[MaC] Interviewing Esme

[Ree Moorhead Pruehs]

At 02:40 PM 1/1/2005, you wrote:

>--- Mel Mason <goldfired at oxmust.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > >> Back in Vangie's flat, Esme Fitzroy was pressed tight into the
> > corner
> > >> of the
> > >> sofa, twisting a handkerchief over and over in her nervous hands.
> > >> When
> > >> Vangie offered her a cup of tea, she started as though she
> > expected
> > >> it
> > >> contained poison.
> > >
> > > Cyril glanced out the door, torn between following the commotion
> > back
> > > upstairs or staying to help Esme.  He worried increasingly about
> > > Florence, but Esme appeared to know something about what was
> > happening
> > > here.  He ventured a question to his distraught neighbor.  "Esme,
> > > dear," he asked gently, "what do you know?  How did you know about
> > > Nola's ...condition."
> > >
> >
> > Esme gave a little gulp.
> >
> > "I ... I ... knew ... She told me that it was a friend of hers.  She
> > wanted
> > to know ... But I couldn't help her!  Of course I couldn't!  How
> > would I
> > know anything about that?"
>
>"Of course, you couldn't," Cyril answered cautiously, since he had no
>clue what she was talking about.  He glanced at Vangie and Arabella to
>see if this made any more sense to a woman than it did to him.  He also
>glanced nervously at the door, as it sounded as if the crowd upstairs
>might be in the vicinity of his own flat.

=Because you always made it a point that you -didn't- know, you didn't 
hear, you never saw anything,= thought Vangie.


><tag anyone in the room or passing the door>

Arabella nodded slightly. She, for one, would have been hard pressed to 
find such 'help' had she been approached. Some women knew where to obtain 
the necessary expertise, of course, or these things would not 
happen.  Esme's words also reinforced her original thoughts that someone 
else had been involved with the poor girl - for really, if Marty Fitzroy 
had gotten Nola Diamond in her condition, would she have turned for help to 
Fitzroy's wife?

"Mrs. Fitzroy," she asked, "you seemed anxious long before the tragedy 
occurred. What has been upsetting you so?"