The Art School Murders by Moray Dalton

Author:Moray Dalton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2020-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

SKETCHES IN THE MARGIN

Cherry Garth, standing on the threshold of her sitting-room, looked up rather shyly at the large young man who occupied most of the space in the tiny passage between the umbrella stand and the foot of the stairs.

“I don’t know how I’m to explain about you to Miss Tremlett without telling her everything and giving her a bad fright,” she said.

P.C. Griffiths grinned. “She won’t mind, miss, whatever. I’m walking out with her niece.”

“Oh—that’s all right then.”

“Yes, miss. I’ll just go into the kitchen and wait for her to come in. I know my way about. Doris and me have been more than once to tea with her auntie. You’ll be quite safe with me within call. Don’t go to the door, in any case. I’ll attend to that.”

“Very well. Did you tell the inspector about knowing Miss Tremlett?”

“No, miss. It don’t do to shoot off your mouth when superior officers are about. They do the telling and we jump to it.”

He grinned again and withdrew to the kitchen where she heard him stoking up the fire.

There was a gas fire in the front sitting-room for the lodger. Usually Cherry was. only at home in the evenings and on Sundays. She put a shilling in the slot of her meter, and, when she had lit the fire, drew up one of the shabby wicker armchairs and sank into it. She was shivering with cold, the result partly of delayed shock. This awful thing that had happened—she had not really taken it in. There was a war on, and perhaps, before it was over, they would all be killed, but somehow, that was different, that was impersonal, like an earthquake, or being struck by lightning. This—if the inspector was right it meant that someone—and possibly someone she knew—had killed Betty because of something that Betty had seen or heard when she went back to the school for her scarf, and that she herself was in danger because she might have been in Betty’s confidence.

If only poor Betty had not been so fond of dramatising herself and making mysteries. She wanted to be noticed, to be important. Cherry, with more talent than her friend—though she was too humble-minded to realise it—found more satisfaction in her work and had no craving for popularity. Betty used to say that if she could not be loved she would be feared. Poor Betty, talking such rubbish in her high-pitched voice.

“I know more than you think, Cherry, about lots of people. I don’t miss much, and I can put two and two together. No, I’m not going to tell you—”

Poor Betty, who, with all her faults and weaknesses, could be sympathetic and kind, dying alone in the dark while, on the screen, Fred Astaire was singing “The way you look to-night”.

Cherry knew exactly where she must have been sitting. Betty, who had long sight, liked to get as far as possible away from the screen and she did not care to move about.

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