A Murder Is Announced - Christie Agatha - Страница 27

Edmund Swettenham sat down rather precariously on a garden roller.

‘Good morning, Phillipa,’ he said.

‘Hallo.’

‘Are you very busy?’

‘Moderately.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Can’t you see?’

‘No. I’m not a gardener. You seem to be playing with earth in some fashion.’

‘I’m pricking out winter lettuce.’

‘Pricking out? What a curious term! Like pinking. Do you know what pinking is? I only learnt the other day. I always thought it was a term for professional duelling.’

‘Do you want anything particular?’ asked Phillipa coldly.

‘Yes. I want to see you.’

Phillipa gave him a quick glance.

‘I wish you wouldn’t come here like this. Mrs Lucas won’t like it.’

‘Doesn’t she allow you to have followers?’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘Followers. That’s another nice word. It describes my attitude perfectly. Respectful-at a distance-but firmly pursuing.’

‘Please go away, Edmund. You’ve no business to come here.’

‘You’re wrong,’ said Edmund triumphantly. ‘Ihave business here. Mrs Lucas rang up my mamma this morning and said she had a good many vegetable marrows.’

‘Masses of them.’

‘And would we like to exchange a pot of honey for a vegetable marrow or so.’

‘That’s not a fair exchange at all! Vegetable marrows are quite unsaleable at the moment-everybody has such a lot.’

‘Naturally. That’s why Mrs Lucas rang up. Last time, if I remember rightly, the exchange suggested was some skim milk-skimmilk, mark you-in exchange for some lettuces. It was then very early in the season for lettuces. They were about a shilling each.’

Phillipa did not speak.

Edmund tugged at his pocket and extracted a pot of honey.

‘So here,’ he said, ‘is my alibi. Used in a loose and quite indefensible meaning of the term. If Mrs Lucas pops her bust round the door of the potting shed, I’m here in quest of vegetable marrows. There is absolutely no question of dalliance.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you ever read Tennyson?’ inquired Edmund conversationally.

‘Not very often.’

‘You should. Tennyson is shortly to make a comeback in a big way. When you turn on your wireless in the evening it will be theIdylls of the King you will hear and not interminable Trollope. I always thought the Trollope pose was the most unbearable affectation. Perhaps a little of Trollope, but not to drown in him. But speaking of Tennyson, have you readMaud?’

‘Once, long ago.’

‘It’s got some points about it.’ He quoted softly:

‘“Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.” That’s you, Phillipa.’

‘Hardly a compliment!’

‘No, it wasn’t meant to be. I gather Maud got under the poor fellow’s skin just like you’ve got under mine.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Edmund.’

‘Oh, hell, Phillipa, why are you like you are? What goes on behind your splendidly regular features? What do you think? What do youfeel? Are you happy, or miserable, or frightened, or what? There must besomething.’

Phillipa said quietly:

‘What I feel is my own business.’

‘It’s mine, too. I want to make you talk. I want to know what goes on in that quiet head of yours. I’ve aright to know. I have really. I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I wanted to sit quietly and write my book. Such a nice book, all about how miserable the world is. It’s frightfully easy to be clever about how miserable everybody is. And it’s all a habit, really. Yes, I’ve suddenly become convinced of that. After reading a life of Burne Jones.’

Phillipa had stopped pricking out. She was staring at him with a puzzled frown.

‘What has Burne Jones got to do with it?’

‘Everything. When you’ve read all about the Pre-Raphaelites you realize just what fashion is. They were all terrifically hearty and slangy and jolly, and laughed and joked, and everything was fine and wonderful. That was fashion, too. They weren’t any happier or heartier than we are. And we’re not any more miserable than they were. It’s all fashion, I tell you. After the last war, we went in for sex. Now it’s all frustration. None of it matters. Why are we talking about all this? I started out to talk aboutus. Only I got cold feet and shied off. Because you won’t help me.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Talk!Tell me things. Is it your husband? Do you adore him and he’s dead and so you’ve shut up like a clam? Is that it? All right, you adored him, and he’s dead. Well, other girls’ husbands are dead-lots of them-and some of the girls loved their husbands. They tell you so in bars, and cry a bit when they’re drunk enough, and then want to go to bed with you so that they’ll feel better. It’s one way of getting over it, I suppose. You’ve got to get over it, Phillipa. You’re young-and you’re extremely lovely-and I love you like hell. Talk about your damned husband, tell me about him.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. We met and got married.’

‘You must have been very young.’

‘Too young.’

‘Then you weren’t happy with him? Goon, Phillipa.’

‘There’s nothing to go on about. We were married. We were as happy as most people are, I suppose. Harry was born. Ronald went overseas. He-he was killed in Italy.’

‘And now there’s Harry?’

‘And now there’s Harry.’

‘I like Harry. He’s a really nice kid. He likes me. We get on. What about it, Phillipa? Shall we get married? You can go on gardening and I can go on writing my book and in the holidays we’ll leave off working and enjoy ourselves. We can manage, with tact, not to have to live with Mother. She can fork out a bit to support her devoted son. I sponge, I write tripey books, I have defective eyesight and I talk too much. That’s the worst. Will you try it?’

Phillipa looked at him. She saw a tall rather solemn young man with an anxious face and large spectacles. His sandy head was rumpled and he was regarding her with a reassuring friendliness.

‘No,’ said Phillipa.

‘Definitely-no?’

‘Definitely no.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No, you don’t know anything about anything.’

Edmund considered.

‘Perhaps not,’ he admitted. ‘But who does? Phillipa, my adored one-’ He broke off.

A shrill and prolonged yapping was rapidly approaching.

‘Pekes in the high hall garden,(said Edmund)

When twilight was falling(only it’s eleven a.m.)

Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil,

They were crying and calling

‘Your name doesn’t lend itself to the rhythm, does it? Sounds like an Ode to a Fountain Pen. Have you got another name?’

‘Joan.Please go away. That’s Mrs Lucas.’

‘Joan, Joan, Joan, Joan. Better, but still not good.When greasy Joan the pot doth keel -that’s not a nice picture of married life, either.’

‘Mrs Lucas is-’

‘Oh,hell!’ said Edmund. ‘Get me a blasted vegetable marrow.’

Sergeant Fletcher had the house at Little Paddocks to himself.

It was Mitzi’s day off. She always went by the eleven o’clock bus into Medenham Wells. By arrangement with Miss Blacklock, Sergeant Fletcher had the run of the house. She and Dora Bunner had gone down to the village.

Fletcher worked fast. Someone in the house had oiled and prepared that door, and whoever had done it, had done it in order to be able to leave the drawing-room unnoticed as soon as the lights went out. That ruled out Mitzi who wouldn’t have needed to use the door.

Who was left? The neighbours, Fletcher thought, might also be ruled out. He didn’t see how they could have found an opportunity to oil and prepare the door. That left Patrick and Julia Simmons, Phillipa Haymes, and possibly Dora Bunner. The young Simmonses were in Milchester. Phillipa Haymes was at work. Sergeant Fletcher was free to search out any secrets he could. But the house was disappointingly innocent. Fletcher, who was an expert on electricity, could find nothing suggestive in the wiring or appurtenances of the electric fixtures to show how the lights had been fused. Making a rapid survey of the household bedrooms he found an irritating normality. In Phillipa Haymes’ room were photographs of a small boy with serious eyes, an earlier photo of the same child, a pile of schoolboy letters, a theatre programme or two. In Julia’s room there was a drawer full of snapshots of the South of France. Bathing photos, a villa set amidst mimosa. Patrick’s held some souvenirs of Naval days. Dora Bunner’s held few personal possessions and they seemed innocent enough.

And yet, thought Fletcher, someone in the house must have oiled that door.

His thoughts broke off at a sound below stairs. He went quickly to the top of the staircase and looked down.

Mrs Swettenham was crossing the hall. She had a basket on her arm. She looked into the drawing-room, crossed the hall and went into the dining-room. She came out again without the basket.

Some faint sound that Fletcher made, a board that creaked unexpectedly under his feet, made her turn her head. She called up:

‘Is that you, Miss Blacklock?’

‘No, Mrs Swettenham, it’s me,’ said Fletcher.

Mrs Swettenham gave a faint scream.

‘Oh! how you startled me. I thought it might be another burglar.’

Fletcher came down the stairs.

‘This house doesn’t seem very well protected against burglars,’ he said. ‘Can anybody always walk in and out just as they like?’

‘I just brought up some of my quinces,’ explained Mrs Swettenham. ‘Miss Blacklock wants to make quince jelly and she hasn’t got a quince tree here. I left them in the dining-room.’

Then she smiled.

‘Oh, I see, you mean how did I get in? Well, I just came in through the side door. We all walk in and out of each other’s houses, Sergeant. Nobody dreams of locking a door until it’s dark. I mean it would be so awkward, wouldn’t it, if you brought things and couldn’t get in to leave them? It’s not like the old days when you rang a bell and a servant always came to answer it.’ Mrs Swettenham sighed. ‘In India, I remember,’ she said mournfully, ‘we had eighteen servants-eighteen. Not counting the ayah. Just as a matter of course. And at home, when I was a girl, we always had three-though Mother always felt it was terribly poverty-stricken not to be able to afford a kitchen-maid. I must say that I find life very odd nowadays, Sergeant, though I know one mustn’t complain. So much worse for the miners always getting psitticosis (or is that parrot disease?) and having to come out of the mines and try to be gardeners though they don’t know weeds from spinach.’