Is she safe?
Yes, so far.
And then comes Mitzi - yet another danger.
Kill Mitzi, stop her tongue!
She's beside herself with fear. Not human any longer. Just a dangerous animal."
"But why were you in the broom cupboard, Aunt Jane?" asked Bunch.
"Couldn't you have left it to Sergeant Fletcher?"
"It was safer with two of us, my dear.
And besides, I knew I could mimic Dora Bunner's voice.
If anything could break Charlotte Blacklog down - that would."
"And it did...!"
"Yes... she went to pieces."
There was a long silence as memory laid hold of them and then, speaking with determined lightness, to ease the strain, Julia said:
"It's made a wonderful difference to Mitzi.
She told me yesterday that she was taking a post near Southampton.
And she said (Julia produced a very good imitation of Mitzi's accent): "'I go there and if they say to me you have to register with the Police - you are an alien, I say to them,
"Yes, I will register!
The Police, they know me well.
I assist the Police!
Without me the Police never would they have made the arrest of a very dangerous criminal.
I risked my life because I am brave - brave like a lion - I do not care about risks."
"Mitzi," they say to me, "you are a heroine, you are superb."
"Ach! it is nothing, I say.'"" Julia stopped.
"And a great deal more," she added.
"I think," said Edmund thoughtfully, "that soon Mitzi will have assisted the Police in not one but hundreds of cases!"
"She's softened towards me," said Phillipa.
"She actually presented me with the recipe for Delicious Death as a kind of wedding present.
She added that I was on no account to divulge the secret to Julia, because Julia had ruined her omelette pan."
"Mrs. Lucas," said Edmund, "is all over Phillipa now that since Belle Goedler's death, Phillipa and Julia have inherited the Goedler millions.
She sent us some silver asparagus tongs as a wedding present.
I shall have enormous pleasure in not asking her to the wedding!"
"And so they lived happily ever after," said Patrick. "Edmund and Phillipa - and Julia and Patrick?" he added, tentatively.
"Not with me, you won't live happily ever after," said Julia.
"The remarks that Inspector Craddock improvised to address to Edmund apply far more aptly to you.
You are the sort of soft young man who would like a rich wife.
Nothing doing!"
"There's gratitude for you," said Patrick.
"After all I did for that girl."
"Nearly landed me in prison on a murder charge that's what your forgetfulness nearly did for me," said Julia.
"I shall never forget that evening when your sister's letter came.
I really thought I was for it.
I couldn't see any way out.
"As it is," she added musingly, "I think I shall go on the stage."
"What?
You, too?" groaned Patrick.
"Yes.
I might go to Perth.
See if I can get your Julia's place in the rep there.
Then, when I've learnt my job, I shall go into theatre management - and put on Edmund's plays, perhaps."
"I thought you wrote novels," said Julian Harmon.