The Blind Side_An Ernest Lamb Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

Author:Patricia Wentworth [Wentworth, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2016-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Mrs. Green came in in her old Burberry with her battered black felt hat mournfully askew. The port-wine mark on her cheek showed up against the puffy pallor of the rest of her face. Her grey hair fuzzed out wildly in all directions. About her neck she wore, in lieu of the crochet shawl reserved for “turns,” the aged black feather boa which marked a return to the normal. A sallow handkerchief was clasped in one hand. On being invited to sit down she gulped and applied it to her eyes.

“Thank you kindly, sir. I’m sure it’s all so ’orrible, I don’t hardly know where I am. And on top of one of my turns too, and this one so bad, and if it hadn’t been for the mite of brandy I come by just in time there’s no saying whether I’d be here now.”

The Inspector relaxed.

“Ah—it takes a good bit of brandy to pull you round out of one of those turns, doesn’t it, Mrs. Green?”

Mrs. Green wiped her eyes.

“If it’s Mrs. Smith where I lodge that’s been telling your young man that I drink, then she’s no lady,” she said with dignity. “I don’t wish her nor no one else to go through the h’agony that I go through when I gets one of my turns, and what they told me in the ’orspital was to take a mite of brandy and lay down quiet, and so I done. And if I’m to get the sack for it, well, it’s a cruel shame, and maybe they won’t find it so easy to get a respectable woman to come into an ’ouse like this, what with murders and goings on. And if it comes to getting the sack, there’s more than me was for it, if it wasn’t for Mr. Craddock being done in.”

“And what do you mean by that, Mrs. Green?” said the Inspector.

Mrs. Green eyed him sideways.

“There’s those that gives themselves airs and talks haughty now that’d be singing on the other side of their mouth if it wasn’t for pore Mr. Craddock lying a mortual corpse at this moment instead of standing up on his two feet and telling them to be off out of here because they wasn’t wanted any longer.”

“I really think you had better tell me what you mean, Mrs. Green.”

The sideways look became a downcast one. The pale mouth primmed and said with mincing gentility,

“I’m sure I was never one to put myself forward, sir.”

The Inspector became hearty.

“Pity there aren’t more like you in that way, Mrs. Green. But it’s everyone’s duty to help the police, you know, so I’m sure you’re going to tell me what this is all about. If you know of someone who was going to be dismissed by Mr. Craddock, I think you ought to tell me who it is.”

“And him taking it on himself to say as how he’d see to it I got my notice!” said Mrs. Green with an angry toss of the head.

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