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call me Aunt Letty, but actually they are distant cousins. Their mother was my second cousin.”
    â€œHave they always made their home with you?”
    â€œOh, dear no, only for the last two months. They lived in the South of France before the war. Patrick went into the Navy and Julia, I believe, was in one of the Ministries. She was at Llandudno. When the war was over their mother wrote and asked me if they could possibly come to me as paying guests—Julia is training as a dispenser in Milchester General Hospital, Patrick is studying for an engineering degree at Milchester University. Milchester, as you know, is only fifty minutes by bus, and I was very glad to have them here. This house is really too large for me. They pay a small sum forboard and lodging and it all works out very well.” She added with a smile, “I like having somebody young about the place.”
    â€œThen there is a Mrs. Haymes, I believe?”
    â€œYes. She works as an assistant gardener at Dayas Hall, Mrs. Lucas’s place. The cottage there is occupied by the old gardener and his wife and Mrs. Lucas asked if I could billet her here. She’s a very nice girl. Her husband was killed in Italy, and she has a boy of eight who is at a prep school and whom I have arranged to have here in the holidays.”
    â€œAnd by way of domestic help?”
    â€œA jobbing gardener comes in on Tuesdays and Fridays. A Mrs. Huggins from the village comes up five mornings a week and I have a foreign refugee with a most unpronouncable name as a kind of lady cook help. You will find Mitzi rather difficult, I’m afraid. She has a kind of persecution mania.”
    Craddock nodded. He was conscious in his own mind of yet another of Constable Legg’s invaluable commentaries. Having appended the word “Scatty” to Dora Bunner, and “All right” to Letitia Blacklock, he had embellished Mitzi’s record with the one word “Liar.”
    As though she had read his mind Miss Blacklock said:
    â€œPlease don’t be too prejudiced against the poor thing because she’s a liar. I do really believe that, like so many liars, there is a real substratum of truth behind her lies. I mean that though, to take an instance, her atrocity stories have grown and grown until every kind of unpleasant story that has ever appeared in print has happened to her or her relations personally, she did have a bad shock initially and did see one, at least, of her relations killed. I think a lot of these displaced persons feel, perhaps justly, that their claim to our noticeand sympathy lies in their atrocity value and so they exaggerate and invent.”
    She added: “Quite frankly, Mitzi is a maddening person. She exasperates and infuriates us all, she is suspicious and sulky, is perpetually having ‘feelings’ and thinking herself insulted. But in spite of it all, I really am sorry for her.” She smiled. “And also, when she wants to, she can cook very nicely.”
    â€œI’ll try not to ruffle her more than I can help,” said Craddock soothingly. “Was that Miss Julia Simmons who opened the door to me?”
    â€œYes. Would you like to see her now? Patrick has gone out. Phillipa Haymes you will find working at Dayas Hall.”
    â€œThank you, Miss Blacklock. I’d like to see Miss Simmons now if I may.”

Six
J ULIA, M ITZI AND P ATRICK
    I
    J ulia, when she came into the room, and sat down in the chair vacated by Letitia Blacklock, had an air of composure that Craddock for some reason found annoying. She fixed a limpid gaze on him and waited for his questions.
    Miss Blacklock had tactfully left the room.
    â€œPlease tell me about last night, Miss Simmons.”
    â€œLast night?” murmured Julia with a blank stare. “Oh, we all slept like logs. Reaction, I suppose.”
    â€œI mean last night from six o’clock onwards.”
    â€œOh, I see. Well, a lot of tiresome people