Death of a Gentle Lady

you, ducks, that she could run upstairs to the girl’s room and find out how she was getting on, but Mrs Gentle said, “If you’ve finished, just go.” Thank goodness we got a cheque from her there and then because we might not have got paid, considering she got shoved over the cliff.’
    ‘And if she hadn’t have been shoved over the cliff, I might have thought she killed the girl,’ said Alison.
    ‘Why did you not come forward and give the police this information?’ asked Anna.
    ‘Because we got two other jobs and put it out of our minds,’ said Alison. ‘I mean, when we read in the papers that Mrs Gentle had been murdered, well, we assumed that whoever killed her, killed the maid.’
    ‘I am afraid I will have to ask you to accompany us to headquarters,’ said Hamish. ‘We will need to take statements from both of you.’
    ‘Ooh! This is exciting. I’ll just tell the boss where we are going.’
    When they came back, they said they would follow in their own car and do some shopping in Strathbane.
    ‘I hope it’s still low tide,’ said Hamish as he drove off with the cooks following, ‘otherwise the shore road will be flooded.’
    Great buffets of wind shook the Land Rover. Water was only just beginning to reach the shore road as they drove along beside a mountainous sea.

    Blair had been sent back to headquarters by Daviot, who was angry over Blair’s insulting Anna. He saw them arriving and rushed down to waylay them. Anna gave him a concise report about what they had learned from the two women.
    ‘I’ll take over here,’ said Blair. ‘The inspector and I will take statements from these ladies. Get off wi’ you.’
    ‘I haff to drive the inspector here back to her hotel,’ said Hamish.
    ‘I’ll do that. Move, laddie. That’s an order.’
    Blair had conducted a bullying interview and the statements had been taken. He was just leaving the police station with Anna when Daviot met them. To Blair’s fury, Anna described succinctly the latest discovery and credited Hamish with finding it all out.
    ‘And where is Macbeth?’ asked Daviot.
    ‘This man sent him away,’ said Anna coldly.
    ‘I’ll have a word with you later,’ said Daviot. ‘Where are you off to?’
    ‘Just taking this lady back to her hotel.’

    Blair tried to converse with Anna on the road to Lochdubh, but she maintained a mutinous silence. To his surprise, though, when she reached the hotel she suddenly smiled at him.
    ‘I think this bit of success demands a Russian celebration,’ she said.
    ‘And what’s that?’
    ‘Vodka, of course.’
    Anna strode into the bar and ordered a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. ‘Now,’ she said, filling up the glasses, ‘we drink Russian style.’
    She tossed down the contents of her glass in one gulp. Blair cheerfully followed suit. They drank toast after toast, one bottle and then another. ‘And the third one ish on me,’ cried Blair. He stumbled across to the bar and then was violently sick, projectile vomit which shot right across the bar and splashed on the mirror. There were a few people in the bar. They began to leave hurriedly as Blair turned round, vomited violently again, and fell on the carpet.
    Priscilla came hurrying in as Anna was calmly phoning for an ambulance. ‘It’ll take too long to get here,’ said Priscilla. But Blair was in luck. The ambulance had been in Lochdubh, delivering an elderly patient back home, when the driver received the call.
    When Blair had been carried off, Priscilla said angrily, ‘The man should not have been drinking at all. He was just out of hospital after a bout of alcohol poisoning.’
    ‘Then now he has another,’ said Anna. ‘I must go and see Constable Macbeth.’
    ‘Then you had better change your jacket,’ said Priscilla. ‘Your sleeve is soaking wet.’
    ‘So it is. Thank you.’ Anna walked off.
    ‘She did that deliberately,’ said Priscilla to the white-faced barman. ‘She got him to drink and tipped most of hers down her sleeve. She could have killed him. I’d better warn Hamish. She’s a dangerous woman. I’d better get the maids in here to clear this mess up. The smell is making me sick!’

    Hamish was in the hen run, nailing up a board on the henhouse, when Anna arrived wearing civilian clothes.
    ‘Your birds look quite mature,’ she said. ‘You do not like to kill them?’
    ‘I keep them for the eggs,’ said Hamish. ‘I hear you nearly killed Blair.’
    ‘Ah, the blonde lady who looks