And presently," said Mitzi defiantly, "I go out to see if there are any nice young green nettles."
Would there, the Inspector wondered, be any nice young green nettles in October?
But he appreciated that Mitzi had had to produce a hurried reason for what had undoubtedly been nothing more than plain snooping.
"You didn't hear any more than what you have told me?"
Mitzi looked aggrieved.
"That Miss Bunner, the one with the long nose, she call and call me.
Mitzi!
Mitzi!
So I have to go.
Oh, she is irritating.
Always interfering.
Says she will teach me to cook.
Her cooking!
It tastes, yes, everything she does, of water, water, water!"
"Why didn't you tell me this the other day?" asked Craddock sternly.
"Because I did not remember - I did not think... Only afterwards do I say to myself, it was planned then - planned with her."
"You are quite sure it was Mrs. Haymes?"
"Oh, yes, I am sure.
Oh, yes, I am very sure.
She is a thief, that Mrs. Haymes. A thief and the associate of thieves.
What she gets for working in the garden, it is not enough for such a fine lady, no.
She has to rob Miss Blacklog who has been kind to her.
Oh, she is bad, bad, bad, that one!"
"Supposing," said the Inspector, watching her closely, "that someone was to say that you had been seen talking to Rudi Scherz?"
The suggestion had less effect than he had hoped for.
Mitzi merely snorted and tossed her head.
"If anyone say they see me talking to him, that is lies, lies, lies, lies," she said contemptuously.
"To tell lies about anyone, that is easy, but in England you have to prove them true.
Miss Blacklog tell me that, and it is true, is it not?
I do not speak with murderers and thieves.
And no English policeman shall say I do.
And how can I do cooking for lunch if you are here, talk, talk, talk? Go out of my kitchens, please.
I want now to make a very careful sauce."
Craddock went obediently.
He was a little shaken in his suspicions of Mitzi.
Her story about Phillipa Haymes had been told with great conviction.
Mitzi might be a liar (he thought she was), but he fancied that there might be some substratum of truth in this particular tale.
He resolved to speak to Phillipa on the subject.
She had seemed to him when he questioned her a quiet, well-bred young woman.
He had had no suspicion of her.
Crossing the hall, in his abstraction, he tried to open the wrong door.
Miss Bunner, descending the staircase, hastily put him right.
"Not that door," she said.
"It doesn't open.
The next one to the left.
Very confusing, isn't it.
So many doors."
"There are a good many," said Craddock, looking up and down the narrow hall.
Miss Bunner amiably enumerated them for him.
"First the door to the cloakroom, and then the cloaks cupboard door and then the dining-room that's on that side.