Frank Abbott said, “You live next door to John Higgins, don’t you? Did you tell him what you had heard?”
She turned her pale gaze on him.
“Indeed I did, and before I slept last night. I told Mr. Bridling about it whilst I was getting him his cup of cocoa and getting him comfortable for the night. ‘Emily,’ he says, ‘if anything happens to that girl, you’ll have it on your conscience for ever. Nothing but an abode of iniquity, that’s what that place is, same as it always was, and you can’t get from it. And I don’t care if you went to school with Annie Castell ten times over. I’ve been willing for you to keep up with her and oblige when short-handed, but I’ll not have you going over there again,’ he says, ‘not if there’s that kind of shameless goings-on, and Annie Castell with no more to say about it than lock your door nights. She was brought up in a God-fearing home, and she did ought to know better,’ he says.” She looked round enjoyably. “I don’t know when I’ve seen Mr. Bridling so worked up. Quite cheered him up having something he could disapprove of so thorough-kept on talking about it and hindering me. ‘There’ll be a judgment,’ he said. And when the news come this morning you couldn’t hold him. ‘The triumphing of the wicked is short,’ he says.”
Crisp stemmed the flow.
“Did you in fact tell Higgins what you had overheard?”
She gave a vigorous nod.
“Mr. Bridling wouldn’t have given me a minute’s peace if I hadn’t. I’d him to see to, and a bit of washing to do, and then I went in and told John Higgins.”
“How did he take it?”
Mrs. Bridling tossed her head.
“The way you’d expect any man to take it that was a man- clinched his hands up and turned as red as fire and then as white as a bit of curd. I don’t know how he kept himself, but he didn’t say anything, not till he’d got a hold of himself. I said, ‘You’ll have to get her away, John. It’s no place for a good-living girl.’ And he says, ‘No.’ And then he says, ‘Mrs. Bridling, you’ll take her in if I can get her to come away tomorrow? We’ll be married as soon as I can fix it up, but you’ll take her in till then?’ So I said I would, and glad to do it, for he’s a good neighbour and a good-living man if there ever was one, and she’s a lucky girl to get him for a husband. Many’s the time he’s been up half the night with Mr. Bridling when he’s had one of his turns, so as I could get a bit of rest. So I said to him, ‘If there’s anything I can do, you know I’ll do it and be glad of the chance.’ ”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bridling,” said Inspector Crisp.
CHAPTER 20
Mrs. Bridling left with regret. She didn’t know when she’d enjoyed anything more, but like all the great moments of life it was over too soon. There was a hymn they used to sing in Sunday schooclass="underline" -
“Fleeting ever, fleeting onward,
Earthly joys will never stay.”
The lines came to her mind regretfully. Over it was, but it would be something to tell Mr. Bridling when she got home.
She came through the door between Castell’s office and the lounge and sat down to wait until they should be finished with John Higgins. After due consideration she had rejected the idea of going through into the kitchen to see Annie Castell. For one thing, here she was in her best, and with Annie working it wouldn’t seem hardly friendly not to give her a hand. She wasn’t ever one to stand by and watch other people work, but risk spotting her best dress was more than could be expected. The lounge was empty. She picked a comfortable chair and sat down to wait.
John Higgins was in the office, sitting with a hand on either knee, his fair hair standing up in a shock, and his blue eyes steady on the Inspector. Frank Abbott thought, “Solid, dependable chap. Hope he didn’t do it. Not the type to stab a man in the back. Unless-” Suppose the fellow had caught hold of Eily Fogarty and John Higgins had come upon them struggling. No, that wouldn’t do. There was no doubt where the knife had come from-that trophy on the chimney-breast in the dining-room. Whoever used it had got to get it from there. It wouldn’t be lying about in the hall to be snatched up on the spur of the moment.
John Higgins said,
“Yes, I walked over last night to see Miss Fogarty.”
Crisp balanced his pencil.
“Mrs. Bridling told you that there had been a scene with Luke White?”
“Yes. I went over to tell Miss Fogarty that she must leave in the morning. It wasn’t fit for her to be there. We are going to be married, and I told her she could stay with Mrs. Bridling while I got it all fixed up.”
“Did she tell you that the key of her room was missing?”
Angry colour swept up to the roots of the fair hair.
“Yes. I told her to go along to Miss Heron’s room and ask if she could stay there.”
Crisp’s bristling dark eyebrows rose.
“Do you know Miss Heron? Is she a friend of yours?”
John Higgins said, “I was sure that she would let Eily stay with her.”
Crisp stabbed at the blotting-paper.
“You had quite a talk with Miss Fogarty, didn’t you?”
“We talked.”
“For how long?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“An hour?”
John Higgins shook his head.
“Not near so long.”
“Half an hour?”
Another slow head-shake.
“More like a quarter, but I won’t swear to it.”
“And where did this conversation take place?”
“Eily was up at her window.”
“And you?”
“Down underneath.”
“Sure she didn’t let you in?”
The blue eyes looked at him very directly.
“She wouldn’t do that, and I wouldn’t ask her to.”
“That’s no answer. Did she let you in last night?”
“No, she did not.”
“Sure about that?”
John Higgins said in a hard, steady voice,
“It’s five years since I’ve been over the threshold of this house till I came here today.”
“Why?”
He gave the same answer that he had given in John Taylor’s office.
“That’s my business.”
Crisp stabbed at him with his pencil.
“Nobody’s got any private business in a murder case. Mrs. Castell is your aunt, isn’t she? What’s your quarrel with her?”
“I’ve no quarrel with my Aunt Annie.”
“Then with Castell-what’s your quarrel with him?”
“I’ve no quarrel with him. I don’t like his company. He would tell you that he doesn’t like mine. We go our own ways.”
Crisp shifted impatiently in his chair.
“We’ve got away from the point. You know that a man was murdered here last night-the barman, Luke White?”
John Higgins nodded.
“That kind of news travels fast.”
“You had a quarrel with the man, hadn’t you?”
“I had no quarrel with him.”
“Not after you’d heard what Mrs. Bridling had to say?”
The muscles of the big hands lying on either knee tensed, the knuckles stood up white. John Higgins said in his steady, deep voice,
“He was an evil-liver. It wasn’t fit for Eily to be under the same roof. I’d have fetched her away as soon as it was day.”
Crisp repeated the last words.
“As soon as it was day. But what about last night? You came out here hotfoot after you’d seen Mrs. Bridling. Are you going to say Eily Fogarty didn’t let you in?”
“I’ve said so.”
“And you sent her along to Miss Heron’s room and didn’t see her again?”
“I didn’t see her again.”