Tuesday October 9
Dorothy made sure that the chorus rehearsal had been
cancelled for that evening, but she would go along to the church hall anyway to
make sure that everyone who had come not knowing about the chorus director’s
appendix operation went home.
“It’s nice of you to invite me,” Dorothy commented drily,
not mentioning that she had not heard from Cleo for several days. She could be
at the cottage by ten fifteen.
Of course Dorothy did not want to miss that event even if
she was semi-retired and preoccupied with trying to arrange a Christmas special,
but she did not answer with particular enthusiasm. Dorothy did not usually wear
her heart on her sleeve.
Cleo was a little crushed by Dorothy’s curtness. She was not
really aware of how hurt Dorothy was when cases were not being discussed with
her as often as she thought they should.
Gary went to HQ early. His phone-call to Lisa Keys from
there was on a purely official level. There would be no more danger now, he
told her, so he would call off the police guard. Lisa was curious to know why
she had had a guard on her at all.
“You noticed that exchange of pills, Miss Keys,” Gary
explained once again.
“Oh, but I never told anyone that I knew about it, except
Miss Price of course.”
“That’s just as well, Miss Keys. People don’t like to be
observed doing subversive things and might take it into their heads to dispose
of the observer. Miss Knowles is due for questioning this morning. Did she
visit you yesterday?”
“No. but I’ve been under guard all the time. I don’t suppose
anyone was allowed in. Some of the women are still in hospital, aren’t they?”
“As far as I know they’re all going home except for the two
who did not survive. If anyone turns up to see you, please call us immediately
and make sure that someone else is in the room. And don’t eat or drink anything
that is given to you except the hospital food. There’s a poisoner around and we
would not like you to become a victim.”
“What if the poisoner can get at the hospital food?”
“That’s unlikely, Miss Keys.”
“If you say so, Mr Hurley. I assume that my brother, Miss
Hartley and Miss Price are allowed to visit me.”
“Of course. Have a nice day.”
“I will,” said Lisa. “I can go home soon.”
You’d better not tell anyone when,” said Gary.
***
Gary had plenty to do quite apart from all the recent
poisonings. Yesterday’s revelation that HQ data could be freely accessed by
anyone with elementary hacking skills was alarming. Something would have to be
done about it, and fast. Nigel volunteered to follow that up. Should he get
Stan Butterworth in to talk about Dr Fargo? No. Greg should go to the villa and
meet Dr Fargo, who was presumably unaware of the problems his supposed
disappearance had caused.
Gary wanted to talk to Ed Fargo before he found out about
his uncle’s return, if he did not know already, but there would not be enough
time before Miss Knowles and Cleo arrived. On the other hand, since Fargo was
behind bars without means of communication to outside the walls, his cell phone
having been confiscated, he could not react even if he did know. Sally Fargo
would be informed when she came next day. Meanwhile, it would be a good idea to
get Dr Fargo into HQ so that they could all observe the confrontation of uncle
and nephew. Greg agreed. No problem. Greg would fix it up.
***
Cleo and Dorothy arrived at HQ before Knowles. For reasons
best known to himself, Gary did not want Dorothy to question Miss Knowles, so
she was to sit in the observation room. Of course, he did not tell her that was
the reason. He wasn’t even sure that it was justifiable. He was, he said,
relying on her judgement of the woman’s sincerity.
Dorothy did not complain about her exclusion from active
questioning, but she asked Gary a few very searching questions about Miss
Knowles. Where had she come from? Where did she work? Was she all she seemed to
be?
Gary did not seem able to answer her questions.
“What impression have you gained up to now?” he asked back.
“I can see that you want to tell me something.”
“She’s sham, Gary. She’s pretending to be what she isn’t.”
“In that case she’s pretending to be a criminal. On what do
you base your theory?”
“I had a chance to observe her when Laura was alive and I
was playing for chorus rehearsals. Knowles was always loud-mouthed and her tall
figure was imposing if not crushing. Stories about her bullying any
gate-crashers at that gay bar and wielding a butcher’s axe in a threatening way
behind the counter of a small shop were common knowledge. Her short employment
at the Moses Meat Market in Middlethumpton lasted until she had apparently
flagrantly overcharged for so long and pocketed the difference that she was no
longer sustainable.
Who ever heard of a butcher undercharging except for Robert
Jones,” she added, remembering the extra chops, sausages and bacon she would
find wrapped in the greaseproof paper with “your family butcher” printed all
over the outside, after she got home from shopping. She did not order much and
she only ever paid for half of it.
“You’ve never told us that before about Miss Knowles,
Dorothy,” said Cleo.
“You have rather left me out recently, Cleo. I haven’t been
able to communicate the way we used to.”
“I didn‘t leave you out deliberately, Dorothy. You knew
about Miss Keys first and have made valuable contributions all along, but you
are supposed to be enjoying your retirement,” said Cleo.
“Semi-retirement and I’m not,” said Dorothy, “I’d thank you
not to think I’m old hat.”
“Nobody has ever thought that, Dorothy,” said Gary.
“Mark my words,” insisted Dorothy. “Miss Knowles is
definitely not what she seems.”
Knowing that Dorothy was prone to having hunches and had
Argus eyes, Gary thought it wiser not to pursue her line of thinking until after
the questioning.
“What isn’t she?” he asked, however.
“Well,” said Dorothy. “She is anything but dumb. In fact, I
would say that she’s making fools of everyone.”
“You’ll have to expand that theory,” said Gary.
“For a start, she made a fool of Laura, who found her
intensely annoying, but was afraid to throw her out. She has apparently starting
selling those chorus women aspirin and diuretic pills saying they were
personality-enhancing and good-mood pills based on common drugs but not
habit-forming. That is not the thinking of a simple-minded person.”
“Even simple-minded people can swindle, Dorothy,” said Cleo.
“That may be, but Miss Knowles is not one of them.”
***
Cleo was sceptical about Knowles reappearing. Gary was sure
she would but relieved when she did. It was high time to find out what the
woman was playing at.
Dorothy disappeared into the observation room through a side
door that had been constructed recently and shrunk Gary’s office by several
feet in the process. Observers no longer had to go into the corridor to get behind
that one-way mirror. Gary did not like his office getting smaller. He thought
it might be a ploy to get him into a managerial position on the top floor,
where the offices were much bigger, but he was reassured that the wall between
his office and the next one would be replaced by a sliding door over the whole
width so that the two offices could be used as one. However, no one could tell
him when that would actually happen and Gary thought it was probably
unworkable.
Cleo and Gary were still discussing the coming questioning
of Barbarella Knowles when the lady in question literally barged in. Dorothy
had forgotten her handbag and returned through the inside door.
“Oh,” she said.
“Bad timing, Dorothy,” said Gary.
“The blind was drawn. I need my handbag.”
“What are you doing here, Miss Price? Shouldn’t you be
playing the piano?” said Knowles.
“Good morning, Miss Knowles,” said Dorothy.
“We were just discussing professions and retirement,” Gary
extemporised.
“Which professions do you mean?” said Miss Knowles.
“The legal ones,” said Dorothy. , which surprised Cleo and
Gary and startled Miss Knowles.
Gary took a deep breath and waited for Dorothy’s next comment.
He wished she was next door.
“You are a lawyer, aren’t you Miss Knowles?” said Dorothy
triumphantly.
Cleo and Gary gasped. Gary thought ‘blast the woman’,
meaning Dorothy. Nigel, who had been sitting quietly at his own laptop, thought
he would deal with the IT man later. There was going to be an unholy row, if he
wasn’t mistaken.
A knock on the door announced Greg’s arrival.
“Is this a party?” said Knowles.
Having digested Dorothy’s triumphant move, Cleo wondered if
Knowles had made a fool of Phyllis or just used her. Or was Phillis the guilty
party on all counts? There was no time to discuss that eventuality.
“I need to go to the restroom,” Cleo said, and disappeared
to phone Robert and get him to send Phillis to HQ as soon as a patrol car
arrived to collect her. She could not explain why for the moment and the woman
should not be forewarned. Robert was alarmed at the urgency in Cleo’s voice.
Back in Gary’s office, Cleo signalled to him that they
should make coffee in the little pantry-sized room that housed his files,
espresso machine and a tiny washbasin. Gary listened to Cleo’s reasoning and
ordered a patrol car to go to the shop urgently and collect a lady called
Phillis. Cleo was convinced that Phillis must confront Knowles without delay.
“It sounds like the last act of a whodunit,” Gary commented.
“It probably is,” said Cleo.
***
“Sorry about that interruption,” said Gary on returning to
the office. “Black or white coffee, Miss Knowles?”
“Black, please.”
***
“Are you really a lawyer?” Cleo asked.
“How did you find out, Miss Price?” she asked, thus
confirming Dorothy’s statement for all to hear.
“Just a hunch, but now you’ve confirmed it.”
“I don’t think of myself as a lawyer,” said Knowles. “I see
myself as a sort of adviser.”
Who do you advise?” Gary asked.
“I’m discreet, Mr Hurley. I do not snitch on my clients.”
“I accept that, Miss Knowles. What do you advise them?”
“Not to reveal who advised them,” said Knowles.
“I suppose I asked for that,” said Gary, realizing that if
this woman was highly educated he could not treat her as a common or garden
butcher’s assistant.
“You’re very secretive,” said Dorothy. “I’m sure your
clients pay you well for your discretion.”
“They do, Miss Price.”
Gary put two and two together. The clients probably included
the Nortons and others in their fraternity. It was useful to have someone
qualified to tell you how to avoid being held responsible for your criminal
actions.
“Do you know Dr Fargo or his nephew, Miss Knowles?” said
Cleo.
Knowles smiled.
“Ed Fargo is chicken-feed, Miss Hartley. He’s for the high-jump.”
”Why?” said Gary.
“That tramp, Mr Hurley. A very unwise move.”
“Will Fargo confess to killing his uncle then?” Gary asked,
now aware that Knowles was probably in the picture about everything that went
on.
“Heaven forbid! He’s organized it so that his wife takes the
rap for anything that comes up.”
Dorothy noted that Miss Knowles had not actually said that
Dr Fargo was dead.
“Now you’re being indiscreet, Miss Knowles,” said Gary. He
was starting to enjoy himself.
“I’m not indiscreet about clients who don’t pay their
bills.”
“He’s waiting for a windfall, Miss Knowles.”
“People with problems confide in others. I got to know him
through a client,” said Knowles. She did not say that Ed Fargo had found her
through dark channels and was certainly not the kind of client she normally cultivated.
She preferred elegant criminals who let other people do their dirty work. It
was only the promise of a fat fee that had persuaded her to take Ed Fargo on.
***
“What are we waiting for,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me
why I’m here instead of wasting time with idle chat? I’m not going to say any
more about my work.”
“I don’t see it as idle chat,” said Gary. “The business of
Margie Busby’s death behind the church hall, for instance. You will have to
sign a written statement on that. Perhaps you’d like to change the version you
gave us last time.”
“Even if you had witnesses, I would still deny any
complicity, Mr Hurley. There are no witnesses because everyone else was in the
rehearsal room. If there had been any, surely they would have come forward by
now. Margie wanted to tell me something. I don’t know what, but she insisted
that it could not wait until after the rehearsal.
Maybe she wanted to twist my arm. She had tried
unsuccessfully to blackmail me on more than one occasion. She was drunk. I did
not realize how drunk until we were outside and she started to badger me. Then
she went for me, I sidestepped, she lost her balance, tripped backwards over the
edge of the rockery and fell over. End of story. I thought she’d sleep it off
if I left her there.”
“What did you do after the rehearsal that night,” Gary
asked.
“It was late, so I collected my care and went home to bed,”
Knowles replied with an unmistakeable invitation in her voice. At least, that
was how Cleo interpreted it. Gary either ignored the innuendo or hadn’t noticed
it.
“On Wednesday afternoon you visited some of the chorus
ladies in the intensive ward, Miss Knowles. How did you know they were in hospital?”
Cleo asked.
“One of the girl’s husbands rang me.”
“But surely you already knew what had happened, Miss
Knowles,” said Cleo.
“Not until the man rang me,” said Knowles.
“That’s not true, Miss Knowles. You had planned it with Robert
Jones’s assistant,” said Cleo.
“What makes you think that, Miss Hartley? I went to the
hospital and talked to some of the girls before calling on Phillis. She had a
problem she wanted to discuss. It was a prearranged visit to her flat.”
“But you’d been there before, Miss Knowles,” said Cleo.
“So what?”
“How friendly are you with Phillis?” Cleo asked. “Aren’t you
a pair?”
“Who told you that?”
“Phillis herself.”
“Phillis is up a gumtree! She wanted advice and would have
to pay for it.”
“Just as you would pay board and lodging, I suppose.”
“It’s part of the service, but I’d avoid going down that
track. I’m married to a nice guy, and have been for the last 15 years.”
***
Gary was sure that Knowles was leading Cleo on and he was
finding it rather fascinating. Rescuing Cleo from her line of questioning was
regrettable, but he would have to. Cleo was getting irate and Knowles was
playing it cool. That was how Cleo’s interviews normally proceeded.
“But you returned to the hospital during that night, didn’t
you?” Gary said firmly. “Someone saw you.”
“Who?”
Knowles swung round to face Gary. She explained without
further questioning that had emptied a bottle of port with Phillis that evening,
after which she was obliged to spend the night there. Phillis passed out, or so
she thought. She had lain down on the vacant side of the bed. There was
unfortunately no guestroom and no sofa. They had not got round to discussing
Phillis’s problem as Phillis obviously could not hold her drink. Knowles
suspected that the problem was to do with getting money for the child.
“Did you get up during that night, Miss Knowles?” Cleo
asked.
Were there knockout drops in the port, Miss Knowles?” said Dorothy.
“It’s odd that you should say that. The same thought went
through my head. I’m normally an insomniac even after a whole bottle of
fortified wine, but who would drug me and why?”
“Your bedfellow, if she had an axe to grind, Miss Knowles,”
said Dorothy, who was not at all sure what it was all about. “She might have
faked her own deep sleep so that she could go out without your knowing.”
“Phillis is not that much of a tactician, surely,” said Cleo
“She told us that you brewed your own medicines, Miss Knowles,”
said Gary.
“Correction, Mr Hurley. She brews medical potions. I don’t
have time for such nonsense.”
“Supposing she did not know that she had brewed a deadly
concoction and then someone advised her to add it to Mrs Barker’s homemade
soup, would that explain the food poisoning?” said Dorothy.
“I suppose it would.” Knowles admitted. “It’s a nice
theory.”
“You said you worked as an adviser, so advising your friend
Phillis would be quite normal, wouldn’t it?” said Dorothy.
“I was joking. I did not believe she had actually brewed a
poison. She was always trying to impress me.”
“Supposing she had, however?” said Dorothy, giving Gary a
rather triumphant look.
“I expect she wanted you to try it,” said Dorothy.
“It was all a joke,” said Knowles. “I told Phillis to put
some of her vitamin brew in the soup because in that dilution it would be
harmless, even if it did not have the medical value Phillis said it had.”
“Ever heard of homoeopathy, Miss Knowles?” said Dorothy.
***
“But neither of you spent Wednesday night in bed, did you?”
aid Gary. “Can you explain why you went back to the hospital?”
“I actually wanted to see how the women were and I had no
time slot the following day.”
“But you’d already been visiting in the afternoon,” said
Cleo.
“Spit it out,” said Dorothy. “Something is wrong with your
story.”
***
“OK. You’re right, Miss Price. I pretended to be asleep at
Phillis’s place. She got up, dressed, and left the house on foot. It isn’t far
from her place to the hospital and I had a hunch that she was going there, so I
followed her.”
***
“Let’s stop there, Miss Knowles,” said Gary. “I want you to
go into the observation room and watch Phillis when she arrives. Her story
contradicts everything you’ve said so far, and knowing Phillis, I’m inclined to
believe yours.”
***
Gary had taking a liking to Barbarella Knowles and Cleo felt
a wave of jealousy coursing through her veins. He escorted Miss Knowles and
Dorothy to the observation room and made sure they was sitting comfortably
before returning to his office. He saw panic in his wife’s face.
“Nigel, can you please find out if Phillis is on her way
here?” Gary said.
Nigel understood immediately and left the office. He would meet
Phillis downstairs. Gary went into his tiny storeroom and Cleo followed him.
“I do believe you are jealous, Cleo,” he said.
“You were rather familiar with Miss Knowles. It really
hurt.”
“Cleo Hartley, I can’t believe my ears. You know how I feel
about you. Please get a hold on yourself. We have lot of talking to do with our
suspects.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t bear to see you being nice to other
women.”
“I have to be nice to them, Cleo. Just as you are nice to
the men. It means nothing. Get that straight!”
With those words he pulled her to him and indulged their
preference for body hugs. Cleo was unable to resist him.
“Better now, my love?” he said. “Je t’aime.”
“OK, Sweetheart,” said Cleo, but she was still too hurt to
respond to the French endearment.
***
After a decent amount of time given over to Cleo and Gary so
that they could solve the problem that Nigel rightly interpreted as the one
Cleo had with Gary’s attraction to Miss Knowles, the observant assistant came
into the office with Phillis after knocking, which was not something he normally
did when he entered his workplace.
Nigel checked that Dorothy and Miss Knowles were OLK in the
observation room. They were both busy with their phones.
Gary went towards Phillis. Cleo followed at a distance, confused
by her own emotions and not in the mood for a questioning. They had only been
in that little room for a few minutes but to Cleo it felt like an hour and she
was emotionally drained.
***
Gary was anxious for Phillis to repeat what he had decided
was the pack of lies that she had told previously.
“What’s your surname, Phillis?”
“Cartwright. It should be Mrs Bartolo, but it never got that
far.”
“Shouldn’t it have been Mrs Morgan, Miss Cartwright?”
“’That f***ing organist? He went home to mother, didn’t he? Isn’t
Babe here?” said Phillis.
“Should she be?”
“I thought she would be.”
“Why?”
“We are in this together.”
“In what?”
“In the chorus, of course,” said Phillis, improvising.
“Can you see Miss Knowles?” said Gary.
“No, but I need her now,” whined Phillis.
“You’ll have to make do with me, Miss Cartwright,” said
Cleo.
“You can call me Phillis, but you don’t love me like Babe
does.”
“I don’t love you at all,” said Cleo, “but I’m good at
advising people with problems.”
“I haven’t got a problem except that I want to talk to Babe.”
“Talk to me instead,” said Gary. “Tell me again what you
said about Jane Barker’s soup!”
“She poisoned it.”
“Who?”
“Babe.”
Gary was glad that Dorothy was in the observation room with
Knowles and hoped she would restrain the woman for a moment.
“Is there more to say about that, Miss Cartwright?” said
Gary.
“She made the poison then forced me to put it in the soup,
didn’t she?”
“Did she?” Cleo said, deliberately provoking Phillis to
embroider her story.
Gary was relieved that Cleo was at least temporarily
distracted from Miss Knowles.
“If you knew it was poison, you didn’t have to put it in the
soup, Phillis,” Cleo continued. “You could have taken it to the police.”
“I didn’t know it was poisonous and Babe promised to love me
forever.”
“So she knew it was poison, did she?”
“No. We wanted to improve the singing.”
“Miss Knowles is married, isn’t she?
“She’s leaving him for me.”
“I admire your loyalty, Miss Cartwright,” said Gary. “But I
don’t admire you for putting the blame for that soup drama on Miss Knowles if
you love her.”
“What if she told me to put my potion in the soup?”
Cleo picked up on that statement immediately.
“YOUR potion? Didn’t Miss Knowles make it after all?””
Phillis sniffed. She did not like being in the room with
these smart Alecs. She would have to tell them a thing or two that would
impress them.
“I make herbal remedies for inside and outside beauty,” said
Phillis. “I wanted to give her one for her hands.”
“That’s interesting, Miss Cartwright,” said Gary, thinking
that the outside potions had not done much for Phillis. A glare from Cleo told
him that she had read his mind and he was not to make a remark.
“So that was a special potion, was it?” she said.
“Very special. A sort of creamy mushroom magic,” said
Phillis. “I got it out of the internet. Mushrooms grow overnight and so the
potion will make your skin smooth overnight.”
“Wow. But soup is eaten, so the potion should not have gone
into it, should it?” said Cleo.
“The internet said that you could take it like cough mixture
if you were hoarse.”
“So it would improve the singing if the chorus ladies got some, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. We were experimenting with a cure for bad singing.”
“A dangerous game, Miss Cartwright,” said Gary.
“What about people living elsewhere? Would it improve their health?”
said Cleo, now wondering if Phillis had made money out of her potions.
“Elsewhere?”
“Camping and stuff like that,” said Cleo carefully
“I suppose so. I gave some to a friend once, and he was
going give it to his friend. He was camping.”
“The friend wasn’t a Mr Fargo, by any chance, was it?” said
Cleo.
Phillis looked startled.
“How long have you known a Mr Fargo, Phillis?” said Gary,
thinking that it was a ridiculous coincidence.
Is he an older man, Phillis?” Cleo asked, wondering if Dr
Fargo had succumbed to Phillis’s potion-.
“Where did you meet him,” said Cleo.
Phillis bit her lip.
“I don’t get much money in my job,” she said. “So I
advertised my herbal potions in the Gazette.”
“And Mr Fargo got in touch, I expect.”
“He gave me some special mushrooms. He said they were precious
and could I make up a potion from them.”
Talk about Grimm’s fairy tales, thought Gary.
It can’t have been Dr Fargo, Cleo decided.
***
Cleo wondered about the coincidence of Phillis knowing Fargo,
but other people advertise their skills and hobbies in Bertie Browne’s Gazette,
so why not Phillis?
“Did Mr Fargo say where the mushrooms came from?” Gary asked.
“All natural,” said Phillis. “But foreign, Mr Fargo said.
That’s why he needed a skilled person to make them up. He was grateful to find
me.”
“I’m sure he was,” said Gary. “So you made up the medicine
and he paid for it, did he?”
Phillis nodded proudly.
“I’ll let you into a secret, Mr Hurley. I kept some of it
back because I did not know if I would ever get any more of those specially
imported mushrooms. They don’t grow on trees.”
That was a non sequitur.
***
On the whole, Phillis had exonerated Miss Knowles, though
there was the problem of knowing if Knowles or even Phillis knew that the
potion was an unhealthy mixture laced with amatoxins.
“I made some sweeties from some of the mushroom juice,”
Phillis said. “I didn’t tell Babe, but I gave some to Brenda. She was always
coughing.”
“Did you give any to Miss Norton, Phillis?” Cleo asked.
“No, but she was friends with Brenda. Maybe she had a cough,
too and Brenda gave her one.”
“Eileen Norton was smothered, Miss Cartwright,” said Gary.
“I didn’t do it,” Phillis squeaked.
***
Gary now had the unenviable task of deciding how to proceed,
but his thoughts were interrupted by the loud arrival of Knowles, who had
finally broken Dorothy’s resistance to her leaving the observation room and
crashed into the office through the side door.
“You are a terrible liar, Phillis,” she shouted.
Phillis rushed to her with open arms.
“What have I done, my Sweet?”
Knowles pushed her away roughly.
“I’m not your Sweet and you told lies about me. I am not
interested in you and I did not know that the potion you turned up with was
poisonous.”
“Neither did I,” wheezed Phillis.
***
“Come on, Ladies. Supposing you did not know, was that any
reason to go traipsing to the hospital at dead of night?” said Gary.
“How do you know that,” Phillis said.
“You were seen,” said Gary.
That was not quite true. Crown had not seen Phillis.
“But I wasn’t there,” Phillis protested.
“Yes you were,” said Knowles. “I followed you.”
“Why?” said Phillis.
“To see what you would do, Phillis.”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“You did. You went into the hospital, so I followed you to
the women’s internal ward.”
Dorothy had followed Knowles into the office.
“I couldn’t stop her,” she said when there was a short gap
in Knowles’ account.
Phillis looked ebullient. She was clearly hating rather than
loving Miss Knowles now.
“The woman named Brenda Simpson died of a heart attack, Miss
Knowles,” said Gary. “We had no proof that her death is connected to the soup,
but now Phillis has given me to understand that she made up some poisonous
sweeties and gave them to that woman. She was getting better, like all the
others, but her heart gave out thanks to a poisoned sweetie.”
“So which of you gave the nurse that knock-out cocktail,”
Cleo said.
“You mean Crown, don’t you?,” said Knowles. “I put something
in her vodka. She drank it all in one gulp and collapsed in a heap, silly
woman.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t want her to see me, and thought Phillis needed
protecting from herself.”
“Did you see Phillis leave?”
“I never went there,” said Phillis.
“Of course you did, you silly girl,” said Knowles.
“You’ve split on me now,” said Phillis.
“And you’ve admitted going to the hospital,” said Cleo.
Gary watched the drama unfolding. Pure Greek theatre, he
mused.
“I left the hospital immediately, but Phillis didn’t, did
you, Phillis?”
***
Timing was everything in the theatre. Gary decided to step
into this drama without further ado.
“Why did you smother Eileen Norton, Miss Cartwright?” he
said.
That was a genuine shot in the dark.
“She was making eyes at Babe,” said Phillis, who did not
seem to be aware that she was confessing to murder. “I wanted to teach her to
keep her fingers off Babe.”
“I arrest you for the murder of Eileen Norton”, said Gary
and Phillis looked surprised..
Nigel broke off his note-taking to advise Phillis that
anything she said could be used as evidence against her.
“I haven’t said nothing,” said Phillis.
“Shut up, Phillis,” said Knowles. “Don’t say another word.
I’m your lawyer now and I’ll have to get you out of this mess.”
“You’re not a lawyer, Babe.”
“Yes she is, Miss Cartwright,” said Gary. “Take Phillis down
to the arrest cells, Nigel, and make sure she is thoroughly searched. She might
have a bonbon or two in her pocket.
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