‘What do you want?’
‘If I could have just a moment of your time, madam,’ the inspector began. ‘I should like to ask a few questions, then we can all be on our way.’
Agatha pointed at Nipper. ‘I won’t have that thing in the house,’ she said, opening the French doors. ‘Tell it to get outside.’ Nipper was banished to the outside patio.
Agatha wasn’t very pleased to see Milly either, and she made it plain by completely blanking her. Once upon a time it would have really upset Milly, but now, although it was still painful, she was in a better frame of mind. She made up her mind not to let Agatha get under her skin. Easier said than done, but she would give it a go. Her mother sat in a languid pose in the armchair, smoking a cigarette, while Pearl, who had just put a cake onto a small table, stuck her nose in the air. The cake knife clattered from the plate onto the floor, but Pearl ignored it and, deliberately standing with her back to Milly and Lena, looked out of the window.
‘Now,’ the inspector began again. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind clearing up a few things?’
Agatha sighed impatiently.
‘Can you tell me what your husband did all day, Mrs Herren,’ the inspector asked Pearl. ‘Was he in the habit of meeting with any enemy aliens?’
‘Certainly not!’ Turning abruptly, Pearl continued, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Inspector.’ And glaring at Milly she added, ‘What’s she been telling you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Inspector Young. ‘I just asked you a simple question. Your husband didn’t work, so what did he do all day?’
‘He did the sort of thing any gentleman would do,’ Agatha interrupted as she straightened the folds of her skirt. ‘He went to his club, he met important people, and he sometimes went up to London on business.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘I don’t know,’ Agatha said irritably.
The inspector turned back to Pearl. She shrugged. ‘Sometimes when we went up to London he would have an appointment at Prussia House,’ she said, adding smugly, ‘My husband knows some very important people.’
‘Prussia House?’ the inspector said softly. ‘That’s the German Embassy, isn’t it?’
‘What of it?’ Pearl snapped. ‘My husband’s business is my husband’s business,’ she protested. ‘He never took me there, if that’s what you mean. He would drop me off in Oxford Street to do some shopping, and then meet me later on.’
‘Hmm.’ The inspector looked unimpressed.
Agatha sat up. ‘Look here, Inspector. I don’t know what you’re implying, but my son-in-law was the equivalent of royalty back in his own country. A baron, no less. He had what they call a schloss in Berlin. That’s a castle, you know. Berlin Schlossplatz. It’s very well known, so I’m told. It was once the winter palace to all the old kings and kaisers.’
‘The Berlin Schlossplatz,’ Constable Cox spluttered.
‘I don’t suppose someone like you would have even heard of it,’ said Agatha cuttingly. ‘It dates back to the fifteenth century.’
The constable puffed out his chest. ‘Oh, I’ve heard of it all right, madam,’ he said. ‘My old dad talked of nothing else when I was a kid. He was in the Great War and stationed in Germany after it finished, and I can tell you now, your son-in-law, Mrs Herren’s husband, never lived there.’
Agatha’s face clouded. ‘How dare you! You jumped-up little so-and-so! What are you insinuating?’
‘I’ll thank you to tone down your language, madam,’ the inspector cut in.
‘I’m not insinuating anything, madam,’ the constable continued, ‘but your son-in-law never lived there because when Germany lost the war and the Kaiser abdicated, Berlin Schlossplatz became a museum.’
The room went very quiet.
‘And you’re sure of this, Constable?’ the inspector said.
‘As sure as I’m standing here, sir. My old dad never wanted to go to war. He was a pacifist at heart. For him, making a museum out of a palace was the best thing that ever happened to him.’ He turned to Pearl. ‘So you see, your husband never lived there, not unless he was the janitor’s son, of course.’
Agatha bristled. Pearl lowered herself into a chair.
‘Oh dear,’ said Lena, suppressing a grin.
‘And you needn’t look so smug,’ Pearl snarled. ‘There’s obviously been a mistake.’ She turned her head, muttering, ‘What would you know about anything anyway? You’re just a common gypsy.’
‘Now just a minute,’ Lena flared, but when Milly put her hand on her arm, she held back.
‘You make me sick,’ said Pearl, rounding on the pair of them. ‘Rubbing my nose in it just because you’ve got that cottage. I’m the oldest. It should have been mine.’ She tossed her head. ‘Well, you haven’t got it any more, have you.’
The inspector raised his hand. ‘That’s enough, ladies. There’s no need for a spat, but I am going to have to ask you all to come back down to the station for questioning.’
‘What, now?’ Agatha squeaked.
‘Considering the time of day,’ he began, ‘I think perhaps you and your daughter could come tomorr—’
‘It was you. You did it,’ Milly interrupted as she pushed up her glasses. She was staring at her sister. ‘You killed Nan and started the fire.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Pearl. ‘Why on earth would I want to kill Nan?’
‘You didn’t.’
With an exasperated expression on her face, Pearl threw her arms in the air and appealed to her mother. ‘Mummy . . .’
Agatha sat up straight. ‘Do we have to listen to this nonsense, Inspector?’
Milly looked at the puzzled faces around her. ‘She didn’t want to kill Nan. She didn’t know Nan would be there. That part was an accident. But she started that fire. I’d stake my life on it.’
