspector let her go after that.

“Every blessed one of ’em might have done it as far as I can see,” he said in a disgusted tone as Detective Abbott came back after making sure that both doors were shut. “Talented lot of eavesdroppers they’ve got in this house too!”

“Yes, sir.”

The Inspector took a decision, a very minor decision, but one that was to have an unforeseen result. Getting out of his chair, he said,

“I’ll go down and have a word with Rush. Perhaps he’ll be easier to handle in his own quarters. And I’d rather like to see that wife of his. I suppose she is bedridden.”

“Haven’t you got enough suspects without her, sir?” said Detective Abbott.

Chapter XXIII

The Rushes’ basement room had a fair sized window through the top of which Mrs. Rush could see the railings which guarded the area and the legs and feet of the passers-by. She didn’t complain, but she sometimes felt that it would be pleasant to see a whole person for a change. For one thing, she never knew what sort of hats were being worn, and she took a particular interest in hats. It was no good asking Rush, because the vain adornment of their heads by young females was one of the subjects upon which it was better not to set him off.

Everything in the room was as bright and neat and clean as a new pin. Mrs. Rush wore a white flannelette nightgown, and her bed had a brightly printed coverlet. She had finished her baby socks and was starting a little vest for Ellen’s baby. On the newly distempered wall opposite her bed hung photographic enlargements of her five children, all taken at about the same age, so that a stranger might have been misled into thinking her the mother of quintuplets. There was Stanley who had been killed on the Somme; Ethel, dead thirty years ago come Michaelmas; Ernie that was in Australia and only wrote at Christmas; Daisy-well Daisy didn’t bear thinking about; and Ellen, her youngest and her darling. There they hung, the little boys in sailor suits and the little girls in starched white muslin dresses, and Mrs. Rush looked at them all day long. She had fought the one terrible battle of her married life when Rush wanted to take Daisy’s picture down, and she had fought it to a finish and won. “She hadn’t done nothing wrong when that was took. That’s how I see her, and that’s how I’m a-going to see her, and you can’t get me from it.”

Rush looked surprised and not at all pleased when he saw the Inspector. Mrs. Rush on the other hand was pleasurably excited. It was pain and grief to her to be out of things, and here after all was Inspector Lamb and a pleasanter spoken man you couldn’t hope to find. Asking how long she’d been ill, when most people had forgotten that there had ever been a time when she was up and about. Quite a little colour came into her cheeks as she talked to him. And he noticed the children’s pictures too, and said he was a family man himself. And no manner of good for Rush to stand there grumbling to himself. Right down bad manners, and he needn’t think he wouldn’t hear about it when the Inspector was gone.

“Well now, Mrs. Rush, I just want a word with your husband here, and I hope I’m not disturbing you coming in like this, but to tell you the truth I’m right down sick of that room upstairs, and I thought I’d like to make your acquaintance.”

He crossed to the foot of the bed and turned to Rush.

“There’s a matter that came up just now, and I’d like to know what you’ve got to say about it. I’ve been told that you and Mr. Craddock had words on Tuesday afternoon-something about his papers having been disturbed.”