"I do, but Detective Inspector Bragg here prefers English," Evan said.

"Detective Inspector? Dear me-what on earth is this about? Nothing's missing from any of the homes I clean, is it? I'm always so particular about locking up after me." She glanced up and down the street to see if any neighbors were watching.

"No, I'm afraid it's more serious than that, Mrs. Ellis. Do you mind if we come inside?"

"All right," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "Come on, then." She led them into a small, dark living room at the back of the house. There were two well-worn armchairs facing a television set, but she indicated the straight-backed chairs on either side of a Welsh dresser to the policemen. She herself did not sit but stood in front of an electric fireplace, her bony arms folded.

"I believe you work for the Rogers on Oak Grove Road?" Bragg asked.

"Oh yes, I do. I have done for years. A very nice lady, Mrs. Rogers. Very refined."

"I'm afraid we have some bad news for you. Professor Rogers was found dead this morning."

"Found dead? Well, I can't say I'm really surprised. I've seen it coming."

"What do you mean?" Bragg asked sharply.

"Well, that man was working himself to death, wasn't he? And always strung up, like a rubber band ready to snap. I always thought he might end up having a heart attack."

"So tell me about him, Mrs. Ellis. He was always 'strung up,' as you put it? Was he ever at home when you worked there? What was he like?"

"Well, he wasn't easy to please. He liked everything just so. And if everything wasn't how he wanted it, he'd fly off the handle. If I dusted his desk and moved one of his papers, he'd let me know it. But then if I didn't dust, he'd point that out to me, too. 'You missed a spot here, Gwladys,' he'd say."

"So why did you keep on going there if he was so unpleasant?" Bragg asked.

"I wouldn't say he was unpleasant, just hard to please. He was the perfect gentleman most of the time. Ever so polite, you know. He'd always open the door for me if he saw me coming, that sort of thing. But he was a perfectionist, you know. Everything had to be arranged in the exact order he wanted it, or he wasn't happy. His food had to be just right too. Poor Mrs. Rogers-if she over- or undercooked something, he'd let her have it."

" 'Let her have it'?" Bragg looked up sharply. "You mean he hit her?"

"Oh no, sir. Nothing like that. Like I just said, Professor Rogers was a gentleman. But he'd yell a lot. 'Missy, where are you? Come down here right away. I thought I told you I wanted my eggs cooked for three minutes.' That's the way he spoke to her."

"And how did she speak to him?"

"She was always polite and calm. 'I'm sorry, Martin. I'll pay better attention to it next time.' That was the way to calm him down. If she got upset and cried, it just made him shout louder."

"So he wasn't what you'd call an easy man to live with?" Bragg asked.

"No sir, I'd say definitely not."

"So you'd say it was a difficult marriage then? A strained marriage?"

She thought for a moment. "I'd say he was fond enough of her in his way. He could be quite affectionate if he was in a good mood. The trick was keeping him in a good mood."

"Tell me about Mrs. Rogers," Bragg said. "What does she do with herself? Does she go out much?"

"No sir. Very much the homebody, Mrs. Rogers is. She loves her garden and she's always working on the house-polishing, cleaning, to make sure everything is just perfect. She does do the flowers for the church. She takes great pride in her flowers."

"What about friends? Do friends drop in often?"

"Not when I'm there, sir. I can't say what happens on the other days."

"Has she ever worked outside the home?"

"Not since I've been going there," Mrs. Ellis said. "I gather she met Professor Rogers when they were both students at the university, and she worked while he was still studying for his higher degrees. But then old Mr. Rogers died, and they inherited a fair bit of money and the house, so I understand, and she didn't need to work after that."

Evan thought of how many women would love to be in Missy Rogers's shoes-enough money, beautiful house, time to do whatever she wanted. And yet he sensed that Missy Rogers didn't see it as a blessing at all.

"Don't you want to know how Professor Rogers died, Mrs. Ellis?" Bragg asked.

"I presumed it would be a heart attack. That kind of man, who gets upset so easily, they always say is prone to heart trouble, don't they?"

"Actually he was murdered, Mrs. Ellis. Someone shot him while he was eating breakfast this morning."

"Dear Lord." She put her hand up to her mouth. "Who could have done such a terrible thing?"

"Any ideas, Mrs. Ellis?" Bragg asked. "You say that Professor Rogers tended to fly off the handle easily. Did he have any particular people he feuded with? Any rows with the neighbors?"

"He didn't get along with old Colonel Partridge next door, but that was over silly, petty things. The colonel complained if the dog barked or if they played music with the windows open. And, of course, Professor Rogers wasn't going to let the old man get the better of him so he complained right back. The colonel was getting deaf, and he'd started to turn his radio up loud enough to hear. Professor Rogers would telephone him and tell him to turn down the noise." Mrs. Ellis played with the edge of her pinny, twisting the fabric nervously in her fingers. "But you don't go killing somebody for trifling little things like that, do you?"

"What about his work at the university? Did he clash with any of his colleagues there?"

"I couldn't tell you that, sir. I only go there one morning a week. I've no idea what the Rogers do with the rest of their lives. Mrs. Rogers is not one to gossip, so I really don't know much about them apart from what I see with my own eyes."

Inspector Bragg stood up. Evan followed suit, giving the old lady an encouraging smile. "Thank you, Mrs. Ellis. You've been most helpful."

"I must telephone poor Mrs. Rogers," she said, as she escorted them to the door. "I expect she'll need some help with the cleaning if there have been policemen all over the house. She'll be so upset with all that mess, I shouldn't wonder."

"This Rogers sounds like a right sod," Bragg commented as they got into the squad car and drove away. "It's looking better by the minute that it was the wife who pulled the trigger. She had enough motive, didn't she? Bad-tempered bastard of a husband and enough money and a nice house if she was rid of him."

"Yes, but . . ." Evan began. He instinctively liked Mrs. Rogers. He admired the well-bred way she was handling her pain.

"But what?"

"If Mrs. Rogers did it, why not set up a better alibi for herself? After all, we've only got her word for it that she took the dog for a walk and her husband was killed while she was away. Why call us so soon? Why not shoot him and then be gone for several hours, or plan an overnight trip to a relative so that it would be harder for us to determine the actual time of death?"

"Lucky for us, criminals aren't always too bright," Bragg said. "She probably didn't think it through well enough. She may even have thought we'd take her at her word that she was out walking the dog. Well, I suppose we should hear what Wingate has to report on the gardener, and then it's on to the university. If he behaved like that to his wife and his cleaning lady, I don't suppose he was a saint to his colleagues. Someone there might have had an even better motive than his wife for wanting him out of the way."

The gardener, it turned out, went to the Rogers's once a week. He did all the heavy work; turned over the beds, clipped the hedges, and mowed the lawns.

"Mowed the lawns, you see." Bragg sounded triumphant. "So why did she decide to get the mower out this morning?"

"I suppose the noise of a mower would muffle a shot pretty well," Wingate voiced what Evan had been thinking, "especially a temperamental mower that was hard to get started, according to the gardener. It probably coughed and backfired a few times, so that nobody would notice the sound of a shot."

Bragg nodded as if he agreed with this theory. "So she started the mower, called her husband down to breakfast, shot him, put the mower back in the shed, and then took the dog out for his walk as if nothing had happened," Bragg said. "Cool customer."

"One more thing," Evan said. "If your scenario is right, she went inside to close the window."

"And to make sure he was really dead, I should think."

"But this is all supposition," Evan said. "We've no real evidence. We can't jump to conclusions like this until we know more about Professor Rogers and his life. If Martin Rogers really was that annoying to live with, she could always have left him. She's still young and able-bodied. She could start a new life easily enough, and he'd have to have paid her alimony."

"I suppose you've got a point there," Bragg said. "As she said herself, you only kill somebody when there is no other way out."