Miss Silver Deals With Death by Patricia Wentworth

them two girls both wanting ’im and ready to scratch each other’s eyes out! ‘We’re engaged,’ says Miss Underwood, and, ‘I’m Mrs. Armitage,’ says Miss Roland, and she gives her a letter to read.”
    “Oh dear me, you shouldn’t say things like that—you really shouldn’t.”
    Mrs. Smollett tossed her head.
    “It wasn’t I that said them! It was them two. ‘I’m Mrs. Armitage,’ Miss Roland says, and Miss Underwood says, ‘He don’t love you.’ And when I heard her coming out I got down to my scrubbing so as not to upset her by letting her know I could hear what was going on. And she turns right round in the doorway and calls out to Miss Roland something about hating her, and then off down the stairs all in a flash. Funny ain’t it— I mean that Miss Roland calling herself Mrs. Armitage. I mean that would be bigamy, wouldn’t it? Or do you suppose it’d make a difference him having lost his memory? What do you think, Mr. Bell?”
    Bell pushed back his chair and got up.
    “I think I got my work same as you got yours.”
    There was distress in his wrinkled, ruddy face. A talker, that’s what Mrs. Smollett was. And he’d no objection to talk provided there wasn’t any tittle-tattle or nastiness about it, which he didn’t hold with and never would—taking away people’s characters and such.
    “I got a nice lot of hot water on the stove for you. I’ll just fill your pail,” he said.
    But when he had filled it, Mrs. Smollett was in no hurry to go.
    “Funny how Miss Garside stopped having me in to clean up her place, wasn’t it? She don’t have anyone else, I suppose— evenings when I’m out of the way?”
    Bell shook his head. He wasn’t any too happy about Miss Garside, and he didn’t want to talk about her affairs.
    Mrs. Smollett flounced—if the word can be applied to so large a woman.
    “Well, I’ve got the right to know whether I give satisfaction, haven’t I? Used to have me in regular three times a week, and stopped dead as you may say. ‘I shan’t be wanting you any more, Mrs. Smollett,’ she says, and, ‘Here’s your money for today,’ and goes into her room and shuts the door.” She bent to the handle of the pail but straightened up without lifting it. “ Here, Mr. Bell—did she ever get those bits of furniture of hers back again? Told me they’d gone to be mended but I couldn’t see anything wrong with them myself. Very nice pieces they was, like what you see in the antique shops—walnut cabinet and writing-desk, and a set of chairs with backs like a lot of ribbon plaited. Funny if they all wanted mending together, isn’t it? Here now, you might as well tell us, has she had any of them back again?”
    Bell looked distressed. This was tittle-tattle. He didn’t like it.. He said as sharply as he could bring himself to speak,
    “I got something else to do than take notice of what people has mended. And water don’t stay boiling, Mrs. Smollett— yours will be cold.”
    He got a toss of the head.
    “I’ve no call to scald my fingers, have I?” She lifted the pail. “Nasty marks those things left where they’d been standing— that wallpaper isn’t half faded, only you didn’t rightly notice it till they’d gone. And if you ask me, Mr. Bell, I’d say she’d sold them.”
    CHAPTER 13
    The events of this day were to be collected, catalogued, sorted, and re-sorted. Everything that everyone did or said, however trifling, however unimportant in itself, came to be scrutinised and put under a microscope. There are days like that, but you don’t know until afterwards that the small, foolish things you do or the hasty words you say are going to be raked up, and picked over, and brought into judgement. If you had known, you would of course have behaved quite differently. But you don’t know—you never know—until it is too late. Only one of the people in Vandeleur House had any idea that what was said and done that day might make all the difference between