The Murder Room by P. D. James Page A

Mrs. Tally.”
    â€œNor do I. It was just a remark. Rather a silly one now I come to think of it. Murder isn’t a pleasant subject.”
    â€œNo, but it’s interesting. Did I tell you that Mr. Calder-Hale took me round the museum last Friday morning?”
    â€œNo you didn’t, Ryan.”
    â€œHe saw me weeding the front bed when he arrived. He said good morning, so I asked him, ‘Can I see the museum?’ He said, ‘You can, but it’s a question of whether you may. I don’t see why not.’ So he told me to clean up and join him in the front hall. I don’t think Miss Godby liked it from the look she gave me.”
    Tally said, “It was good of Mr. Calder-Hale to take you round. Working here—well it was right that you had a chance to see it.”
    â€œWhy couldn’t I see it before and on my own? Don’t they trust me?”
    â€œYou’re not kept out because we don’t trust you. It’s just that Miss Godby doesn’t like people who haven’t paid wandering about at will. It’s the same for everyone.”
    â€œNot for you.”
    â€œWell it can’t be, Ryan. I have to dust and clean.”
    â€œOr for Miss Godby.”
    â€œBut she’s the secretary–receptionist. She has to be free to go where she likes. The museum couldn’t be run otherwise. Sometimes she has to escort visitors when Mr. Calder-Hale isn’t here.”
    She thought but didn’t say,
Or doesn’t think they’re important enough.
Instead she asked, “Did you enjoy the museum?”
    â€œI liked the Murder Room.”
    Oh dear, she thought. Well, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. He wouldn’t be the only visitor who had lingered longest in the Murder Room.
    He said, “That tin trunk—do you think it really is the one Violette’s body was put in?”
    â€œI suppose so. Old Mr. Dupayne was very particular about provenance—where the objects come from. I don’t know how he got hold of some of them but I expect he had contacts.”
    He had finished his soup now and took his sandwiches from the bag: thick slices of white bread with what looked like salami between them.
    He said, “So if I lifted the lid I’d see her bloodstains?”
    â€œYou’re not allowed to open the lid, Ryan. The exhibits mustn’t be touched.”
    â€œBut if I did?”
    â€œYou would probably see a stain, but no one can be sure it’s Violette’s blood.”
    â€œBut it could be tested.”
    â€œI think it was. But even if it’s human blood that doesn’t mean it’s her blood. They didn’t know about DNA in those days. Ryan, isn’t this rather a morbid conversation?”
    â€œI wonder where she is now.”
    â€œProbably in a Brighton churchyard. I’m not sure anyone knows. She was a prostitute, poor woman, and perhaps there wasn’t any money for a proper funeral. She may have been buried in what they call a pauper’s grave.”
    But had she? Tally wondered. Perhaps celebrity had elevated her to the rank of those who are dignified in death. Perhaps there had been a lavish funeral, horses with black plumes, crowds of gawpers following the cortège, photographs in the local newspapers, perhaps even in the national press. How ridiculous it would have seemed to Violette when she was young, years before she was murdered, if someone had prophesied that she would be more famous in death than in life, that nearly seventy years after her murder a woman and a boy in a world unimaginably different would be talking about her funeral.
    She raised her eyes and heard Ryan speaking. “I think Mr. Calder-Hale only asked me because he wanted to know what I’m doing here.”
    â€œBut Ryan, he knows what you’re doing. You’re the part-time gardener.”
    â€œHe wanted to know what I did on the other days.”
    â€œAnd what did you tell