He went up the untidy path and knocked on the door. She opened it, her sleeves still rolled up, her hair blowing in wisps. It had not occurred to him yesterday, but this morning, with her small sharp eyes fixed upon him, he was reminded of a ferret. He said,
“Good-morning, Mrs. Larkin. I wonder if I might have a word with you.”
“You were here yesterday with that Grayson.”
He smiled.
“You made a very interesting statement, you know, and you can’t expect me not to be interested.”
He could have sworn that the tip of her nose twitched. She said with conscious virtue,
“It wasn’t no more than the truth.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t. But when it comes to putting down what is the truth there aren’t so many people who can do it clearly. Now that is what struck me about your statement-it was so clear.”
She preened herself.
“I’ve always been one for telling the truth. ‘Tell the truth and shame the devil,’ was what my father used to say, and I’m sure he would have taken a stick to any of us that didn’t. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ that was his motto. And not like some that I could name, with the lies all piling up until there’s a scandal and the police called in!” She tossed her head in the direction of the Humphreys’ cottage.
Inspector Abbot said, “How well you put it!” And then, “Do you know, it would help me very much if you would run through that scene in the garden again-just where you were, and Tom Humphreys, and his daughter, and Flaxman.”
Mrs. Larkin was willing enough. It appeared that she herself had been right up to the boundary fence. There was a green hedge on the far side of it, but she had fetched the kitchen stool and was able to look over the top.
“And Tom Humphreys, he never come no further than that there gravel path going up to the door. He stands there and he curses, and then he rushes in, and comes out with his gun and lets fly at that Flaxman that was just the other side of the road. He screeches, and Nellie screeches. And Tom takes her by the shoulder and pushes her into the house, and, ‘If you never took a thrashing in your life you’ll take one now!’ he says. And bangs the door.”
“I see. You put it all very clearly. And what happened then?”
Mrs. Larkin’s face was puckered up with malicious enjoyment. She was very lined and brown, and she had the kind of small sharp eyes which see everything. The fact that they had no lashes gave them the appearance of windows without blind or curtain. She said with zest,
“There was that Flaxman cursing away on the other side of the road, so I called out and I arst him is he all right, and he uses language I wouldn’t demean myself by repeating and says I can mind my own business. So I went in and shut my door.”
“And then?”
She tossed her head.
“There wasn’t any ‘and then.’ I hope I know when I’m not wanted. I went in and I locked up careful.”
Some time during the last minute or two she had found herself leaving the garden for the house. It had happened in the most unobtrusive way, with the tall plain-clothes police officer suiting his steps to hers and listening to her for all the world as if she was the Queen of England. You couldn’t have told him from one of the high-up gentry either, except that none of them had ever paid her so much attention. When he opened the sitting-room door and stood aside for her to pass, she was a good deal gratified.
The room was for high days and holidays only. It housed a photographic enlargement of herself and Jim Larkin on their wedding day, and the red plush suite which they had bought with their savings. It was with a glow of satisfaction that she sat down now on the extreme edge of the “lady’s easy chair,” and watched Frank take his seat in the “gent’s ditto.” Quite at home he looked in it too. She had been parlourmaid to Lady Emily Crosby before she married, and butler-trained. Those small sharp eyes took in the cut of Inspector Abbott’s suit and the quality of the shoes on his long, elegant feet. She knew something about gentlemen’s clothes. The glow of satisfaction deepened.
He leaned forward with a smile and said,
“Now, Mrs. Larkin, let us take it from when you came in and locked up. What did you do after that?”
The whispy hair flew up as she tossed her head.
“I minded my own business same as that Flaxman told me!”
“Well, I don’t know that we need bother about what he said. I think you put in your statement that he went off cursing.”
“You never heard such language!”
He made a mental note that she could hear it all right, and pursued the point.
“And whilst he was doing that and you were locking up, Tom Humphreys was beating his daughter?”
“And if anyone arst for it!” said Mrs. Larkin with a virtuous sniff.
Frank said,
“Quite. And how long did he go on beating her?”
The sharp eyes stared at him.
“That’s not for me to say. I was in my own house minding of my own business.”
“Then you can’t really say whether Tom was beating her or not?”
She gave a sniff that was almost a snort.
“Not say? I’ve got ears in my head, haven’t I? Why, I could hear Tom Humphreys a-laying of it on, and her letting out a scream with every whack!”
“You would be upstairs in your bedroom?”
She closed down again.
“It’s my own business where I was.”
He laughed agreeably.
“Mrs. Larkin, you are much too intelligent a woman not to have been taking an interest in what was going on next door. Don’t tell me you were not looking out of one of the upstairs windows using your ears and your eyes to the very best of their capacity. And that would be pretty good, wouldn’t it? I shouldn’t say there was much you would miss.”
The sniff this time was a modest one.
“I’ve been known for it from a child.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. I could see at once that you have unusual powers of observation and the gift of putting what you have observed into words. A combination of the two is not at all common.”
Thus credited with uncommon gifts, it was up to Mrs. Larkin to display them. She said in a yielding voice,
“Well, and if I was in my bedroom-I suppose there’s nothing out of place about that?”
“No, of course not. Now how long did that beating go on?”
Mrs. Larkin considered.
“All of five minutes,” she said.
“Five minutes from when you came indoors, or five minutes from the time you got upstairs and opened your window?”
She gave him that hard stare.
“Who says I opened my window?”
“But of course you did. It would have been very stupid of you if you hadn’t. You wanted to hear what was going on, didn’t you?”
She slid away from that.
“I didn’t know but what murder would be done.”
“Exactly. Now just which way does this window of yours look? Do you mind letting me see?”
Oh, no, she didn’t mind. Why should she? If her garden was untidy, her house was always neat. The bedroom was tidy enough, with a clean cotton spread on the bed.
There was a casement window looking to the front. By setting it wide and leaning out Frank could see the Humphreys’ cottage and its approaches, whilst more or less straight ahead lay the road to the village and the piece of waste ground where Flaxman’s body had been found. Mrs. Larkin had certainly had a front seat for anything that might have been going on.
He returned to the charge.
“Well, Mrs. Larkin, how long did that beating go on after you got to the window?”
She gave him the same answer as before.
“About five minutes.”
“You could hear the sound of the blows?”
“Anyone could have heard them.”
“And Nellie screaming?”
“Every time the stick come down,” said Mrs. Larkin enjoyably.
“And when Tom stopped beating her?”