"Get your hat and coat and come along.
I haven't got my nail-pulling apparatus and the rest of the bag of tricks with me.
We keep all that down at the station.
Got the handcuffs handy, Fletcher?"
"Sir!" said Sergeant Fletcher with appreciation.
"But I do not want to come," screeched Mitzi, backing away from him.
"Then you'll answer civil questions civilly.
If you like, you can have a solicitor present."
"A lawyer?
I do not like a lawyer.
I do not want a lawyer."
She put the rolling pin down, dusted her hands on a cloth and sat down.
"What do you want to know?" she asked sulkily.
"I want your account of what happened here last night."
"You know very well what happened."
"I want your account of it."
"I tried to go away.
Did she tell you that?
When I saw that in the paper saying about murder. I wanted to go away.
She would not let me.
She is very hard - not at all sympathetic.
She made me stay.
But I knew - I knew what would happen.
I knew I should be murdered."
"Well, you weren't murdered, were you?"
"No," admitted Mitzi grudgingly.
"Come now, tell me what happened."
"I was nervous.
Oh, I was nervous.
All that evening.
I hear things.
People moving about.
Once I think someone is in the hall moving stealthily - but it is only that Mrs. Haymes coming in through the side door (so as not to dirty the front steps, she says.
Much she cares!).
She is a Nazi herself, that one, with her fair hair and her blue eyes, so superior and looking at me and thinking that I - I am only dirt -"
"Never mind Mrs. Haymes."
"Who does she think she is?
Has she had expensive university education like I have?
Has she a degree in Economics?
No, she is just a paid labourer.
She digs and mows grass and is paid so much every Saturday.
Who is she to call herself a lady?"
"Never mind Mrs. Haymes, I said.
Go on."
"I take the sherry and the glasses, and the little pastries that I have made so nice into the drawing-room.
Then the bell rings and I answer the door.
Again and again I answer the door.
It is degrading - but I do it.
And then I go back into the pantry and I start to polish the silver, and I think it will be very handy, that, because if someone comes to kill me, I have there close at hand the big carving knife, all sharp."
"Very foresighted of you."