There was a minor contretemps when Fran and Tom expressed their wish to talk with Miss Rose, for Florence Ripley had already instructed Martha to bring in the tea things and suggested they should all have their tea first. When Tom said rather firmly that it would only take a minute, as there was really very little to ask Miss Rose about, Fran noticed the way the girl’s face immediately reddened in annoyance.
Miss Rose, however, was already getting to her feet. ‘It’s always better to get business out of the way before one starts on the refreshments,’ she said, attempting to smile at Florence, but Florence moved to adjust the stack of dainty plates that Martha had placed alongside the cake stand and made no reply.
‘We wanted to ask you first about a Mr Pascoe,’ Tom said, once he and Fran were safely back in Mr Ripley’s study with Miss Rose. ‘I believe he had a falling out with Mr Ripley.’
‘That was quite some time ago,’ Miss Rose said. ‘Mr Pascoe was a long-standing customer of the bank, but his business was in trouble and he kept on wanting to extend his credit. In the end Mr Ripley had to say “no”. Mr Pascoe lost his business, and I believe he and his wife now live in somewhat reduced circumstances. It is very regrettable when such things happen, but the bank is not a charity and Mr Ripley does not have the authority to bail out lame ducks indefinitely.’
‘Is it true that Mr Pascoe made threats against Mr Ripley?’
Miss Rose considered this for a moment. ‘It is true,’ she said, with a half-smile. ‘But they were not the sort of threats that anyone would take seriously.’
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Fran.
‘Mr Pascoe is a middle-aged windbag with an almighty chip on his shoulder. The sort of man who often says things like “I’ll swing for you, Ripley” or “I’ll see you in hell first”.’
‘Did you ever hear him say anything like that?’
‘Oh, yes, several times. And not just at the bank, either. He made similar remarks to Miss Simmonds at the post office when she refused to take his parcel because he hadn’t put the correct amount of postage on it, and I remember hearing about another big altercation at the hardware store over something or other he’d bought there which he claimed had not been up to scratch.’
‘But you did hear him threaten Mr Ripley?’
‘Indeed, yes. In fact, on one occasion he also said he would swing for me. I expect there’s hardly anyone in Durley Dean upon whom his wrath has not been vented at one time or another.’
‘Why did he threaten you?’
‘I refused to give him access to Mr Ripley’s office. I am the gatekeeper, you see – or if you prefer, the dragon at the door. If Mr Ripley did not wish to see someone, it would be me they would have to deal with.’
‘And Mr Ripley did not wish to see Mr Pascoe?’
‘Not once he had given him the bank’s final refusal, no.’
‘Why not?’
‘There would have been no point. Mr Ripley had already discussed matters fully with Mr Pascoe and made his decision. Unfortunately, Mr Pascoe is one of those men who won’t take “no” for an answer. He presumably imagined that if he could have some more time with Mr Ripley then he might persuade him to change his mind, but Mr Ripley had no intention of changing his mind and so he asked me to tell Mr Pascoe he was unavailable.’
‘One imagines this would not have pleased Mr Pascoe.’
‘On one such occasion, Mr Pascoe became extremely offensive. He banged his hand on my desk and called me a liar, saying he knew perfectly well that Mr Ripley was in his office.’
‘Goodness me,’ said Fran. ‘What did you do?’
‘I told him very calmly and quietly that if he continued to behave in that manner, I would have no alternative but to send for Police Constable Godfrey and have him removed.’
‘Was he right?’ Tom asked. ‘About Mr Ripley being in his office, I mean?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘So in the course of your employment, you sometimes had to tell fibs for Mr Ripley?’
‘Certainly not!’ Miss Rose looked both shocked and annoyed. ‘I never suggested to him that Mr Ripley was not in his office. I told him Mr Ripley was not available to see him, which is an entirely different thing. I agree that I sometimes had to adopt a tactful form of words, which may have conveyed a particular impression, but I always avoided telling an outright lie.’
When she saw that Fran was looking bemused, Miss Rose continued. ‘For example, suppose Mr Pascoe asked me, “When will Mr Ripley be available to see me?” Although I knew the answer was probably “Never”, I might use the words “I really cannot say”, which would not be untruthful, you see.’
‘Of course,’ Tom said. ‘It’s no more than any good secretary would do. Now Mr Pascoe also mentioned some letters to us. Do you know anything about any letters between Mr Pascoe and the bank?’
‘There would have been the usual letters warning him about his overdraft, that kind of thing.’
‘He said that he’d been proved right,’ Fran said. ‘About what he had said in the letters.’
‘I really can’t think what he could have been talking about.’ Miss Rose hesitated. ‘Unless … Oh, the dreadful man! I wonder if it was Mr Pascoe who wrote those vile letters to the chief constable accusing Mr Ripley? What exactly did he say?’
‘I think he said he wasn’t sure when he wrote the letters, but now he had been proved right,’ said Fran. ‘He seemed to think you would attempt to somehow put the blame for Mrs Ripley’s death on him. If it was Mr Pascoe who wrote the letters to the chief constable, suggesting that Mrs Ripley had been poisoned, what would have made him think that, do you suppose?’
‘I don’t for a moment imagine that he really did think Mrs Ripley had been poisoned,’ Miss Rose said angrily. ‘He would have written the letters out of pure spite, just hoping to stir up trouble.’
‘Well, he has certainly managed to do that,’ Fran said, before she could stop herself.
‘One final thing Mrs Black and I are a bit confused about is what exactly happened at the bank on the afternoon of Mrs Ripley’s death,’ Tom said.
‘I’m afraid I don’t see what you mean.’
‘When we first spoke to you, Miss Rose, you told us that Mademoiselle Bertillon telephoned and told you Mrs Ripley had died. You mentioned only one telephone call, which took place when Mrs Ripley was already dead. Why did you lie to us about that?’
Miss Rose’s cheeks took on a shade associated with some of the blooms after which she was named. ‘I did not lie,’ she said.
‘But more than one witness has told us that mademoiselle telephoned the bank as soon as it became obvious that Mrs Ripley was seriously ill. When we taxed mademoiselle with this just now, she admitted that it was you she spoke with during both calls. So can you please explain, Miss Rose, why you tried to give us the impression that Mr Ripley would have hurried home the moment he heard his wife was unwell, when the truth is that he had already been told about her illness but had not in fact set off for home when the news arrived that Mrs Ripley had died?’
‘I did not lie to you,’ Miss Rose said. ‘But nor did I tell you the whole truth. I didn’t think it mattered, but now I see that I should have been more open. I would like you to understand that I am entirely the person at fault here, and that Mademoiselle Bertillon only assisted me because she thought it for the best.
‘It is true that I took two telephone calls from Mr Ripley’s home that day. When Mr Ripley was busy with something and had instructed our junior clerks that he was not to be disturbed, anyone who telephoned the bank and asked for him would be put through to myself in the first instance. That day he was involved in the preparation of some quite complicated figures which were needed for the annual audit. We were already behind, as Mr Sanderson, one of our clerks, had been off work with a septic foot. Poor Horace, he always worried a great deal over such things, and when Mademoiselle Bertillon telephoned and said he should come home immediately because Mrs Ripley was ill … Well, I’m afraid I felt very cross with Mrs Ripley. She was always so self-centred, you see. She never thought of her husband’s work, or how worried he would be if he had to leave everything up in the air and come back to it the next day, when time would be even shorter and the auditors all but breathing down our necks. She was always crying wolf and making a fuss, and I’m afraid I decided not to pass on the message immediately. I thought that given another hour or so without interruptions, Mr Ripley would be able to finish what he was doing and then go home and make the usual fuss of his wife.
‘Then of course mademoiselle rang again, this time to say Mrs Ripley had died. I felt sick with remorse, and I was afraid of what Mr Ripley might think of me if he ever found out that I had denied him the chance to say goodbye to his wife while she was still alive. The next day I managed to speak with Mademoiselle Bertillon and told her that I had not passed on the first message. We talked about it and she agreed with me that there was nothing to be gained by telling anyone what had happened. It was most unlikely that Mr Ripley would have reached home in time, and both mademoiselle and I thought it could only create even more upset and that with everything happening so quickly the day before – people coming and going and so forth – no one in the family would ever need to know what I had done. Or rather, not done. Of course, we did not realize then that every little detail would be looked into. We never actually lied about it – we merely omitted to mention one of the two calls.’
‘Do the police know there were two telephone calls?’
‘Unlike you, the police do not appear to have asked the right questions in order to elicit this information.’
‘And you have not volunteered it to them?’ Tom asked, rather sternly.
‘Do you think it would do Horace any good if I did?’ Miss Rose exclaimed angrily. ‘As it is, the police twist everything that is said about him. How would it look if they found out that he knew about his wife’s illness but did not go home to be with her?’
‘But you said that he didn’t know …’
‘As if the police are going to believe I kept it from him! Secretaries are not supposed to make decisions about what they tell and don’t tell their boss. I imagine the whole idea would be ridiculed in court. It would be just one more thing to hold against him.’
‘I’m sure—’ Fran began, but Miss Rose cut across her.
‘They’re going to hang him, aren’t they? People are already saying he’s another Armstrong.’ She burst into noisy sobs and rushed from the room.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Fran, as she and Tom rose as one from their seats and followed Miss Rose out into the hall.
‘Look here,’ Tom said quickly. ‘You try to hold the fort while I slip into the kitchen for a minute. There’s something I need to check.’
At that moment, Florence and her governess appeared in the doorway of the drawing room.
‘Whatever is going on?’ Florence demanded. ‘Why is Miss Rose so upset?’
‘I’m afraid it may have been something that Mr Dod and I asked her, coupled with the awful predicament in which your father now finds himself.’ Fran knew she sounded feeble.
‘When Mademoiselle Bertillon and I invited you here it was not so that you would go about upsetting everyone,’ Florence declared. ‘You were supposed to be on our side – ours and Daddy’s. Mademoiselle has just been telling me how the two of you started moving furniture about and you lay on the chaise longue, pretending to be Mummy on her deathbed, while mademoiselle had to pretend to be fetching her medicine from the cupboard, which is absolutely horrible. And what does Mr Dod think he’s doing, going into the kitchen without even asking?’
Before Fran could manage to protest, Florence had marched off down the hall and through the baize door, and Mademoiselle Bertillon had hurried away in the opposite direction in order to comfort Miss Rose. After hesitating for only a second or two, Fran followed Florence Ripley into the kitchen, where Annie and Martha were watching events open-mouthed from their positions on either side of the scrubbed wooden table.
‘What are you doing snooping around in the pantry?’ Florence’s voice was shrill and angry.
Tom emerged from one of the open doorways that led from the kitchen. ‘Pardon me, Miss Ripley, but there was something I wanted to look at in the pantry.’
‘In the pantry! No, Mr Dod, please don’t say any more. I don’t believe you have the slightest idea about what happened to my stepmother, do you? You are just playing at being detectives, going about upsetting everyone and snooping around my home.’
‘But Miss Ripley,’ Tom protested. ‘You asked us to help you. And if you will only allow me to explain …’
‘No!’ For a moment, Fran half thought that Florence was about to stamp her foot like a petulant child. But instead she folded and then unfolded her arms as she said, ‘It was a mistake to invite you to help. You haven’t uncovered a single thing that’s going to help Daddy. In fact, I think you are just playing some kind of game and that this whole thing will end up with you … oh, I don’t know … selling stories about us to the papers or something.’
‘Oh, Florence, we would never do something like that,’ Fran protested, but the girl scarcely appeared to have heard her.
‘I want you to go now,’ Florence said. ‘Please leave me and my family alone. If we need to help Daddy, then we may engage a firm of proper private detectives.’
‘I think,’ Tom said, as they climbed into his motor car a few minutes later, ‘that we have just found out what it is like to be sacked.’