Evidence of Things Seen (15 page)

“All right, Madame Fouret, don't get up.” Craye hustled Gamadge towards a door on the left.

“I'm only witing for my cike to bike,” said Madame Fouret, smiling.

“I hope you put lots of plums in it.” Craye now had Gamadge by the arm, and got him across the back hall and into a manorial dining room. He pulled out an armchair for his guest, one for himself, and sank down with a sigh, only to start up again: “Sherry? Whiskey? Anything?”

“Not a thing. You seem to be pulling your weight, I must say.” Gamadge did not suppress his amusement.

“I don't know.” Craye laid his riding crop on the table in front of him. “Fouret does a lot of cooking, and makes the Medos kids wash themselves now and then. Medos is writing a book, but he does some accounts for me. Mrs. Star is trying to get a job; you wouldn't know anybody that wants to learn German?”

“Not at the moment. Beautiful creature she is. Is her real name a secret?”

“Not at all; but she prefers this one.”

“I should think she would be useful in half a dozen departments, if she's properly vouched for.”

“She doesn't seem to find anything. Never mind my refugees, they're my headache, and sometimes a splitting one. Did you think I could be of any use to you in this business about the Radford murder?”

“Perhaps. As I said, I must find out something about Miss Radford, and from what Clara told me I thought
you
knew something.”

“I?”

“Didn't you imply that Miss Radford had been gossiping, or that friends of hers had been gossiping about her, or something of the kind?”

“I don't remember that I did. I hardly knew the woman by sight; if I spoke of her at all, I was probably joking.”

“Clara thinks you really had some unfavorable knowledge of Miss Radford.”

“I hadn't. Mrs. Gamadge is mistaken. And if I had,” said Craye, “it certainly wouldn't be the kind of knowledge to help you out in this case.”

Gamadge sat back, looking at him. Craye returned the look with one so unlike his ordinary expression of smiling amiability that he might have been a stranger. It was as a stranger Gamadge at last addressed him:

“You understand that while Clara's in trouble or danger I can't consider any other person?”

“She's in no danger. She must change her evidence, that's all.”

“I like it as it is.”

They held each other's eyes. Then Craye, looking down at his clasped hands, said: “I'd help you out if I could.”

“Perhaps, then, you'll tell me where to find these friends of the deceased? These dressmakers or sewing women.”

Craye, his eyes still lowered, sat without moving while a great clock in the corner told the seconds as they passed. Finally he said: “Name of Jeans, on the right-hand side the Mill Road after you cross the bridge. Don't believe a word they say.”

Gamadge rose. “Thanks; but are you asking that as a favor?”

Craye, flushing, also got to his feet. “I'm saving you time.”

“I'm glad you realize that it's precious.”

They went in silence to the front door, and in silence Gamadge walked away.

W
HEN GAMADGE RETURNED
to the Stratfield Public Library he found Clara where she had promised to be—among the stacks, reading. He looked over her shoulder. “Brushing up on early Henry James, are you?”

“I thought I dimly remembered—” she looked up at him.

“But you found that
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes
isn't really the source of this romance of old clothes, didn't you?”

“I just dimly remembered that there were old clothes, and that somebody got strangled.” She closed the book.

“Motive, characters and setting all wrong, aren't they?”

“And the social background is wrong. Our characters are just country people.”

“Er—some of them.”

She got up to search his face anxiously. “Did Gilbert Craye tell you anything about Miss Radford?”

“He says you're mistaken, that he couldn't have meant what you thought he meant.”

“Oh dear, he did, though.”

“He will think twice, after this, before he speaks; that is, if he really has more mind than a fly.”

“Of course he has more mind than a fly! Phineas Hunter thinks he has no mind because he doesn't read anything.”

“Doesn't read Pope,” laughed Gamadge.

They returned the book, and went out into the broad sunny street. It did not take them long to leave the charms of Stratfield behind them; the Mill Road, dipping sharply to the river, led to a region of swampy fields and dejected-looking willows. Beyond an old covered bridge there were small and ugly houses, surrounded by thin vegetable gardens and hung about with washing-lines.

“The wrong side of the tracks,” said Gamadge, “if Stratfield had tracks. Well, I suppose every town must have its back yard. Here we are.”

He stopped in front of a bleak little house, with a sign in a window—handwritten—which said:
Dressmaking
.

“You'd better stay in the car, Clara.” Gamadge descended. “We haven't time to discuss your new dress today; we only have time to find out whether they'll make it.”

“I'm glad I'm going to have a new dress.”

“Hope you'll like it.” He went up the path to the open front door, and turned the knob of a bell. It rang harshly, and its summons was answered by a tall, middle-aged woman with a pincushion fastened to the belt of her apron. She looked at him, and past him at Clara and the car. Her expression said that the last thing she expected was a customer. Her angry-looking mouth hardly troubled to smile at this nuisance who was probably asking the way to Hartford.

“What was it?” she demanded.

“Mrs. Jeans?”

“I'm Miss Jeans.” She added, in a tone of surprise, “You want to talk to Mother?”

“And to you, if I may. We're from North Avebury; we've rented Miss Radford's cottage for the summer, and from something that was said we understood you did dressmaking.”

“You're Alvira Radford's summer tenants?” Her look changed to one of ravenous interest.

“Yes; wasn't it tragic about her death? I didn't come up till afterwards; only got there on Tuesday; but my wife was in the cottage when it happened.”

Miss Jeans looked as if she wanted to ask whether he thought she didn't know that. She said instead: “Come in. Ain't your wife getting out of the car?”

“Well, no; she's rather tired. She wanted me to ask whether you could make her a summer dress.”

Miss Jeans ushered him into a musty sitting room, where old Mrs. Jeans sat beside a window; she was engaged in sewing narrow strips of parti-colored material end to end, and balls of completed work lay in a basket at her feet. A sewing machine in front of the other window, and an ironing board on trestles, betrayed the fact that the sitting room was also the Jeanses' workroom.

Mrs. Jeans looked up with an expression forbidding in the extreme; it was one of instinctive suspicion, mingled with an all-embracing dislike for her fellow creatures. Miss Jeans rapidly explained Gamadge and his errand; he supplied his name.

Old Mrs. Jeans, curiosity obscuring malignity, invited him to sit down. He did so in a chair pulled forward for him by Miss Jeans, who took up a commanding position behind her mother's chair.

“Alvira Radford recommended us?” asked the old lady.

“We understand that you sewed for her.”

“Not much nowadays.”

Miss Jeans said: “I do the dressmakin' now, what there is of it. People buy these cheap ready-made things, and wear ‘em a couple of months, and throw ‘em away. They got to; the material falls to pieces after one wash.”

“My wife doesn't like that kind of thing at all,” said Gamadge. “She'd supply her own material—just a simple summer dress.”

“I guess you men don't know it, but nothing's simple about dressmakin' now,” said Miss Jeans, in a lecturing tone. “The priorities make it hard to get findings; pins and needles, hooks and eyes. Thread, even.”

“We understand that. My wife would supply findings.”

“If she wants quilts or rag rugs,” said Mrs. Jeans, “I can make her those—if she gives me time.”

“My mother's quilts get prizes at fairs,” said Miss Jeans.

“I'll tell Mrs. Gamadge.”

Old Mrs. Jeans could no longer sacrifice her curiosity even to her business; she asked: “What are they saying about Alvira's death? Do they still think some crazy woman got in?”

“Well, if she did, she wore a sunbonnet.”

“A
sunbonnet
?”

“So my wife says. As a disguise, of course. There aren't so many seen about nowadays, are there? My wife was quite surprised to find one in the attic of the cottage; among some things that belonged, I think, to Miss Radford's sister; a sister who died.”

Miss Jeans drew herself up: “I made that sunbonnet!”

“No, really?”

“And the dress that went with it. I made both sets.”

“Both sets?”

“Mis' Hickson always got enough material for two dresses. It's cheaper that way,” said Miss Jeans, reassuming her patronizing tone. “She got so much that she had me make two sunbonnets.”

“I suppose she wore out the other one. My wife liked the pattern, she thought it must have been quite pretty when it was new.”

Mrs. Jeans said: “She can see a piece. Belle, did I use all the scraps in that quilt, or are there any more in the bag?”

“I don't know.” Miss Jeans went to a walnut chest of drawers, and brought back a folded patchwork quilt, still incompletely quilted. Among squares and triangles of red, blue, yellow and white Gamadge's eye discerned a recurrent rectangle of purple, sprigged with black.

“Nice quilt,” he said. “My wife must see it when she comes in.”

“I should think she'd be all worn out,” said Mrs. Jeans affably, “after that night she had when Alvira was killed. The trouble is, there's a riffraff around everywhere now. We pay taxes, but we don't get protection from prowlers.”

“And of course now there are refugees, too,” said Gamadge.

“Coming from nobody knows where,” agreed Miss Jeans, “and half of ‘em probably spies.”

“Have you any in Stratfield?”

“There's a half dozen up at Craye's,” said old Mrs. Jeans, “if they are refugees. I should say one of ‘em isn't; but you couldn't get your nose inside the door to find out; even the authorities couldn't—or wouldn't. It got so bad, certain parties complained to the authorities; but they wouldn't move against Gilbert Craye, he's too rich.”

Miss Jeans said: “I went up there to collect junk for our war chest, you can imagine the junk there must be in those attics; or haven't you seen the Craye place?”

“I've seen it; beautiful.”

“We make a list,” said Miss Jeans, “and then we send a truck. But that houseman—he's gone now to do defense work—would he let me into the hall, even? He would not. He opened the door a crack, paid no attention when I told him my name, and said it had been attended to; but Gilbert Craye sent no junk to the bazaar.”

“I sewed for years up at the Craye mansion,” said Mrs. Jeans. “Plain work, slip covers, mending, and old Mrs. Craye's summer wrappers. I used to sit and talk with her for hours, and had my place at the lunch table. I was good enough to sit at lunch with Squire Craye; but that son of his won't see my daughter.”

“Inconsiderate,” murmured Gamadge. “Still, it's very patriotic of him, or something—having all those refugees.”

Miss Jeans and Mrs. Jeans looked at each other. Miss Jeans said: “You ought to see the German.”

“Is there a German?”

“Married woman, and can't get a divorce. He's an officer in the German army, and she can't get a divorce!”

“Because her uncle's a cardinal,” said Mrs. Jeans. “So the story goes, and I think the minister started it.”

“I don't know what the gov'ment is thinking of,” said Miss Jeans, “sending a young married woman to live with a young feller like Gilbert Craye. Two young children in the house, too.”

“And no older woman?”

“Of course there's an older woman for looks, but you can imagine how much she would have to say—about what Gilbert Craye does and don't do! Why, Alvira Radford saw him and the German as long ago as last summer, way off on the reservation road, and sittin' in the reservation woods. They went as far as North Avebury for their drives. Why, none of us here even knew there was such a woman at the Craye house till Alvira Radford began to talk about the light-haired married woman Gilbert Craye was carrying on with. It don't look good to our allies to have these enemy aliens we have here actin' like that. But the county won't interfere.”

“I guess we better not say too much, Belle,” said Mrs. Jeans. “Alvira asked us not to spread it.”

Miss Jeans looked offended, and ceased to talk. Gamadge, wondering at what point discretion began in the Jeans opinion, rose.

“Well, then,” he said, “I may tell my wife you'll do a dress for her, and that there's a quilt in progress. And thank you so much.”

Mrs. Jeans looked up at him. “You're welcome. I wouldn't want you to spread that refugee story, Mr. Gamadge; Alvira Radford didn't want it repeated.”

“She only mentioned it to
us
,” said Miss Jeans.

“And now she's dead. I'll remember.”

If there were any suggestion of cause and effect here, neither Miss or Mrs. Jeans seemed to notice it. Gamadge took his leave, and when he rejoined his wife his face wore a smile.

“Did you find out anything?” she asked.

He turned the car, and drove up the Mill Road to Stratfield. “Yes. They'll make you a dress, and they're making you a patchwork quilt. It has pieces of the purple calico in it.”