"It must have been half past five when Mr Roger said he'd have to go. I was up to my neck what with the dishes and worrying if Beast would turn up like he'd promised. 'I'll let myself out, Alice', Mr. Roger said, and he come down to the kitchen to say goodbye to me. Madam was having a little snooze in the drawing room, God rest her. It was the last she had before her long sleep." Aghast, Archery watched two tears well into her eyes and flow unchecked down the ridged sunken cheeks. "I called out, 'Cheeri-by, Mr. Roger dear, see you next Sunday', and then I heard him shut the front door. Madam was sleeping like a child, not knowing that ravening wolf was lying in wait for her."
"Try not to upset yourself, Miss Flower." Doubtful as to what he should do—the right thing is the kind thing, he thought—he pulled out his own clean white handkerchief and gently wiped the wet cheeks.
"Thank you, sir. I'll be all right now. You do feel a proper fool not being able to dry your own tears." The ghastly cracked smile was almost more painful to witness than the weeping. "Where was I? Oh, yes. Off I went to church and as soon as I was out of the way along comes Madam Crilling, poking her nose in..."
"I know what happened next, Miss Flower," Archery said very kindly and quietly. "Tell me about Mrs. Crilling. Does she ever come to see you in here?"
Alice Flower gave a kind of snort that would have been comical in a fit person. "Not she. She's kept out of my way ever since the trial, sir. I know too much about her for her liking. Madam's best friend, my foot! She'd got one interest in madam and one only. She wormed that child of hers into madam's good books on account of she thought madam might leave her something when she went."
Archery moved closer, praying that the bell for the end of visiting would not ring yet. "But Mrs Primero didn't make a will."
"Oh, no, sir, that's what worried Mrs. Clever Crilling. She'd come out into my kitchen when madam was sleeping. 'Alice,' she'd say, 'we ought to get dear Mrs. Primero to make her last will and testament. It's our duty, Alice, it says so in the Prayer Book.' "
"Does it?"
Alice looked both shocked and smug. "Yes, it does, sir. It says, 'But men should often be put in remembrance to take order for the settling of their temporal estates whilst they are in health.' Still I don't hold with everything that's in the Prayer Book not when it comes to downright interference—saving your presence, sir. 'It's in your interest too, Alice,' she says. 'You'll be turned out into the streets when she goes.'
"But madam wouldn't have it, anyway. Everything was to go to her natural heirs, she said, them being Mr. Roger and the little girls. It'd be theirs automatically, you see, without any nonsense about wills and lawyers."
"Mr. Roger didn't try to get her to make a will?"
"He's a lovely person is Mr. Roger. When Beast Painter had done his murdering work and poor madam was dead Mr. Roger got his bit of money—three thousand it was and a bit more. 'I'll take care of you, Alice,' he said, and so he did. He got me a nice room in Kingsmarkham and gave me two pounds a week on top of my pension. He was in business on his own then and he said he wouldn't give me a lump sum. An allowance, he called it, bless his heart, out of his profits."
"Business? I thought he was a solicitor."
"He always wanted to go into business on his own, sir. I don't know the ins and outs of it, but he came to madam one day—must have been two or three weeks before she died—and he said a pal of his would take him in with him if he could put up ten thousand pounds. 'I know I haven't got a hope,' he said, speaking ever so nice. 'It's just a castle in the air, Granny Rose.'
" 'Well, it's no good looking at me,' says madam. 'Ten thousand is all I've got for me and Alice to live on and that's tucked away in Woolworth's shares. You'll get your share when I'm gone.' I don't mind telling you, sir, I thought then, if Mr. Roger liked to do his little sisters down he could try getting round madam to make that will and leave him the lot. But he never did, never mentioned it again, and he'd always made a point of bringing the two mites just whenever he could. Then Beast Painter killed madam and the money went like she said it would, to the three of them.
"Mr. Roger's doing very well now, sir, very well indeed, and he comes to see me regular. I reckon he got the ten thousand from somewhere or maybe another pal came up with something else. It wasn't for me to ask, you see."
A nice man, Archery thought, a man who had needed money perhays desperately, but would do nothing underhand to get it; a man who provided for his dead grandmother's domestic while he was struggling to get a business going, who still visited her and who doubtless listened patiently over and over again to the tale Archery had just heard. A very nice man. If love, praise and devotion could reward such a man, he had his reward.
"If you should see Mr. Roger, sir, if you want to see him about the story you're writing, would you give him my best respects?"
"I won't forget, Miss Flower." He put his hand over her dead one and pressed it. "Good-bye and thank you." Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
It was gone eight when he got back to the Olive and Dove. The head waiter glared at him when he walked into the dining room at a quarter past. Archery stared about him at the empty room, the chairs arranged against the walls.
"Dance on tonight, sir. We did make a point of asking residents to take their dinner at seven sharp, but I expect we can find you something. In here, if you please."
Archery followed him into the smaller of the two lounges that led off the dining room. The tables had been crammed in and people were hastily gobbling their meal. He ordered, and through the glass doors, watched the band take its place on the dais.
How was he to spend this long hot summer evening? The dancing would probably go on until half-past twelve or one and the hotel would be unbearable. A quiet stroll was the obvious thing. Or he could take the car and go and look at Victor's Piece. The waiter came back with the braised beef he had ordered, and Archery, resolutely economical, asked for a glass of water.
He was quite alone in his alcove, at least two yards from the next table, and he jumped when he felt something soft and fluffy brush against his leg. Drawing back, he put his hand down, lifted the cloth and met a pair of bright eyes set in a golden woolly skull.
"Hallo, dog," he said.
"Oh I'm so sorry. Is he being a nuisance?"
He looked up and saw her standing beside him. They had evidently just come in, she, the man with the glassy eyes and another couple.
"Not a bit." Archery's poise deserted him and he found himself almost stammering. "I don't mind, really. I'm fond of animals."
"You were here at lunch, weren't you? I expect he recognised you. Come out, Dog. He doesn't have a name. We just call him Dog because he is one and it's just as good a name as Jock or Gyp or something. When you said, 'Hallo, dog,' he thought you were a personal friend. He's very intelligent."
"I'm sure he is."
She gathered the poodle up in her arms and held him against the creamy lace of her dress. Now that she wore no hat he could see the perfect shape of her head and the high unshadowed brow. The head waiter minced over, no longer harassed.
"Back again, Louis, like the proverbial bad pennies," said the glassy-eyed man heartily. "My wife took a fancy to come to your hop, but we must have a spot of dinner first." So they were married, these two. Why hadn't it occurred to him before, what business was it of his and, above all, why should it cause him this faint distress? "Our friends here have a train to catch, so if you can go all out with the old speed we'll be eternally grateful."