Page
1.
THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1957.
Part six of our mystery seria! No Flowers by Request Export
Mrs. Merlon, à widow, takes a job as cook-housekeeper in an old rectory. The atmosphere is a strange one, for her. em.. ployer has an invalid wife, tended by a nurse, and a neurotic nephew. His niece also lives there. On the nurse's night out, the ailing woman goes into a coma and dies. The post-mortem establishes that she was poisoned, Nerves are reaching breaking point....
I
WENT to look for Mrs Hutchinson. 1 wanted her to do the vegetables. On my way, duster in hand, I met
Nurse Cutler,
"Oh," she said, staring spitefully at "I notice that the duster in my hand.
if you're above doing nurreʼr work pon have no objection to helping out that charlady! Tastes differ. I
must say!" She was going on past me down the stairs, but I stopped her.
"One moment, Nurse Cutler," "There is something I want to ask you.”
I said,
I could not swear to it, but it that something peemed to me very much like panie, fled, as it were, into her eyes.
"O" she said.
"It is about Mra ford's death," I went on,
Carring-
No more panic
1/011
14 remember "You asked me whether it was I who act her up against the pillows, and I told you that I did not?" "I remember, she said, and
ber сус the punte fled from again, leaving her as she hed looked on
night of the the
death deflated, colourless
limp,
"I told vers
And
that MTB
Deane said the same thing, and so the did. Why? What
you bring
that up
makes again? it
couldn't have had any dearing.
"That tn't what you said at
the time," "You
reminded
sati-
remember
worda
because
80
sounded to BILL!
her.
HOUT
Bicy
επίτε
ordinary unleas you posseES knowledge which has not been revealed to the rest of us-pou said, 'Looks as though we're all in it together. You remember
"I don't know what
Mrs Merton," getting at,
"Perhaps
reurled,
you're
sho
you'll say
straight out that you mean!"
Strange ring
I'm
"But that is just what asking YOU to do, Nurse Cut- ter," returned. "Whatever you meant by those words, they have a strange ring now that there fa all this mystery over Mrs Carringford's death,
and
that the inquest has had to be adjourned so that the police coftret further evidence, What exactly were you getting all-and whom did you mean by all?"
"Her eyes llckered away from mine. All her cheup arrogance was gone, and it was a worried, who stood frightened woman
before me.
"You don't know what know," the muttered, I held her eyes for a full hat-minute. is no business of mine,"
I replied. "Anything you know
you ought
this
}
tell the police. As
I ficked the
clean duster I was holding. ...
But I didn't
poison
my wife
bish! Precious Bane,
Dandy
for UK
and all that! Do you By ROBERT WALLING
ace what I mean,"
"What I
ace mortERE it is: the dandy clearly is that you'd H British Metropolitan
better
00 to
bcd,"
Super Snipe
HOME, JAMES-
THAT'S HOW IT
FEELS
ROBERT GLENTON tosts the new cars
Here? Do you dneh is to a state occasion.
Pit that American drivers have round and open doors for your passengers? Then you enjoyed for three years.
urbane
I sald coldly. call you when it uch is ready." And with that
I steered him from the den.
But I had not the heart to set to work
Some- Seriously Marcus
on the room.
was thing wrong.
and
дго
in
a
very
مة
are your motoring, of life as the Duke of Norfolk
In an expense account world this is the car to go with it. There is enough room in the back to hold a directors meet to minority. Either that or ing, and like a boardroom, Today it is released
every home motorista. And the rich aunt Mabel is in the there are ashtrays
hand, thick carpets, and rich modest price is £713 178. back seat.
leather...and almost na mich Or do you just sit and polished woodwork as the top purchase tax paid.
ask indignantly if everyone of the boardroom table. What do you get for is going to take ALL day Not everybody wants a back- knew what it was. 1 that money? My test shows making up their minds? of-the-chauffeur's-head view of flicked around
you have 80 m.p.h. if you That, from my observation, motoning. There are plenty of lessly after te had
and then pulled want it, just over 30 m.p.g., is very likely indeed. myself together end and heater; radio, air con- went down my ditioning, and cigar lighter kitchen, there to call built in. counter, of all people, young Trent Carringford.
"Sorry to intrude," he In his usual half-teasing, something I want your advies
alling manner, "but Nanny Merton,"
By Gladys Mitchell
*** Characters in the case *** THE story weaves around widowed Mrs MERTON,
gentlewoman cook-housekeeper to the Carring- fords. They are commercial artist MARCUS CAR- RINGFORD and his wife-who is bedridden-TRENT CARRINGFORD, a war-wounded naphew, and MRS PHILIPPA DEANE, a niece of the norvy type. Mrs Carringford is looked aftor by NURSE CUTLER and visited by DR GRAYLING. Án interesting outsider, blonde JOY BARNSLOW, comes to help in the garden, and another outsidor is MRS HUTCHINSON, the daily holp. Sennacherib, the cat, completes the household.
ናና
"What I do in the way of carpet-sweeper downstairs while housework I do of my Own I choice."
Innuendoes
Into Marcus Carring-
went ford's den.
It was in even worse disorder than usual, but none of the "Of course, Mrs Merton," usual drawings was about she answered. She still sound think she was a good woman. What her private life and
In-
ed completely deffated I let
She private thoughts were I had not
her go, but I was worried.
know something, probably cause of her profession
be stead there were papers every- -old, income-tax de- which
(all punds and receipts, bills
was hidden from the rest of us. receipted, as far as I could see)
I could not help wondering
and
វា
lot of torn-up paper any-
what it was. It was something which might have been
to do with the fact that Mrs
Carringford had been situng up when (ar just before) she died.
things
In the midst of all this mess
I racked my brains, but the at the master of the house.
fact is
that, apart from childish Beside him was complaints, such as chicken-
a bottle of
brandy, and the atmosphere of
In the midst of
all this mess
sat the master
of
the house. The at- mosphore of the room told
tale. its own
said,
Certain it is that Austin's not halt-Sir Leonard Lord did
tion money with this model, there's lose British Motor Corpora although his corporation re cently reported an overall Now, with a bigger. loss.
kuose that 1 aith
ve advice, qualified to Trent," I answered, I felt ru had enough for one morning,
Dead scared
"I know, Nanny went on, lakingt
Caro
dear." ho 10 A3 did poor ad, to keep siste of his face beller
But I think you
The wight help a bloke out,
always
the
towards me.
person I'm worried Philippe.
about
is
She's dead scared
all this hoodoo, and no wonder. I suppose you know
her mory?"
"Of course I don't, I've only here a matter of days," been
I said.
thought 371
lamented aunt
late
147) - marriage Բել - have told you. But I would want you to know that Philippa do with this had nothing to
let her business. You might
you, and know that I've told that I'm prepared to stand by her to the last,"
"I give
I began;
10 undertaking," but he would not
isten
"The point to that her hus- banda cad and
ever
thera
Was
cvidence
4
one!
You sweep past
Now I have found a £1,000 cure for slipshod drivers.
Go and buy 211 automatic transmission Humber Super Snipe and change your name to Jamca Bor here is a car bound as closely to the chauffeur way
The Austin Metropolitan
80 m.p. If you want it
market, it should accelerate BMC into the black again.
Snicking the shori lever root- ed in the dashboard's base into
AL 05 m.p.h. the ride shockless,
owner-driver customers for this
car.
But even they will soon learn to look down a dignified nose at the cut and thrust of work- 4-day driving going on beyond
the windsonG-EN.
You don't overtake in this car. You sweep past. And, as i gol just over 100 miles an hour out
of the Super Snipe, sweeping
past is the only phrane.
You don't compete for that vacant few inches in City traffic, Instead, you make a royal pro- gression.
In the two-pedal Snipe the technique comes naturally. Pul the lever to "Drive," touch the you go throttle pedal and off as gently es you like. Switch it to "Reverse." It really is as simple as that.
Somewhere, some mechanical 1ggery pokery is doing all your And gear changing for you. doing
St better than most drivers. All you should feel is a smail change in the engine note as it happens,
In the Super Saipe there is a well but, after Httle anaich ag
most human gear changes, it is hardly noticeable.
Don't press
down too hard
with your right foot when you start off with automatic trans- mission or you will find your self rather sharply in the next can But any motorist street.
to this readily adapt himself have
new automation which is cer
Anything wrong with 117 Yes the steering lock could be
seats could better; the
rotter if firs. gear we are away with a higher backs to hold you wheninly here to stay.
died under very suspicious circum- stances a short time-back, fie was poisoned, Fortunately the
jury took the COTONCT's
point that it was
Micid piew
Gray otherwise might have found her- scif u Queer Street. So if the seema nervy and a bit beside herself, just remember that's she's been here before." His no! voles was defiant and did
his argument. hc P
"She's
, thanks to TOL
been here before,"
he repented.
I could not for the life of me decide whether he was really pleading her cause or putting me on my guard.
frisky surge from the 1%-ire accelerating fully: the hand- A58 engine. Inte second unul brake, right-handed is too far
forward. the speedometer wars smartly to 80 m.p.h.: then a change into top,
A frisky surge
Up a long hill the car holds the speed for a while, then the speed needle staris creeping up again Over the gentle crest at 70 mph, and a second later the Yet the needle flickers at 80. engine is hardly-run-in,
But there is much horse-sense Things like in this steady car. a light luminating the mid- right-blue rubb- flear curpet; the absence of chromium on the dashboard; the full-skirted body which makes it difcult to rub a kerb with the wheels when pulling up; the "picture" alde
windows.
Room? Adequate for two adults and two (or three) small Or the children in the back. back seats can give at emer- geney lift to a grown-up friend. Value for money? Definitely
From today you can
have
Afterwards, the road twis's. The Metropolitan leans a little, with the wide bonnet rising and Rolls Royce and Bentley cars inch or 60 as the with power-steering at an extra transatlantic-style springing cost of £105, purchase tax paid,
the kick
out of read Formerly this had been confined
to models for export.
• ON SATURDAY our third author, Anthony Gilbert, takes over, bringing you a lakes
further thrilling-episode. bumpa.
כזם
A CAR THAT GOES WITH SPRING
THE AUSTIN A.105
pox and measles, I have little the room hek Its own inle, Knowledge of Illness, and her aly innuendoes really meant "I think you had better go to nothing to me; neither did I bed," I said severely. "I have 10. convverativa oraz propose to question her further come to clear up this work. I did not like her, and I did not room."
the faintest idea,
query
Was
"Oh, you have?" mid he,
QUDDENLY it's spring!
ROBERT GLENTON road-tests the Austin A105"
he doesn't care A.105 seemed busy when it was nation of drivers wants, and we
if it doesn't look doing it, but at very high can compliment ourselves on our
Uko
ship,
# space- cruising speeds and pottering taste.
about, it was absolutely silent,"
Now for figures:-
0-30 mph, 4.2sec.
78
Cornering Each year ho
is good and safe.
0-00 m.p.h, 15.8sec. drives faster and There is some understeer, but
The suspension is Top. 101
m.p.h.; third, more safely, not much.
harder than one usually finds m.p.h.; second, 53 m.ph. (Using Every motoring today and that does away with overdrive, the Intermediate gear Innovation is most of the drunken-saltor spoeds
obviously much tried out. Some rolling that afflicts many cars, higher.) are adopted,
Fuel These are the things you find out when driving.
are
consumption, hard, 24 m.p..
driven
most are modi- ned. We still sell more cars abroad
What will impress the poten- The speedometer was less Who is to than anyone else,
at 80 tial customer at first night is than 1 mph. wrong "Only one thing disturbed my looking owish. See here, my
The picnic basket is
Say the British motorist is
the finish of the A.105. Let all mp.h. mind. What was the matier
wrong?
those who denigrate British cars that she dear, what do you reaaly think more vital than the arm-
There FOR THE TECHNICAL: with Philippa Deane
About
look at this one! And if he's right, then I have take my wife, chair and the family car in BO nervous and happened? seemed
you know. I can't get anyone
capacity, 2,030 CA worried?
to tell me the truth. Now, they more important than the been testing the car that must is no sloping bonnet sliding Engino six cylinder, overhead
be as near to his heart as it is down to the front wheels,, no valve; This particular
What's your living-room. Soon, not a
possible to get..... the Austin acres of sheet metal projecting Suspension: Front indepen answered, soon
although all talk to you.
dent, coil spring; rear - Bernt- all over the place. A.105.
elliptical. Prico £789, plus whether truthfully or not honest opinion? Do tell me!" bluebell will be safe and "I haven't one," I answered there will be no woodland could not, at that time, tell.
the £400, 17s, tax. Total £1,199 distressed "And people don't Nurse Culler went on her way
talk to me. They try to talk clearing without its parked downstairs, and I ascended flush Mrs Hutchinson from her lair. This proved to be my own bedroom, which I had under- taken to keep clean and tidy myself.
to
Thank you, Mrs Hutchin son,” I said." - "The vegetabler are in. Perhaps you would go down and do them, and I will finish here."
***Just; as you like, dear," she
to one
another through me. What do you yourself think?"
car.
BIC, FLEXIBLE
There's nothing revolutionary "All sorts of things, MTB This is our way of life Merton. If I had any suspicions and we want the vehicle to about It. The engine is in the front. And, the back suspension
דיי
There were faults with car of course, but most of them 176. wero. trivial.
I suppose I'd suspect myself, go with it. There is a lot is a direct descendant of a fire bus, you see, I can't do of talk about the retrograde alago couch. that because I know I didn't
British and their motors.
·GLENTON'S SCORE CARD
Remarka
101
WILL IT FIT YOUR The trafflentor switch has a GARAGE? Length, 15ft. 8in.; warning light so bright that at width, 6ft 4in.; height, 5ft 2in. first I thought I had caught and it is a pest at night. Nall varnish soon cured that There is a permanently It is as conservative 款識 a ilkminated row of control in- the instrument aumaner's day at Ascot and just dioators on They say we are still in, the as attractive,
not panel, The lights are daya and
nooded and just mean
extra borseless carriage point to all these poly
The A.105 is one of the best-wiring to go wrong, ในเง replied. The affectionate terms he might utter any india foreign cars with nolry airs built cars I have driven, now used by charwomen, shop-
"Didn't poison my wife you cooled engines in the back girls and bus conductors will never really become part of my know. Those policemen think animated blacult ins life. To me they always conver I did. I can tell they do. But underline that our
"Didn't do what, Mr Car- ringford?" I was becoming alarmed. In his peccent state tional
to
his master, of course he isn't science, berdure, you know,
the velled insult implicit in the they're wrong. The real trouble are feudal. theory that Jack is as good as. Her between me and my con
and motor-cura
But
the Englishman
(and
TOO FAR AWAY
|Enginu,
[Steering "
Accelerm
Buspension Cornering.
Comfort. 5- Trimming
•
The engino is big, flexible, smooth. The four-speed gear-box is well chosen, and the stoering-column change is good, The overdrive pull is about is although recand gour someimes far, from the driver as it is
posible to get, and war' obvious took some Anding
ly put there by someone whowo This is a car for the family Senuckles fough the
ground when which likes to travel fast, The he walks It must hold the family and top spesa fu aleaty over 100 But all in all, the A.108 re. Curbor
wymyiling, that, this inder;an hour;:; Admittedly, the presenta
kt he were he would surely be Mrs Mig, I've thought of it the Scotsman) likes, a car
master on his own account good many times, Digitale di stout as his houser instead of a paid employee, and with all those four glori Anyhow i was as I likod," doll by where * Bite: Whats
man took & buma, and the. Nome ( burne (the, porden rab-] the peta and the luggage, And
gold-brick
salesmart.
AJITH
underateT.
Ahead of the
QUINE,
Little Toil
change. P
Here to stay
I have told you of things I Uke about the Super Snipe There are more. The car is fast and the ride is comfortable. The controls are simple to manage, The engine is magificent and as silent as a strike-bound ship- yard.
All the instruments are well placed end easy to read.
But there are things that 1 The cur disliked just as much.
and fost understeers severely comering, especially in the wet, needs care and two hands, And by fast cornering I don't mean a sports car. driving one handing it like
from a But the icind of
vehicle would expect which will cruise contentedly at over 70 miles an hour.
With
automatic
transmission moet drivers use their brakes a lot. They hold the car against The the pull of the engine brakes on the Super Snipe are true and effective but they are a little
nrad I did Andi spongy some fade.
But perhaps the worst fault of the lot in my car was a little
·
clock over the windacrée. was as annoying na an hysterical metronome, A small thing Indeed, but if I owned the car I would promptly open the markably fall tool kit, take out
large spanner, and allence its death-watch beetlo dirge for
ever.
Snags outweighed
Those are the
car.
snags in this
For most people they will be completely cutweighed by the virtuca.
I don't think Humber'a could possibly
get more comfort in birls cur.
not for the money. There is wainui veneer, adjust- ablo angle separate scats in, the frent if you want them, and all the other refinements that right- minded motorists dream of.
The scats
armchalr aro an salesman's ambition. They are high so that everyone gets the maximum visibility, and you could drive for many hundreds of miles without an ache. There is more than the usual amount of door-pocket space, and the boot is almost big enough to live in,
Certainly, the man who drives a Super Snipe is enrived.
Just as certainly-unless he trica cornering too fast-ho has arrived in comfort.
Performance good
The performance figures cré good.com
D-30 m.p.h., 4.5nec.
0-60 m.p.h., 134 sec.
Top speed 102 m.p.h.
Fuel consumption, driven fair-
ly hard looking for the sun-
shino: 20.4 miles a gallon.
}
The speedometer was flatter- ing. It was 43 mlies an hour fast at 60 miles an hour.
..
FOR THE TECHNICAL: Engine: 0 cylinder, overhead valve; capacity, 4,138.8 e.c. Suspension: front, independent coll spring; rear, semi-elliptical.
£538 17. Price £1,075 plus tax. Total £1,013 176.
WILL IT FTT YOUR GARAGE? Length, 18ft, din:: width, O 1in.; height, 5ft. Blry.
GLENTON'S SCORE CARD
Pts. (Max. Remark
Hmmm......
As smooth as
it's rapid. Happy
- pas-
sengers.
10)
Engine Steering Accelera Hot
Silenti
10
masertive:
...2
8
Suspension
Cornering
8
Gently dee:
B
All you
Comfort
10
Trimming
10
Gearbox
9
money's Dorth,
SUPER
Snipe. The gentle
nudge of a reasonable change.
Keep your sugar dry!
EVEN IN THE
„DAMPEST WEATHER
Fine granulated sugar is now
available in new 5 lb. plastic bags
TAIKOO SUGAR
REFINED SINCE 1884