‘All right, so long as you think so,’ said Cassie. ‘I’ll tell you who could do with a safety-valve for her emotions and that’s Niobe. She frets for Chelion. She may look like a taller edition of Lola Sapola, but she’s a pushover where Chelion is concerned. That’s a sob-story if you like.’
‘If you ask me, it’s not Niobe’s emotions that need an outlet. I think she’s gone off her rocker,’ said Hempseed.
‘Oh, rubbish! She’s as sane as you are,’ snapped Cassie.
‘Then why has she taken to walking about at night disturbing and frightening people? She’s got this master-key, which means she can get in anywhere. I don’t like it.’
‘I wonder you don’t have bolts put on your doors,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘That surely, would be the answer if you don’t want nocturnal visitors.’
‘It would if she would allow it, but she won’t,’ said Hempseed. ‘Says it would spoil the beautiful woodwork.’
‘Perhaps she should be confronted with a fait accompli.’
‘Put bolts on the doors without asking permission?’ said Cassie. ‘The next thing would be our notice to quit.’
‘I wanted to put a chair against the door at night,’ said Hempseed, ‘but madam here said that at least Niobe moved around quietly, whereas the chair would make a row if she shoved against it trying to get in. But then Niobe’s walkabouts at night don’t wake madam up. It’s only poor old light-sleeper me who gets disturbed.’
‘How often does she pay these visits?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘I don’t know about other people, but she has opened our door twice in the past ten days.’
‘What can be her object, I wonder?’
‘Just restlessness, I guess,’ said Cassie, ‘and perhaps nosiness about people sleeping together. I would say she has a fairly nasty mind, but I’m very sorry for her.’
‘We share a bed,’ said Hempseed, ‘being married and all that. I know it’s old-fashioned nowadays, but we tied ourselves up without thinking.’
‘I thought,’ said Cassie. ‘I come of Presbyterian stock and have my prejudices. Of course nobody here knows that we’re married, so we’d be glad if you kept it dark. Evesham and Constance don’t mind being known as a married couple, but we think in the modern way.’
‘Did you receive any of the anonymous letters which appear to have been distributed to some of the residents?’
‘Yes, we had a couple – one each. Why?’
‘You have not kept them, of course?’
‘We did at first,’ said Cassie, ‘because we thought of going to the police, but when old Minnie was killed we knew that it would be unnecessary, so then we destroyed them.’
‘Were you so sure that Miss Minnie wrote them?’
‘Well, nobody has had one since she went. We always thought she wrote them, but when no more came it seemed like proof.’
‘When Miss Nutley entered your bedroom, what did she do?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Hempseed. ‘When I sat up and switched on the light she murmured that she was sorry she’d mistaken the room. Very funny that she mistook it twice!’
‘You never wondered whether she and not Miss Minnie wrote the letters?’
‘We might have done,’ said Cassie, ‘but when she had one herself she asked every one of us except Latimer Targe, who doesn’t own a typewriter, to turn out a half-page of typing for us all to compare with the typing on her letter and on any which we had received.’
‘People made no secret of the fact that they had received these communications, then?’
‘Oh, no. Nobody here is particularly reticent about private matters except the two girls who have left. I believe everybody had at least one letter, except Evesham and Constance,’ said Hempseed.
‘And if we’d let it be known that we were married, instead of letting people think we are just living together, I don’t believe we would have had one,’ said Cassie. ‘That’s what I think. Minnie was just the kind of old party who would think cohabitation outside marriage was the blackest of sins. She worked for some peculiar religious group, you know.’
‘And did people co-operate by producing their specimens of typing?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Everybody except Miss Minnie. There, according to Niobe, she met with a point-blank refusal. Latimer Targe even produced a page which his typist had done for him. Niobe had talked about bringing the police in, you see, so we all thought the sensible thing was to put ourselves in the clear.’
‘And the typings did not match with the typing of the anonymous letters?’
‘We even used a magnifying glass and they didn’t. Mind you, Chelion bought Niobe a new typewriter just about that time.’
‘But you assumed that Miss Minnie wrote the letters?’
‘She was the kind of queer old party who would,’ said Hempseed.
‘No mention was made at the inquest about a typewriter being found in the bungalow after Miss Minnie’s death,’ said Cassie, ‘but that proves nothing. She would have got rid of it as soon as there was talk about sending for the police. We made our intentions very clear, although we didn’t really mean to carry them out.’
‘Then they were hardly intentions. I have heard rumours of a ghostly visitant to some of the flats before Miss Minnie’s death. Was this another manifestation of Miss Nutley’s nocturnal wanderings?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Hempseed. ‘Niobe’s in-and-out-the-windows all happened after Chelion’s arrest, and were caused by that.’
‘So you didn’t have any night visitor while Miss Minnie was alive?’
‘No, we didn’t,’ replied Hempseed. ‘The ghost, so-called, seems to have intruded on Billie and Elysée and on Niobe herself. Otherwise it (or she) merely prowled up and down the stairs. I believe one or two people swore it had come into their rooms, but people will imagine anything when there’s a scare on.’
‘Was there really a scare?’
The couple exchanged glances and then Cassie said, ‘I think two people found the anonymous letters a lot more frightening than the ghost, although I suppose everybody has some skeleton or other in the cupboard.’
‘But nobody except the two young women was sufficiently disturbed by the letters to give up living here.’
‘Well, it’s not all that easy to find a decent place you can rent, and, as I say, people talked about getting the letters and that took the sting out of them, of course. And, by the way, I was not referring to the girls. Billie was livid, not scared.’
‘Do you know where the girls went?’
‘No. Niobe wanted to find out and to make a fuss about their going, but I suppose the lawyers told her to drop it.’
‘And they left before Miss Minnie was drowned?’
‘It doesn’t mean they couldn’t have sneaked back and drowned her,’ said Hempseed. ‘Billie Kennett struck me as a girl who was capable of anything if her precious Elysée was threatened.’
‘That’s an opinion,’ said Cassie, ‘that only a man would hold and it’s most unfair.’
(4)
‘You heard all that, I expect, George,’ said his employer, when the couple had gone.
‘Literary ladies and gentlemen seldom lower their voices, madam. I could not help overhearing what was said.’
‘Quite. Have you encountered any of the outdoor staff at this place, George?’
‘Yes, madam. There is a taciturn but knowledgeable individual who cleans the cars belonging to the establishment and in summer keeps the lawns in order. Other gardeners are employed on a part-time basis, but this man Penworthy is permanent.’
‘I wonder whether you could engage him in conversation on the subject of sea-bathing?’
‘Readily, madam.’
‘So far, you see, it appears that nobody except Mr Piper has used the beach here for swimming, and he only in the summer months.’