A Murder Is Announced - Christie Agatha - Страница 33

‘The quarrel was never made up?’

‘No. Randall and Sonia never had got on very well. She resented his trying to prevent the marriage. She said, “Very well. You’re quite impossible! This is the last you hear of me!”’

‘But it was not the last you heard of her?’

Belle smiled.

‘No, I got a letter from her about eighteen months afterwards. She wrote from Budapest, I remember, but she didn’t give an address. She told me to tell Randall that she was extremely happy and that she’d just had twins.’

‘And she told you their names?’

Again Belle smiled. ‘She said they were born just after midday-and she intended to call them Pip and Emma. That may have been just a joke, of course.’

‘Didn’t you hear from her again?’

‘No. She said she and her husband and the babies were going to America on a short stay. I never heard any more…’

‘You don’t happen, I suppose, to have kept that letter?’

‘No, I’m afraid not…I read it to Randall and he just grunted: “She’ll regret marrying that fellow one of these days.” That’s all he ever said about it. We really forgot about her. She went right out of our lives…’

‘Nevertheless Mr Goedler left his estate to her children in the event of Miss Blacklock predeceasing you?’

‘Oh, that was my doing. I said to him, when he told me about the will: “And suppose Blackie dies before I do?” He was quite surprised. I said, “Oh, I know Blackie is as strong as a horse and I’m a delicate creature-but there’s such a thing as accidents, you know, and there’s such a thing as creaking gates…” And he said, “There’s no one-absolutely no one.” I said, “There’s Sonia.” And he said at once, “And let that fellow get hold of my money? No-indeed!” I said, “Well, her children then. Pip and Emma, and there may be lots more by now”-and so he grumbled, but he did put it in.’

‘And from that day to this,’ Craddock said slowly, ‘you’ve heard nothing of your sister-in-law or her children?’

‘Nothing-they may be dead-they may be-anywhere.’

They may be in Chipping Cleghorn, thought Craddock.

As though she read his thoughts, a look of alarm came into Belle Goedler’s eyes. She said, ‘Don’t let them hurt Blackie. Blackie’sgood -really good-you mustn’t let harm come to-’

Her voice trailed off suddenly. Craddock saw the sudden grey shadows round her mouth and eyes.

‘You’re tired,’ he said. ‘I’ll go.’

She nodded.

‘Send Mac to me,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, tired…’ She made a feeble motion of her hand. ‘Look after Blackie…Nothing must happen to Blackie…look after her…’

‘I’ll do my very best, Mrs Goedler.’ He rose and went to the door.

Her voice, a thin thread of sound, followed him…

‘Not long now-until I’m dead-dangerous for her-Take care…’

Sister McClelland passed him as he went out. He said, uneasily:

‘I hope I haven’t done her harm.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, Mr Craddock. I told you she would tire quite suddenly.’

Later, he asked the nurse:

‘The only thing I hadn’t time to ask Mrs Goedler was whether she had any old photographs? If so, I wonder-’

She interrupted him.

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing of that kind. All her personal papers and things were stored with their furniture from the London house at the beginning of the war. Mrs Goedler was desperately ill at the time. Then the storage despository was blitzed. Mrs Goedler was very upset at losing so many personal souvenirs and family papers. I’m afraid there’s nothing of that kind.’

So that was that, Craddock thought.

Yet he felt his journey had not been in vain. Pip and Emma, those twin wraiths, were not quite wraiths.

Craddock thought, ‘Here’s a brother and sister brought up somewhere in Europe. Sonia Goedler was a rich woman at the time of her marriage, but money in Europe hasn’t remained money. Queer things have happened to money during these war years. And so there are two young people, the son and daughter of a man who had a criminal record. Suppose they came to England, more or less penniless. What would they do? Find out about any rich relatives. Their uncle, a man of vast fortune, is dead. Possibly the first thing they’d do would be to look up their uncle’s will. See if by any chance money had been left to them or to their mother. So they go to Somerset House and learn the contents of his will, and then, perhaps, they learn of the existence of Miss Letitia Blacklock. Then they make inquiries about Randall Goedler’s widow. She’s an invalid, living up in Scotland, and they find out she hasn’t long to live.If this Letitia Blacklock dies before her, they will come into a vast fortune. What then?’

Craddock thought, ‘They wouldn’t go to Scotland. They’d find out where Letitia Blacklock is living now. And they’d go there-but not as themselves…They’d go together-or separately? Emma…I wonder?…Pip and Emma…I’ll eat my hat if Pip, or Emma, or both of them, aren’t in Chipping Cleghorn now…’