Five
Along the path towards us came a tall figure walking briskly. It had on abattered old felt hat, a shapeless skirt, and a rather cumbersome² jersey³.
“Aunt Edith,” said Sophia.
The figure paused once or twice, stooping to the flower borders, then itadvanced upon us. I rose to my feet.
“This is Charles Hayward, Aunt Edith. My aunt, Miss de Haviland.”
Edith de Haviland was a woman of about seventy. She had a mass of un-tidy grey hair, a weather-beaten face and a shrewd and piercing glance.
“How d’ye do?” she said. “I’ve heard about you. Back from the East.
How’s your father?”
Rather surprised, I said he was very well.
“Knew him when he was a boy,” said Miss de Haviland. “Knew hismother very well. You look rather like her. Have you come to help us—orthe other thing?”
“I hope to help,” I said rather uncomfortably.
She nodded.
“We could do with some help. Place swarming⁴ with policemen. Pop outat you all over the place. Don’t like some of the types. A boy who’s been toa decent school oughtn’t to go into the police. Saw Moyra Kinoul’s boy theother day holding up the traffic at Marble Arch. Makes you feel you don’tknow where you are!”
She turned to Sophia.
“Nannie’s asking for you, Sophia. Fish.”
“Bother,” said Sophia. “I’ll go and telephone about it.”
She walked briskly towards the house. Miss de Haviland turned andwalked slowly in the same directon. I fell into step beside her.
“Don’t know what we’d all do without nannies,” said Miss de Haviland.
“Nearly everybody’s got an old nannie. They come back and wash andiron and cook and do housework. Faithful. Chose this one myself—yearsago.”
She stopped and pulled viciously at an entangling⁵ twining bit of green.
“Hateful stuff—bindweed! Worst weed there is! Choking, entangling—and you can’t get at it properly, runs along underground.”
With her heel she ground the handful of greenstuff viciously underfoot.
“This is a bad business, Charles Hayward,” she said. She was looking to-wards the house. “What do the police think about it? Suppose I mustn’task you that. Seems odd to think of Aristide being poisoned. For that mat-ter it seems odd to think of him being dead. I never liked him—never! ButI can’t get used to the idea of his being dead … Makes the house seem so—empty.”

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