Judy climbed over the sill and towards her bed. It had been lovely in the outhouse with Nicholas, but, since she had to get back sometime, she was glad to have achieved the journey. She had heard a faint scrape as Nicholas, having waited to be sure she was safely in, removed the ladder. He seemed to have feet like a cat, for even with the weight of the ladder in his arms, strain her ears though she would, she heard no sound of his footsteps. She stood by her bed and slipped off her slacks and shirt, and was just stretching out for her nightdress when she froze. There was someone else in the room.
Judy remained for a few seconds exactly as she was, one arm stretched out for her nightdress. In the first second her heart seemed to somersault, then she forced down panic and made herself think. Who was in the room? Almost certainly Clara. What was she in the room for? Judy’s first reaction to that question was fear, then common sense pushed terror aside. Clara was here to spy. Standing perfectly still in the darkness Judy strained to hear where she was standing. The slight sound which had made her conscious she was not alone had come from the door end of the room.
Judy had not put up with the one naked electric light hanging from the middle of her ceding, she had sent home for a bed-side lamp and a length of flex. What she would like to have done at that minute was to flick on the lamp and face Clara, but the lamp was the far side of the bed, and to walk round that large double bed with Clara standing motionless by the door was more than she could face, but by the bed-side lamp there lay something that she wanted now more than she wanted light. Nicholas’ whistle. If only she had that in her hand she felt she could tackle Clara no matter for what reason she was in her room.
The decision as to what to do was taken out of Judy’s hands. The long pause was evidently a strain on Clara. She moved, and in moving touched the little washstand by the door, which caused the jug to rattle in the ewer. On a windless night in a house which had neither cat nor dog jugs could not rattle in ewers without causing comment. Judy sprang on to the bed and, as she leant across to her light switch, called out, “Who’s there?”
Clara stood composedly between the washstand and the door. She had on a tailored-looking green dressing-gown, against which her skin looked exceptionally white and her eyes and hair unusually dark. Judy decided that polite amazement was the only tone to take.
“Good heavens, Clara! How you startled me! Is anything the matter?”
Clara looked at Judy, who had covered herself with the sheet.
“I think it’s you who should answer that. It isn’t I who have come in through the window, undressed, in the middle of the night.”
Judy had found the whistle and felt as brave as a lion.
“Undressed nothing, I was wearing a shirt and slacks. Have a look, there they are.”
Clara did not bother to look at Judy’s slacks on the chair. She went straight on as if Judy had not spoken.
“You realize that you will have to leave in the morning.”
“I understand nothing of the sort. It may be rather unusual to pop in and out of windows in the dead of night, and I don’t mind confiding in you, since we’re all girls together, that I went to meet Nicholas, but I can assure you we behaved beautifully.”
Clara obviously did not care in the least what Judy had been up to. To get rid of her was the only thing in which she was interested.
“I tell you you’ll leave to-morrow. I shall go and see Mrs. Edwards myself first thing.”
Judy stretched out her hand for her nightdress and put it over her head.
“You’ve forgotten something, haven’t you, Clara? It’s not for you to say whether I go or not. It rests with Miss Rose.”
The mention of Miss Rose stirred something in Clara. She flushed and came to the foot of the bed. Her words fell over each other.
“You think that you can influence Aunt Rose, don’t you? Everybody thinks that they’re going to interfere with Aunt Rose. There’s Doctor Mead saying she’s to have a holiday, there’re all kinds of people peeping and prying. ‘What are you going to do now, Miss Former?’ ‘Shall you live on in this house, Miss Former?’ Now I’ll tell you something. Aunt Rose is going to live on in this house, and Aunt Rose is not going to have a holiday. I’ve made my plans for Aunt Rose and she’s going to be perfectly happy with me. You know how she hates a row. Well, if you force it there’s going to be a row tomorrow morning. If you make Aunt Rose decide whether you go or stay you’ll be sorry. You just go quietly and leave Aunt Rose to me.”
With the whistle gripped firmly in her hand Judy felt a match for ten angry Clara’s.
“My dear woman, don’t take that bullying tone with me. I’ve done nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of, and if it interests you I’m perfectly prepared to go to Mrs. Edwards tomorrow and tell her all about it. In the meantime, listen to this. Unless Miss Rose asks me to leave this billet, here I stop, and all your prying and snooping and arguing won’t make any difference. Now for goodness’ sake go to bed. I want some sleep if you don’t.”
For one moment it looked as if Clara were going to do something violent. She pulled herself taut and stood poised, then she relaxed. She walked to the door. Before she opened it, she turned.
“You say you like Aunt Rose. If that’s true you’re doing her anything but a kindness in this attitude you’re taking. If you want to help her, you find a new billet to-morrow.”
Judy waited till she heard Clara’s door shut. Then she got off the bed. She went to the window and rearranged the black-out. She looked at the lock on her door, then opened the door softly. She made a face. There was no key. She wandered round the room considering the furniture. There was the large mahogany wardrobe, it would take two strong men to move that, as it would the double bed. She went to the corner and leant against the mahogany chest of drawers. Of course she could not move that to-night, but perhaps she could in the morning. If it were at the other end of the room she could at a pinch shove it against the door. One moment’s pushing showed her the futility of this idea. The chest of drawers weighed as much as the other furniture, there was no hope that she could move it.
Judy got back into bed and considered the situation. Even supposing that Clara had murdered old Mr. Former and Mrs. Former and Mr. Jones, there could be absolutely no reason for her murdering Miss Rose. Miss Rose owned this house and paid the bills, and if she were going to die, all that Clara would get would be a lump sum down and Desmond an income when he was eighteen. It could not make sense. Whatever else Clara meant to do, it could not be that. Yet she did want her out of the house, she always had. Why? It was most unlucky that she had been discovered getting in at the window, that did give Clara a case of a sort. But the decision as to whether she was to be turned out rested with Miss Rose, and Miss Rose was incapable of thinking evil of anybody. She might think it a little dashing prowling up and down ladders to meet Nicholas, but she certainly would not think there was any harm in it. Yet there was no doubt at all that Clara would fight to get her out of the house, she had said it would not be kind to Miss Rose to let that fight take place. What, in the name of wonder, did it all mean? She would see Nicholas in the morning and tell him what had happened. But could she? What was he going to say when he heard that Clara had been in her room and she had no means of locking her out, or even of putting a piece of furniture against the door? He would go to everybody and make a row. Up till now, though he had hated her being in the house, the thought of personal danger to her had never crossed his mind, yet if she stayed on against Clara’s wishes there did seem a faint danger. People said if you poisoned one person you made a habit of it. Suppose Nicholas was right and Clara had got hold of something which didn’t show at the post-mortem. Judy found she was clutching the sheets and her hands and forehead were sticky. She gave herself a mental shake. “Oh, for goodness’ sake pull yourself together and don’t be morbid. It’s only for a day or two anyhow. Miss Rose is going to be got away for a holiday whatever Clara thinks, and then you can leave. In the meantime, when Nick says, as he will, ‘Why didn’t you lock your door?’ for peace and a quiet life say, ‘Because I was an ass and I will next time’.” She lay down and turned out the light. In the hand tucked under her chin she clasped the whistle. “Now breathe deeply and think of something nice,” she ordered herself. As she took her own advice she felt the strain and fear of the last half-hour slipping out of the room and in its stead Nicholas’ arm round her, and his lips against hers, and heard his voice whisper, “Would a kiss come amiss?”
Clara was a most unpredictable person. It was difficult for Judy to know exactly what she had expected the next morning, but whatever it was she certainly did not expect nothing to happen at all. Clara called her as though they had not met a few hours before. Breakfast passed off with no reference to Judy’s leaving, and though Clara walked with her as far as the door, she said nothing more about visiting Mrs. Edwards. All the same, Judy thought as she hurried down the private road and out of the gate, she’s up to something, but what?
Judy got her answer at three o’clock that afternoon. Mrs. Edwards stood beside her.
“Will you come along to my office for a moment, dear?”
Mrs. Edwards’ office was at the end of one of the galleries which ran round the works. It was quite a distance away and, as Judy followed her through the factory and up the stairs, she considered her plan of action. By the time she was facing Mrs. Edwards across a desk she felt serene. She leant forward, resting on her elbows and gazing straight into Mrs. Edwards’ face.
“Clara Roal has been to see you to ask you to move me somewhere else because of my goings-on at night.”
Mrs. Edwards looked worried.
“Is it true?”
“It’s true that I climbed in at my window last night. It’s true that I was meeting a man, Nick Parsons to be exact, but it’s not true that there were any goings-on.”
“None at all?”
Judy flushed.
“I’m not going to lie to you, he kissed me, just once.”
Mrs. Edwards glanced down at some notes in front of her.
“You left the house just before midnight and you didn’t come back until nearly two.” She laid down her notes. “Come on, what is all this about, what are you up to?”
Judy countered that by another question.
“Have you heard anything about that house I’m in?” Mrs. Edwards smiled.
“My dear girl, if one was deaf and blind I don’t think one could live in this place in the last couple of weeks and not have heard of your house.”
Judy fiddled with a pencil on the desk.
“I know you’re a welfare supervisor and you’ve got your job to do, but do you think, just for once, you could let something slide? I mean, could you possibly tell Clara Roal that you’d seen me and that I’d admitted my crime and you were getting me a new billet, and then do nothing about it for a little? I wouldn’t ask this for nothing, honestly, and this I swear, I was doing nothing wrong last night.”
Mrs. Edwards was silent for a moment or two.
“Last time you saw me about this billet, you told me it wasn’t Mrs. Roal’s house and she’d no right to query whether you stayed or didn’t, it was up to Mrs. Former to decide. Now I understand that the decision rests with Miss Former. It is she who wishes you to go.”
Judy gaped.
“Clara told you that? It’s the most awful lie. Poor old sweet! Miss Rose would never believe harm of anybody. If Miss Rose caught me out behaving worse than anyone else has behaved before or since, she’d be certain that her eyes had deceived her.”
“All the same, unless I’ve proof to the contrary the message has come from Miss Former. How does that affect the situation?”
Judy hesitated.
“I’m in a bit of a hole. I don’t really want to have to tell you any more, but I swear to you that I’m doing what I think right, and that I shan’t want to stop on in that house very long because we’re going to get Miss Rose away for a holiday, and the day she leaves, the old house won’t see me for dust anyhow, so if you could possibly look as though you were doing something, and were really doing nothing, it would be a marvellous help.”
Mrs. Edwards took a sheet of notepaper and picked up her fountain-pen. “If I’m sending a note up to the house should I send it to Miss Former or to Mrs. Roal?”
“If it’s to say you’re finding me a new billet as soon as possible you might send it to Clara, it’ll make for peace and a quiet life. I’m certain she was lying when she said Miss Rose wants me to go. Miss Rose and I are buddies, but it won’t help the situation just now to find Clara out in a lie.”
Mrs. Edwards wrote, read through what she had written, blotted it and passed it to Judy.
“How’s that?”
The note said: “Dear Mrs. Roal, I am sending you this note by Judy Rest herself; she does not deny your statement. I’ve told her that Miss Former wished her to move, and that I expect to give her the address of her new billet in the course of a day or two. Yours sincerely, Lola Edwards.”
Judy passed the letter back.
“Quite perfect. You might have been dealing with people like Clara all your life.”
Mrs. Edwards put the letter into an envelope and addressed it and held it out to Judy.
“I’m trusting you, but not, you understand, indefinitely. I think it’s a good idea you should leave that house. You say you’re getting Miss Former away. What arrangements have you made?”
“Nicholas Parsons is getting his mother to invite her to stay.”
“When?”
Judy took the envelope and got up.
“I’ll get the whole thing put in order this evening.” Mrs. Edwards shook her head at her.
“You’re a very masterful young woman, but I’m not at all sure I’m doing the right thing. I’m not in the least worried about your behaviour, but I am a little about your being in that house. You swear to leave the moment Miss Former gets away?”
Judy laughed.
“I shall move into The Bull and then you really will have to worry about my morals.”
Mrs. Edwards was not in a laughing mood.
“You’ll take steps about getting Miss Former away tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. I’ll give you a week. At the end of a week, whether Miss Former’s gone on a holiday or not, I shall put you into a new billet.”
Nicholas walked home from work with Judy and heard everything that had happened.
“One week,” he said. “Well, there’s nothing for it but Mother will have to come here in the flesh and take Miss Former back with her. I shan’t sleep in the outhouse to-night, I’m going to rove, and most of my roving will be under your window. You’ve got your whistle?”
Judy produced the whistle which was hanging round her neck.
“After last night I won’t be parted from it night or day.”
“And after last night you’ll sleep with your door locked. Is it a reasonably good lock?”
Judy had been prepared for the question, but she hated lying to him.
“Perfectly all right.”
“I’m going to see Doctor Mead again to-night in case Mr. Joseph Bloomfield has come back to him. Would you like to come to London with me on Saturday afternoon? Have you anywhere you could stay?”
“I’ve got a cousin who lives in an hotel in Kensington. I could wire her to get me a room. What are we going up for?”
“I’ve been on to a friend who’s a big bug in London’s Civil Defence Service, and asked him to see what he can do to dig out the incident officer and anybody else who dealt with the incident on the Roals’ chemist shop. He says he’ll do what he can and he’ll have them on call on Sunday morning.”
They were nearly as far as the Old House private road. Judy loitered.
“I should adore it, but I don’t awfully like leaving Miss Rose alone for the night.”
“I don’t honestly think you need worry about her, except from a loneliness point of view. I’ve been backwards and forwards and sideways over the situation and I simply cannot see what Clara would have to gain by getting rid of her.”
“She’d nothing to gain, if it came to that, in getting rid of Mrs. Former or of Mr. Jones.”
Nicholas opened the gate for Judy.
“Do you suppose anyone would murder somebody to save themselves trouble? I mean, there was point in Mr. Former dying, with Mrs. Former dying and Mr. Jones there’s trouble saved, and as far as board and lodging are concerned she’s not a penny the worse.”
“As long as Miss Rose keeps on Old House, you mean?”
“That’s it.” He patted Judy’s shoulder. “Pop along to supper, sweet. Don’t worry if you don’t hear me, the moment it’s dusk the little sleuth will be under the window.”
Judy was still thinking of what he had said about Miss Rose.
“What are you going to do about your mother?”
“Phone her to-night. I’ll get a room for her at The Bull.”
Judy walked thoughtfully through the gate.
“If you were by any chance right, the less anyone knew about Miss Rose going away the better, don’t you think?”
“Infinitely better. I shouldn’t wonder if we nipped her off at a second’s notice without her luggage.”
Judy was feeling low-spirited, but she did not want Nicholas to know it. She waved good-bye and gave him a particularly radiant smile.
“You really are marvellous. I don’t know what we poor girls would do if there weren’t you men with your wonderful brains to look after us.”