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Kidder rose to her feet.
“Seem to have got along a treat, we do, this morning,” she said wonderingly.
“Want me to give you a hand with the potatoes, dear?”
“They’re all done ready.”
“Well, you are a one for getting on with things! I might as well be getting
along myself as there doesn’t seem anything else to do.”
Mrs. Kidder departed and Lucy, with time on her hands, scrubbed the kitchen
table which she had been longing to do, but which she had put off so as not to
offend Mrs. Kidder whose job it properly was. Then she cleaned the silver till
it shone radiantly. She cooked lunch, cleared it away, washed it up, and at
two-thirty was ready to start exploration. She had set out the tea things
ready on a tray, with sandwiches and bread and butter covered with a damp
napkin to keep them moist.
She strolled round the gardens which would be the normal thing to do. The
kitchen garden was sketchily cultivated with a few vegetables. The hot-houses
were in ruins. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
The paths everywhere were overgrown with weeds. A herbaceous
border near the house was the only thing that showed free of weeds and in good
condition and Lucy suspected that that had been Emma’s hand. The gardener was
a very old man, somewhat deaf, who was only making a show of working. Lucy
spoke to him pleasantly. He lived in a cottage adjacent to the big stableyard.
Leading out of the stableyard a back drive led through the park which was
fenced off on either side of it, and under a railway arch into a small back
lane.
Every few minutes a train thundered along the main line over the railway arch.
Lucy watched the trains as they slackened speed going round the sharp curve
that encircled the Crackenthorpe property. She passed under the railway arch
and out into the lane. It seemed a little-used track. On the one side was the
railway embankment, on the other was a high wall which enclosed some tall
factory buildings. Lucy followed the lane until it came out into a street of
small houses. She could hear a short distance away the busy hum of main road
traffic. She glanced at her watch. A woman came out of a house nearby and Lucy
stopped her.
“Excuse me, can you tell me if there is a public telephone near here?”
“Post office just at the corner of the road.”
Lucy thanked her and walked along until she came to the Post Office which was
a combination shop and post office. There was a telephone box at one side.
Lucy went into it and made a call. She asked to speak to Miss Marple. A
woman’s voice spoke in a sharp bark.
“She’s resting. And I’m not going to disturb her!! She needs her rest—she’s an
old lady. Who shall I say called?”
“Miss Eyelesbarrow. There’s no need to disturb her. Just tell her that I’ve
arrived and everything is going on well and that I’ll let her know when I’ve
any news.”
She replaced the receiver and made her way back to Rutherford Hall.
Five
“I suppose it will be all right if I just practise a few iron shots in the
park?” asked Lucy.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“Oh, yes, certainly. Are you fond of golf?”
“I’m not much good, but I like to keep in practice. It’s a more agreeable form
of exercise than just going for a walk.”
“Nowhere to walk outside this place,” growled Mr. Crackenthorpe. “Nothing but
pavements and miserable little band boxes of houses. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Like to get hold of my
land and build more of them. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
But they won’t until I’m dead. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
And I’m not going
to die to oblige anybody. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I can tell you that! Not to oblige anybody!”
Emma Crackenthorpe said mildly:
“Now, Father.”
“I know what they think—and what they’re waiting for. All of ’em. Cedric, and
that sly fox Harold with his smug face. As for Alfred, I wonder he hasn’t had
a shot at bumping me off himself. Not sure he didn’t, at Christmas-time. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
That
was a very odd turn I had. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Puzzled old Quimper. He asked me a lot of discreet
questions.”
“Everyone gets these digestive upsets now and again, Father.”
“All right, all right, say straight out that I ate too much! That’s what you
mean. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
And why did I eat too much? Because there was too much food on the
table, far too much. Wasteful and extravagant. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
And that reminds me—you, young
woman. Five potatoes you sent in for lunch—good-sized ones too. Two potatoes
are enough for anybody. So don’t send in more than four in future. The extra
one was wasted today.”
“It wasn’t wasted, Mr. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Crackenthorpe. I’ve planned to use it in a Spanish
omelette tonight.”
“Urgh!” As Lucy went out of the room carrying the coffee tray she heard him
say, “Slick young woman, that, always got all the answers. Cooks well,
though—and she’s a handsome kind of girl.”
Lucy Eyelesbarrow took a light iron out of the set of golf clubs she had had
the forethought to bring with her, and strolled out into the park, climbing
over the fence.
She began playing a series of shots. After five minutes or so, a ball,
apparently sliced, pitched on the side of the railway embankment. Lucy went up
and began to hunt about for it. She looked back towards the house. It was a
long way away and nobody was in the least interested in what she was doing.
She continued to hunt for the ball. Now and then she played shots from the
embankment down into the grass. During the afternoon she searched about a
third of the embankment. Nothing. She played her ball back towards the house.
Then, on the next day, she came upon something. A thorn bush growing about
halfway up the bank had been snapped off. Bits of it lay scattered about. Lucy
examined the tree itself. Impaled on one of the thorns was a torn scrap of
fur. It was almost the same colour as the wood, a pale brownish colour. Lucy
looked at it for a moment, then she took a pair of scissors out of her pocket
and snipped it carefully in half. The half she had snipped off she put in an
envelope which she had in her pocket. She came down the steep slope searching
about for anything else. She looked carefully at the rough grass of the field.
She thought she could distinguish a kind of track which someone had made
walking through the long grass. But it was very faint—not nearly so clear as
her own tracks were. It must have been made some time ago and it was too
sketchy for her to be sure that it was not merely imagination on her part.
She began to hunt carefully down in the grass at the foot of the embankment
just below the broken thorn bush. Presently her search was rewarded. She found
a powder compact, a small cheap enamelled affair. She wrapped it in her
handkerchief and put it in her pocket. She searched on but did not find
anything more.
On the following afternoon, she got into her car and went to see her invalid
aunt. Emma Crackenthorpe said kindly, “Don’t hurry back. We shan’t want you
until dinner-time.”
“Thank you, but I shall be back by six at the latest.”
No. 4 Madison Road was a small drab house in a small drab street. It had very
clean Nottingham lace curtains, a shining white doorstep and a well-polished
brass door handle. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
The door was opened by a tall, grim-looking woman, dressed
in black with a large knob of iron-grey hair.
She eyed Lucy in suspicious appraisal as she showed her in to Miss Marple.
Miss Marple was occupying the back sitting room which looked out on to a small
tidy square of garden. It was aggressively clean with a lot of mats and
doilies, a great many china ornaments, a rather big Jacobean suite and two
ferns in pots. Miss Marple was sitting in a big chair by the fire busily
engaged in crocheting.
Lucy came in and shut the door. She sat down in the chair facing Miss Marple.
“Well!” she said. “It looks as though you were right.”
She produced her finds and gave details of their finding.
A faint flush of achievement came into Miss Marple’s cheeks.
“Perhaps one ought not to feel so,” she said, “but it is rather gratifying to
form a theory and get proof that it is correct!”
She fingered the small tuft of fur. “Elspeth said the woman was wearing a
light-coloured fur coat. I suppose the compact was in the pocket of the coat
and fell out as the body rolled down the slope. It doesn’t seem distinctive in
any way, but it may help. You didn’t take all the fur?”
“No, I left half of it on the thorn bush.”
Miss Marple nodded approval.
“Quite right. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
You are very intelligent, my dear. The police will want to check
exactly.”
“You are going to the police—with these things?”
“Well—not quite yet…” Miss Marple considered: “It would be better, I think, to
find the body first. Don’t you?”
“Yes, but isn’t that rather a tall order? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I mean, granting that your estimate
is correct. The murderer pushed the body out of the train, then presumably got
out himself at Brackhampton and at some time—probably that same night—came
along and removed the body. But what happened after that? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
He may have taken it
anywhere.”
“Not anywhere,” said Miss Marple. “I don’t think you’ve followed the thing to
its logical conclusion, my dear Miss Eyelesbarrow.”
“Do call me Lucy. Why not anywhere?”
“Because, if so, he might much more easily have killed the girl in some lonely
spot and driven the body away from there. You haven’t appreciated—”
Lucy interrupted.
“Are you saying—do you mean—that this was a premeditated crime?”
“I didn’t think so at first,” said Miss Marple. “One wouldn’t—naturally. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
It
seemed like a quarrel and a man losing control and strangling the girl and
then being faced with the problem which he had to solve within a few minutes.
But it really is too much of a coincidence that he should kill the girl in a
fit of passion, and then look out of the window and find the train was going
round a curve exactly at a spot where he could tip the body out, and where he
could be sure of finding his way later and removing it! If he’d just thrown
her out there by chance, he’d have done no more about it, and the body would,
long before now, have been found.”
She paused. Lucy stared at her.
“You know,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully, “it’s really quite a clever way to
have planned a crime—and I think it was very carefully planned. There’s
something so anonymous about a train. If he’d killed her in the place where
she lived, or was staying, somebody might have noticed him come or go. Or if
he’d driven her out in the country somewhere, someone might have noticed the
car and its number and make. But a train is full of strangers coming and
going. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
In a non-corridor carriage, alone with her, it was quite
easy—especially if you realize that he knew exactly what he was going to do
next. He knew—he must have known—all about Rutherford Hall—its geographical
position, I mean, its queer isolation—an island bounded by railway lines.”
“It is exactly like that,” said Lucy. “It’s an anachronism out of the past.
Bustling urban life goes on all around it, but doesn’t touch it. The
tradespeople deliver in the mornings and that’s all.”
“So we assume, as you said, that the murderer comes to Rutherford Hall that
night. It is already dark when the body falls and no one is likely to discover
it before the next day.”
“No, indeed.”
“The murderer would come—how? In a car? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Which way?”
Lucy considered.
“There’s a rough lane, alongside a factory wall. He’d probably come that way,
turn in under the railway arch and along the back drive. Then he could climb
the fence, go along at the foot of the embankment, find the body, and carry it
back to the car.”
“And then,” continued Miss Marple, “he took it to some place he had already
chosen beforehand. This was all thought out, you know. And I don’t think, as I
say, that he would take it away from Rutherford Hall, or if so, not very far.
The obvious thing, I suppose, would be to bury it somewhere?” She looked
inquiringly at Lucy.
“I suppose so,” said Lucy considering. “But it wouldn’t be quite as easy as it
sounds.”
Miss Marple agreed.
“He couldn’t bury it in the park. Too hard work and very noticeable. Somewhere
where the earth was turned already?”
“The kitchen garden, perhaps, but that’s very close to the gardener’s cottage.
He’s old and deaf—but still it might be risky.”
“Is there a dog?”
“No.”
“Then in a shed, perhaps, or an outhouse?”
“That would be simpler and quicker… There are a lot of unused old buildings;
broken down pigsties, harness rooms, workshops that nobody ever goes near. Or
he might perhaps thrust it into a clump of rhododendrons or shrubs somewhere.”
Miss Marple nodded.
“Yes, I think that’s much more probable.”
There was a knock on the door and the grim Florence came in with a tray.
“Nice for you to have a visitor,” she said to Miss Marple, “I’ve made you my
special scones you used to like.”
“Florence always made the most delicious tea cakes,” said Miss Marple.
Florence, gratified, creased her features into a totally unexpected smile and
left the room.
“I think, my dear,” said Miss Marple, “we won’t talk anymore about murder
during tea. Such an unpleasant subject!”
II
After tea, Lucy rose.
“I’ll be getting back,” she said. “As I’ve already told you, there’s no one
actually living at Rutherford Hall who could be the man we’re looking for.
There’s only an old man and a middle-aged woman, and an old deaf gardener.”
“I didn’t say he was actually living there,” said Miss Marple. “All I mean is,
that he’s someone who knows Rutherford Hall very well. But we can go into that
after you’ve found the body.”
“You seem to assume quite confidently that I shall find it,” said Lucy. “I
don’t feel nearly so optimistic.”
“I’m sure you will succeed, my dear Lucy. You are such an efficient person.”
“In some ways, but I haven’t had any experience in looking for bodies.”
“I’m sure all it needs is a little common sense,” said Miss Marple
encouragingly.
Lucy looked at her, then laughed. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Miss Marple smiled back at her.
Lucy set to work systematically the next afternoon.
She poked round outhouses, prodded the briars which wreathed the old pigsties,
and was peering into the boiler room under the greenhouse when she heard a dry
cough and turned to find old Hillman, the gardener, looking at her
disapprovingly.
“You be careful you don’t get a nasty fall, miss,” he warned her. “Them steps
isn’t safe, and you was up in the loft just now and the floor there ain’t safe
neither.”
Lucy was careful to display no embarrassment.
“I expect you think I’m very nosy,” she said cheerfully. “I was just wondering
if something couldn’t be made out of this place—growing mushrooms for the
market, that sort of thing. Everything seems to have been let go terribly.”
“That’s the master, that is. Won’t spend a penny. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Ought to have two men and a
boy here, I ought, to keep the place proper, but won’t hear of it, he won’t.
Had all I could do to make him get a motor mower. Wanted me to mow all that
front grass by hand, he did.”
“But if the place could be made to pay—with some repairs?”
“Won’t get a place like this to pay—too far gone. And he wouldn’t care about
that, anyway. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Only cares about saving. Knows well enough what’ll happen after
he’s gone—the young gentlemen’ll sell up as fast as they can. Only waiting for
him to pop off, they are. Going to come into a tidy lot of money when he dies,
so I’ve heard.”
“I suppose he’s a very rich man?” said Lucy.
“Crackenthorpe’s Fancies, that’s what they are. The old gentleman started it,
Mr. Crackenthorpe’s father. A sharp one he was, by all accounts. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Made his
fortune, and built this place. Hard as nails, they say, and never forgot an
injury. But with all that, he was open-handed. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Nothing of the miser about him.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Disappointed in both his sons, so the story goes. Give ’em an education and
brought ’em up to be gentlemen—Oxford and all. But they were too much of
gentlemen to want to go into the business. The younger one married an actress
and then smashed himself up in a car accident when he’d been drinking. The
elder one, our one here, his father never fancied so much. Abroad a lot, he
was, bought a lot of heathen statues and had them sent home. Wasn’t so close
with his money when he was young—come on him more in middle age, it did. No,
they never did hit it off, him and his father, so I’ve heard.”
Lucy digested this information with an air of polite interest. The old man
leant against the wall and prepared to go on with his saga. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
He much preferred
talking to doing any work.
“Died before the war, the old gentleman did. Terrible temper he had. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Didn’t do
to give him any cause, he wouldn’t stand for it.”
“And after he died, this Mr. Crackenthorpe came and lived here?”
“Him and his family, yes. Nigh grown up they was by then.”
“But surely… Oh, I see, you mean the 1914 war.”
“No, I don’t. Died in 1928, that’s what I mean.”
Lucy supposed that 1928 qualified as “before the war” though it was not the
way she would have described it herself.
She said: “Well, I expect you’ll be wanting to go on with your work. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
You
mustn’t let me keep you.”
“Ar,” said old Hillman without enthusiasm, “not much you can do this time of
day. Light’s too bad.”
Lucy went back to the house, pausing to investigate a likely-looking copse of
birch and azalea on her way.
She found Emma Crackenthorpe standing in the hall reading a letter. The
afternoon post had just been delivered.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“My nephew will be here tomorrow—with a school-friend. Alexander’s room is the
one over the porch. The one next to it will do for James Stoddart-West.
They’ll use the bathroom just opposite.”
“Yes, Miss Crackenthorpe. I’ll see the rooms are prepared.”
“They’ll arrive in the morning before lunch.” She hesitated. “I expect they’ll
be hungry.”
“I bet they will,” said Lucy. “Roast beef, do you think? And perhaps treacle
tart?”
“Alexander’s very fond of treacle tart.”
The two boys arrived on the following morning. They both had well-brushed
hair, suspiciously angelic faces, and perfect manners. Alexander Eastley had
fair hair and blue eyes, Stoddart-West was dark and spectacled.
They discoursed gravely during lunch on events in the sporting world, with
occasional references to the latest space fiction. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Their manner was that of
elderly professors discussing palaeolithic implements. In comparison with
them, Lucy felt quite young.
The sirloin of beef vanished in no time and every crumb of treacle tart was
consumed.
Mr. Crackenthorpe grumbled: “You two will eat me out of house and home.”
Alexander gave him a blue-eyed reproving glance.
“We’ll have bread and cheese if you can’t afford meat, Grandfather.”
“Afford it? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I can afford it. I don’t like waste.”
“We haven’t wasted any, sir,” said Stoddart-West, looking down at his place
which bore clear testimony of that fact.
“You boys both eat twice as much as I do.”
“We’re at the body-building stage,” Alexander explained. “We need a big intake
of proteins.”
The old man grunted.
As the two boys left the table, Lucy heard Alexander say apologetically to his
friend:
“You mustn’t pay any attention to my grandfather. He’s on a diet or something
and that makes him rather peculiar. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
He’s terribly mean, too. I think it must
be a complex of some kind.”
Stoddart-West said comprehendingly:
“I had an aunt who kept thinking she was going bankrupt. Really, she had
oodles of money. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Pathological, the doctor said. Have you got that football,
Alex?”
After she had cleared away and washed up lunch, Lucy went out. She could hear
the boys calling out in the distance on the lawn. She herself went in the
opposite direction, down the front drive and from there she struck across to
some clumped masses of rhododendron bushes. She began to hunt carefully,
holding back the leaves and peering inside. She moved from clump to clump
systematically, and was raking inside with a golf club when the polite voice
of Alexander Eastley made her start.
“Are you looking for something, Miss Eyelesbarrow?”
“A golf ball,” said Lucy promptly. “Several golf balls in fact. I’ve been
practising golf shots most afternoons and I’ve lost quite a lot of balls. I
thought that today I really must find some of them.”
“We’ll help you,” said Alexander obligingly.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“That’s very kind of you. I thought you were playing football.”
“One can’t go on playing footer,” explained Stoddart-West. “One gets too hot.
Do you play a lot of golf?”
“I’m quite fond of it. I don’t get much opportunity.”
“I suppose you don’t. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
You do the cooking here, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you cook the lunch today?”
“Yes. Was it all right?”
“Simply wizard,” said Alexander. “We get awful meat at school, all dried up. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I
love beef that’s pink and juicy inside. That treacle tart was pretty smashing,
too.”
“You must tell me what things you like best.”
“Could we have apple meringue one day? It’s my favourite thing.”
“Of course.”
Alexander sighed happily.
“There’s a clock golf set under the stairs,” he said. “We could fix it up on
the lawn and do some putting. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
What about it, Stodders?”
“Good-oh!” said Stoddart-West.
“He isn’t really Australian,” explained Alexander courteously. “But he’s
practising talking that way in case his people take him out to see the Test
Match next year.”
Encouraged by Lucy, they went off to get the clock golf set. Later, as she
returned to the house, she found them setting it out on the lawn and arguing
about the position of the numbers.
“We don’t want it like a clock,” said Stoddart-West. “That’s kid’s stuff. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
We
want to make a course of it. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Long holes and short ones. It’s a pity the
numbers are so rusty. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
You can hardly see them.”
“They need a lick of white paint,” said Lucy. “You might get some tomorrow and
paint them.”
“Good idea.” Alexander’s face lit up. “I say, I believe there are some old
pots of paint in the Long Barn—left there by the painters last hols. Shall we
see?”
“What’s the Long Barn?” asked Lucy.
Alexander pointed to a long stone building a little way from the house near
the back drive.
“It’s quite old,” he said. “Grandfather calls it a Leak Barn and says its
Elizabethan, but that’s just swank. It belonged to the farm that was here
originally. My great-grandfather pulled it down and built this awful house
instead.”
He added: “A lot of grandfather’s collection is in the barn. Things he had
sent home from abroad when he was a young man. Most of them are pretty awful,
too. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
The Long Barn is used sometimes for whist drives and things like that.
Women’s Institute stuff. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
And Conservative Sales of Work. Come and see it.”
Lucy accompanied them willingly.
There was a big nail-studded oak door to the barn. Alexander raised his hand
and detached a key on a nail just under some ivy to the right hand of the top
of the door. He turned it in the lock, pushed the door open and they went in.
At a first glance Lucy felt that she was in a singularly bad museum. The heads
of two Roman emperors in marble glared at her out of bulging eyeballs, there
was a huge sarcophagus of a decadent Greco-Roman period, a simpering Venus
stood on a pedestal clutching her falling draperies. Besides these works of
art, there were a couple of trestle tables, some stacked-up chairs, and sundry
oddments such as a rusted hand mower, two buckets, a couple of motheaten car
seats, and a green painted iron garden seat that had lost a leg.
“I think I saw the paint over here,” said Alexander vaguely. He went to a
corner and pulled aside a tattered curtain that shut it off.
They found a couple of paint pots and brushes, the latter dry and stiff.
“You really need some turps,” said Lucy.
They could not, however, find any turpentine. The boys suggested bicycling off
to get some, and Lucy urged them to do so. Painting the clock golf numbers
would keep them amused for some time, she thought.
The boys went off, leaving her in the barn.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“This really could do with a clear up,” she had murmured.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“I shouldn’t bother,” Alexander advised her. “It gets cleaned up if it’s going
to be used for anything, but it’s practically never used this time of year.”
“Do I hang the key up outside the door again? Is that where it’s kept?”
“Yes. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
There’s nothing to pinch here, you see. Nobody would want those awful
marble things and, anyway, they weigh a ton.”
Lucy agreed with him. She could hardly admire old Mr. Crackenthorpe’s taste in
art. He seemed to have an unerring instinct for selecting the worst specimen
of any period.
She stood looking round her after the boys had gone. Her eyes came to rest on
the sarcophagus and stayed there.
That sarcophagus….
The air in the barn was faintly musty as though unaired for a long time. She
went over to the sarcophagus. It had a heavy close-fitting lid. Lucy looked at
it speculatively.
Then she left the barn, went to the kitchen, found a heavy crowbar, and
returned.
It was not an easy task, but Lucy toiled doggedly.
Slowly the lid began to rise, prised up by the crowbar.
It rose sufficiently for Lucy to see what was inside….
Six
I
A few minutes later Lucy, rather pale, left the barn, locked the door and put
the key back on the nail.
She went rapidly to the stables, got out her car and drove down the back
drive. She stopped at the post office at the end of the road. She went into
the telephone box, put in the money and dialled.
“I want to speak to Miss Marple.”
“She’s resting, miss. It’s Miss Eyelesbarrow, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to disturb her and that’s that, miss. She’s an old lady and she
needs her rest.”
“You must disturb her. It’s urgent.”
“I’m not—”
“Please do what I say at once.”
When she chose, Lucy’s voice could be as incisive as steel. Florence knew
authority when she heard it.
Presently Miss Marple’s voice spoke.
“Yes, Lucy?”
Lucy drew a deep breath.
“You were quite right,” she said. “I’ve found it.”
“A woman’s body?”
“Yes. A woman in a fur coat. It’s a stone sarcophagus in a kind of barn-cum-
museum near the house. What do you want me to do? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I ought to inform the
police, I think.”
“Yes. You must inform the police. At once.”
“But what about the rest of it? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
About you? The first thing they’ll want to
know is why I was prying up a lid that weighs tons for apparently no reason.
Do you want me to invent a reason? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I can.”
“No. I think, you know,” said Miss Marple in her gentle serious voice, “that
the only thing to do is to tell the exact truth.”
“About you?”
“About everything.”
A sudden grin split the whiteness of Lucy’s face.
“That will be quite simple for me,” she said. “But I imagine they’ll find it
quite hard to believe!”
She rang off, waited a moment, and then rang and got the police station.
“I have just discovered a dead body in a sarcophagus in the Long Barn at
Rutherford Hall.”
“What’s that?”
Lucy repeated her statement and anticipating the next question gave her name.
She drove back, put the car away and entered the house.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
She paused in the hall for a moment, thinking.
Then she gave a brief sharp nod of the head and went to the library where Miss
Crackenthorpe was sitting helping her father to do The Times crossword.
“Can I speak to you a moment Miss Crackenthorpe?”
Emma looked up, a shade of apprehension on her face. The apprehension was,
Lucy thought, purely domestic. In such words do useful household staff
announce their imminent departure.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“Well, speak up, girl, speak up,” said old Mr. Crackenthorpe irritably.
Lucy said to Emma:
“I’d like to speak to you alone, please.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Crackenthorpe. “You say straight out here what you’ve got
to say.”
“Just a moment, Father.” Emma rose and went towards the door.
“All nonsense. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
It can wait,” said the old man angrily.
“I’m afraid it can’t wait,” said Lucy.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Mr. Crackenthorpe said, “What impertinence!”
Emma came out into the hall. Lucy followed her and shut the door behind them.
“Yes?” said Emma. “What is it? If you think there’s too much to do with the
boys here, I can help you and—”
“It’s not that at all,” said Lucy. “I didn’t want to speak before your father
because I understand he is an invalid and it might give him a shock. You see,
I’ve just discovered the body of a murdered woman in that big sarcophagus in
the Long Barn.”
Emma Crackenthorpe stared at her.
“In the sarcophagus? A murdered woman? It’s impossible!”
“I’m afraid it’s quite true. I’ve rung up the police. They will be here at any
minute.”
A slight flush came into Emma’s cheeks.
“You should have told me first—before notifying the police.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lucy.
“I didn’t hear you ring up—” Emma’s glance went to the telephone on the hall
table.
“I rang up from the post office just down the road.”
“But how extraordinary. Why not from here?”
Lucy thought quickly.
“I was afraid the boys might be about—might hear—if I rang up from the hall
here.”
“I see… Yes… I see… They are coming—the police, I mean?”
“They’re here now,” said Lucy, as with a squeal of brakes a car drew up at the
front door and the front doorbell pealed through the house.
II
“I’m sorry, very sorry—to have asked this of you,” said Inspector Bacon.
His hand under her arm, he led Emma Crackenthorpe out of the barn. Emma’s face
was very pale, she looked sick, but she walked firmly erect.
“I’m quite sure that I’ve never seen the woman before in my life.”
“We’re very grateful to you, Miss Crackenthorpe. That’s all I wanted to know.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Perhaps you’d like to lie down?”
“I must go to my father. I telephoned Dr. Quimper as soon as I heard about
this and the doctor is with him now.”
Dr. Quimper came out of the library as they crossed the hall. He was a tall
genial man, with a casual offhand cynical manner that his patients found very
stimulating.
He and the inspector nodded to each other.
“Miss Crackenthorpe has performed an unpleasant task very bravely,” said
Bacon.
“Well done, Emma,” said the doctor, patting her on the shoulder. “You can take
things. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I’ve always known that. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Your father’s all right. Just go in and have a
word with him, and then go into the dining room and get yourself a glass of
brandy. That’s a prescription.”
Emma smiled at him gratefully and went into the library.
“That woman’s the salt of the earth,” said the doctor, looking after her. “A
thousand pities she’s never married. The penalty of being the only female in a
family of men. The other sister got clear, married at seventeen, I believe.
This one’s quite a handsome woman really. She’d have been a success as a wife
and mother.”
“Too devoted to her father, I suppose,” said Inspector Bacon.
“She’s not really as devoted as all that—but she’s got the instinct some women
have to make their menfolk happy. She sees that her father likes being an
invalid, so she lets him be an invalid. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
She’s the same with her brothers.
Cedric feels he’s a good painter, what’s his name—Harold—knows how much she
relies on his sound judgment—she lets Alfred shock her with his stories of his
clever deals. Oh, yes, she’s a clever woman—no fool. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Well, do you want me for
anything? Want me to have a look at your corpse now Johnstone has done with
it” (Johnstone was the police surgeon) “and see if it happens to be one of my
medical mistakes?”
“I’d like you to have a look, yes, Doctor. We want to get her identified. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I
suppose it’s impossible for old Mr. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Crackenthorpe? Too much of a strain?”
“Strain? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Fiddlesticks. He’d never forgive you or me if you didn’t let him have
a peep. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
He’s all agog. Most exciting thing that’s happened to him for fifteen
years or so—and it won’t cost him anything!”
“There’s nothing really much wrong with him then?”
“He’s seventy-two,” said the doctor. “That’s all, really, that’s the matter
with him. He has odd rheumatic twinges—who doesn’t? So he calls it arthritis.
He has palpitations after meals—as well he may—he puts them down to ‘heart.’
But he can always do anything he wants to do! I’ve plenty of patients like
that. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
The ones who are really ill usually insist desperately that they’re
perfectly well. Come on, let’s go and see this body of yours. Unpleasant, I
suppose?”
“Johnstone estimates she’s been dead between a fortnight and three weeks.”
“Quite unpleasant, then.”
The doctor stood by the sarcophagus and looked down with frank curiosity,
professionally unmoved by what he had named the “unpleasantness.”
“Never seen her before. No patient of mine. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I don’t remember ever seeing her
about in Brackhampton. She must have been quite good-looking once—hm—somebody
had it in for her all right.”
They went out again into the air. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Doctor Quimper glanced up at the building.
“Found in the what—what do they call it?—the Long Barn—in a sarcophagus!
Fantastic! Who found her?”
“Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow.”
“Oh, the latest lady help? What was she doing, poking about in sarcophagi?”
“That,” said Inspector Bacon grimly, “is just what I am going to ask her. Now,
about Mr. Crackenthorpe. Will you—?”
“I’ll bring him along.”
Mr. Crackenthorpe, muffled in scarves, came walking at a brisk pace, the
doctor beside him.
“Disgraceful,” he said. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“Absolutely disgraceful! I brought back that
sarcophagus from Florence in—let me see—it must have been in 1908—or was it
1909?”
“Steady now,” the doctor warned him. “This isn’t going to be nice, you know.”
“No matter how ill I am, I’ve got to do my duty, haven’t I?”
A very brief visit inside the Long Barn was, however, quite long enough. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Mr.
Crackenthorpe shuffled out into the air again with remarkable speed.
“Never saw her before in my life!” he said. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“What’s it mean? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Absolutely
disgraceful. It wasn’t Florence—I remember now—it was Naples. A very fine
specimen. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
And some fool of a woman has to come and get herself killed in it!”
He clutched at the folds of his overcoat on the left side.
“Too much for me… My heart… Where’s Emma? Doctor….”
Doctor Quimper took his arm.
“You’ll be all right,” he said. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“I prescribe a little stimulant. Brandy.”
They went back together towards the house.
“Sir. Please, sir.”
Inspector Bacon turned. Two boys had arrived, breathless, on bicycles. Their
faces were full of eager pleading.
“Please, sir, can we see the body?”
“No, you can’t,” said Inspector Bacon.
“Oh, sir, please, sir. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
You never know. We might know who she was. Oh, please,
sir, do be a sport. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
It’s not fair. Here’s a murder, right in our own barn.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
It’s the sort of chance that might never happen again. Do be a sport, sir.”
“Who are you two?”
“I’m Alexander Eastley, and this is my friend James Stoddart-West.”
“Have you ever seen a blonde woman wearing a light-coloured dyed squirrel coat
anywhere about the place?”
“Well, I can’t remember exactly,” said Alexander astutely. “If I were to have
a look—”
“Take ’em in, Sanders,” said Inspector Bacon to the constable who was standing
by the barn door. “One’s only young once!”
“Oh, sir, thank you, sir.” Both boys were vociferous. “It’s very kind of you,
sir.”
Bacon turned away towards the house.
“And now,” he said to himself grimly, “for Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow!”
III
After leading the police to the Long Barn, and giving a brief account of her
actions, Lucy had retired into the background, but she was under no illusion
that the police had finished with her.
She had just finished preparing potatoes for chips that evening when word was
brought to her that Inspector Bacon required her presence. Putting aside the
large bowl of cold water and salt in which the chips were reposing, Lucy
followed the policeman to where the inspector awaited her. She sat down and
awaited his questions composedly.
She gave her name—and her address in London, and added of her own accord:
“I will give you some names and addresses of references if you want to know
all about me.”
The names were very good ones. An Admiral of the Fleet, the Provost of an
Oxford College, and a Dame of the British Empire. In spite of himself
Inspector Bacon was impressed.
“Now, Miss Eyelesbarrow, you went into the Long Barn to find some paint. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Is
that right? And after having found the paint you got a crowbar, forced up the
lid of this sarcophagus and found the body. What were you looking for in the
sarcophagus?”
“I was looking for a body,” said Lucy.
“You were looking for a body—and you found one! Doesn’t that seem to you a
very extraordinary story?”
“Oh, yes, it is an extraordinary story. Perhaps you will let me explain it to
you.”
“I certainly think you had better do so.”
Lucy gave him a precise recital of the events which had led up to her
sensational discovery.
The inspector summed it up in an outraged voice.
“You were engaged by an elderly lady to obtain a post here and to search the
house and grounds for a dead body? Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Who is this elderly lady?”
“Miss Jane Marple. She is at present living at 4 Madison Road.”
The inspector wrote it down.
“You expect me to believe this story?”
Lucy said gently:
“Not, perhaps, until after you have interviewed Miss Marple and got her
confirmation of it.”
“I shall interview her all right. She must be cracked.”
Lucy forbore to point out that to be proved right is not really a proof of
mental incapacity. Instead she said:
“What are you proposing to tell Miss Crackenthorpe? About me, I mean?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, as far as Miss Marple is concerned I’ve done my job, I’ve found the
body she wanted found. But I’m still engaged by Miss Crackenthorpe, and there
are two hungry boys in the house and probably some more of the family will
soon be coming down after all this upset. She needs domestic help. If you go
and tell her that I only took this post in order to hunt for dead bodies
she’ll probably throw me out. Otherwise I can get on with my job and be
useful.”
The inspector looked hard at her.
“I’m not saying anything to anyone at present,” he said. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“I haven’t verified
your statement yet. For all I know you may be making the whole thing up.”
Lucy rose.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“Thank you. Then I’ll go back to the kitchen and get on with things.”
Seven
I
“We’d better have the Yard in on it, is that what you think, Bacon?”
The Chief Constable looked inquiringly at Inspector Bacon. The inspector was a
big stolid man—his expression was that of one utterly disgusted with humanity.
“The woman wasn’t a local, sir,” he said. “There’s some reason to believe—from
her underclothing—that she might have been a foreigner. Of course,” added
Inspector Bacon hastily, “I’m not letting on about that yet awhile. We’re
keeping it up our sleeves until after the inquest.”
The Chief Constable nodded.
“The inquest will be purely formal, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve seen the Coroner.”
“And it’s fixed for—when?”
“Tomorrow. I understand the other members of the Crackenthorpe family will be
here for it. There’s just a chance one of them might be able to identify her.
They’ll all be here.”
He consulted a list he held in his hand.
“Harold Crackenthorpe, he’s something in the City—quite an important figure, I
understand. Alfred—don’t quite know what he does. Cedric—that’s the one who
lives abroad. Paints!” The inspector invested the word with its full quota of
sinister significance. The Chief Constable smiled into his moustache.
“No reason, is there, to believe the Crackenthorpe family are connected with
the crime in any way?” he asked.
“Not apart from the fact that the body was found on the premises,” said
Inspector Bacon. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“And of course it’s just possible that this artist member of
the family might be able to identify her. What beats me is this extraordinary
rigmarole about the train.”
“Ah, yes. You’ve been to see this old lady, this—er—” (he glanced at the
memorandum lying on his desk) “Miss Marple?”
“Yes, sir. And she’s quite set and definite about the whole thing. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Whether
she’s barmy or not, I don’t know, but she sticks to her story—about what her
friend saw and all the rest of it. As far as all that goes, I dare say it’s
just make-believe—sort of thing old ladies do make up, like seeing flying
saucers at the bottom of the garden, and Russian agents in the lending
library. But it seems quite clear that she did engage this young woman, the
lady help, and told her to look for a body—which the girl did.”
“And found one,” observed the Chief Constable. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“Well, it’s all a very
remarkable story. Marple, Miss Jane Marple—the name seems familiar somehow…
Anyway, I’ll get on to the Yard. I think you’re right about its not being a
local case—though we won’t advertise the fact just yet. For the moment we’ll
tell the Press as little as possible.”
II
The inquest was a purely formal affair. No one came forward to identify the
dead woman. Lucy was called to give evidence of finding the body and medical
evidence was given as to the cause of death—strangulation. The proceedings
were then adjourned.
It was a cold blustery day when the Crackenthorpe family came out of the hall
where the inquest had been held. There were five of them all told, Emma,
Cedric, Harold, Alfred, and Bryan Eastley, the husband of the dead daughter
Edith. There was also Mr. Wimborne, the senior partner of the firm of
solicitors who dealt with the Crackenthorpes’ legal affairs. He had come down
specially from London at great inconvenience to attend the inquest. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
They all
stood for a moment on the pavement, shivering. Quite a crowd had assembled;
the piquant details of the “Body in the Sarcophagus” had been fully reported
in both the London and the local Press.
A murmur went round: “That’s them….”
Emma said sharply: “Let’s get away.”
The big hired Daimler drew up to the kerb. Emma got in and motioned to Lucy.
Mr. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Wimborne, Cedric and Harold followed. Bryan Eastley said: “I’ll take
Alfred with me in my little bus.” The chauffeur shut the door and the Daimler
prepared to roll away.
“Oh, stop!” cried Emma. “There are the boys!”
The boys, in spite of aggrieved protests, had been left behind at Rutherford
Hall, but they now appeared grinning from ear to ear.
“We came on our bicycles,” said Stoddart-West. “The policeman was very kind
and let us in at the back of the hall. I hope you don’t mind, Miss
Crackenthorpe,” he added politely.
“She doesn’t mind,” said Cedric, answering for his sister. “You’re only young
once. Your first inquest, I expect?”
“It was rather disappointing,” said Alexander. “All over so soon.”
“We can’t stay here talking,” said Harold irritably. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“There’s quite a crowd.
And all those men with cameras.”
At a sign from him, the chauffeur pulled away from the kerb. The boys waved
cheerfully.
“All over so soon!” said Cedric. “That’s what they think, the young innocents!
It’s just beginning.”
“It’s all very unfortunate. Most unfortunate,” said Harold. “I suppose—”
He looked at Mr. Wimborne who compressed his thin lips and shook his head with
distaste.
“I hope,” he said sententiously, “that the whole matter will soon be cleared
up satisfactorily. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
The police were very efficient. However, the whole thing,
as Harold says, has been most unfortunate.”
He looked, as he spoke, at Lucy, and there was distinct disapproval in his
glance. “If it had not been for this young woman,” his eyes seemed to say,
“poking about where she had no business to be—none of this would have
happened.”
This statement, or one closely resembling it, was voiced by Harold
Crackenthorpe.
“By the way—er—Miss—er—er Eyelesbarrow, just what made you go looking in that
sarcophagus?”
Lucy had already wondered just when this thought would occur to one of the
family. She had known that the police would ask it first thing; what surprised
her was that it seemed to have occurred to no one else until this moment.
Cedric, Emma, Harold and Mr. Wimborne all looked at her.
Her reply, for what it was worth, had naturally been prepared for some time.
“Really,” she said in a hesitating voice. “I hardly know… I did feel that the
whole place needed a thorough clearing out and cleaning. And there was”—she
hesitated—“a very peculiar and disagreeable smell….”
She had counted accurately on the immediate shrinking of everyone from the
unpleasantness of this idea….
Mr. Wimborne murmured: “Yes, yes, of course…about three weeks the police
surgeon said… I think, you know, we must all try and not let our minds dwell
on this thing.” He smiled encouragingly at Emma who had turned very pale.
“Remember,” he said, “this wretched young woman was nothing to do with any of
us.”
“Ah, but you can’t be so sure of that, can you?” said Cedric.
Lucy Eyelesbarrow looked at him with some interest. She had already been
intrigued by the rather startling differences between the three brothers.
Cedric was a big man with a weather-beaten rugged face, unkempt dark hair and
a jocund manner. He had arrived from the airport unshaven, and though he had
shaved in preparation for the inquest, he was still wearing the clothes in
which he had arrived and which seemed to be the only ones he had; old grey
flannel trousers, and a patched and rather threadbare baggy jacket. He looked
the stage Bohemian to the life and proud of it.
His brother Harold, on the contrary, was the perfect picture of a City
gentleman and a director of important companies. He was tall with a neat erect
carriage, had dark hair going slightly bald on the temples, a small black
moustache, and was impeccably dressed in a dark well-cut suit and a pearl-grey
tie. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
He looked what he was, a shrewd and successful business man.
He now said stiffly:
“Really, Cedric, that seems a most uncalled-for remark.”
“Don’t see why? She was in our barn after all. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
What did she come there for?”
Mr. Wimborne coughed, and said:
“Possibly some—er—assignation. I understand that it was a matter of local
knowledge that the key was kept outside on a nail.”
His tone indicated outrage at the carelessness of such procedure. So clearly
marked was this that Emma spoke apologetically.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“It started during the war. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
For the A.R.P. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
wardens. There was a little spirit
stove and they made themselves hot cocoa. And afterwards, since there was
really nothing there anybody could have wanted to take, we went on leaving the
key hanging up. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
It was convenient for the Women’s Institute people. If we’d
kept it in the house it might have been awkward—when there was no one at home
to give it them when they wanted it to get the place ready. With only daily
women and no resident servants….”
Her voice trailed away. She had spoken mechanically, giving a wordy
explanation without interest, as though her mind was elsewhere.
Cedric gave her a quick puzzled glance.
“You’re worried, sis. What’s up?”
Harold spoke with exasperation:
“Really, Cedric, can you ask?”
“Yes, I do ask. Granted a strange young woman has got herself killed in the
barn at Rutherford Hall (sounds like a Victorian melodrama) and granted it
gave Emma a shock at the time—but Emma’s always been a sensible girl—I don’t
see why she goes on being worried now. Dash it, one gets used to everything.”
“Murder takes a little more getting used to by some people than it may in your
case,” said Harold acidly. “I dare say murders are two a penny in Majorca
and—”
“Ibiza, not Majorca.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Not at all—it’s quite a different island.”
Harold went on talking:
“My point is that though murder may be an everyday commonplace to you, living
amongst hot-blooded Latin people, nevertheless in England we take such things
seriously.” He added with increasing irritation, “And really, Cedric, to
appear at a public inquest in those clothes—”
“What’s wrong with my clothes? They’re comfortable.”
“They’re unsuitable.”
“Well, anyway, they’re the only clothes I’ve got with me. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I didn’t pack my
wardrobe trunk when I came rushing home to stand in with the family over this
business. I’m a painter and painters like to be comfortable in their clothes.”
“So you’re still trying to paint?”
“Look here, Harold, when you say trying to paint—”
Mr. Wimborne cleared his throat in an authoritative manner.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“This discussion is unprofitable,” he said reprovingly. “I hope, my dear Emma,
that you will tell me if there is any further way in which I can be of service
to you before I return to town?”
The reproof had its effect. Emma Crackenthorpe said quickly:
“It was most kind of you to come down.”
“Not at all. It was advisable that someone should be at the inquest to watch
the proceedings on behalf of the family. I have arranged for an interview with
the inspector at the house. I have no doubt that, distressing as all this has
been, the situation will soon be clarified. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
In my own mind, there seems little
doubt as to what occurred. As Emma has told us, the key to the Long Barn was
known locally to hang outside the door. It seems highly probable that the
place was used in the winter months as a place of assignation by local
couples. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
No doubt there was a quarrel and some young man lost control of
himself. Horrified at what he had done, his eye lit on the sarcophagus and he
realized that it would make an excellent place of concealment.”
Lucy thought to herself, “Yes, it sounds most plausible. That’s just what one
might think.”
Cedric said, “You say a local couple—but nobody’s been able to identify the
girl locally.”
“It’s early days yet. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
No doubt we shall get an identification before long. And
it is possible, of course, that the man in question was a local resident, but
that the girl came from elsewhere, perhaps from some other part of
Brackhampton. Brackhampton’s a big place—it’s grown enormously in the last
twenty years.”
“If I were a girl coming to meet my young man, I’d not stand for being taken
to a freezing cold barn miles from anywhere,” Cedric objected. “I’d stand out
for a nice bit of cuddle in the cinema, wouldn’t you, Miss Eyelesbarrow?”
“Do we need to go into all this?” Harold demanded plaintively.
And with the voicing of the question the car drew up before the front door of
Rutherford Hall and they all got out.
Eight
I
On entering the library Mr. Wimborne blinked a little as his shrewd old eyes
went past Inspector Bacon whom he had already met, to the fair-haired, good-
looking man beyond him.
Inspector Bacon performed introductions.
“This is Detective-Inspector Craddock of New Scotland Yard,” he said.
“New Scotland Yard—hm.” Mr. Wimborne’s eyebrows rose.
Dermot Craddock, who had a pleasant manner, went easily into speech.
“We have been called in on the case, Mr. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Wimborne,” he said. “As you are
representing the Crackenthorpe family, I feel it is only fair that we should
give you a little confidential information.”
Nobody could make a better show of presenting a very small portion of the
truth and implying that it was the whole truth than Inspector Craddock.
“Inspector Bacon will agree, I am sure,” he added, glancing at his colleague.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
Inspector Bacon agreed with all due solemnity and not at all as though the
whole matter were prearranged.
“It’s like this,” said Craddock. “We have reason to believe, from information
that has come into our possession, that the dead woman is not a native of
these parts, that she travelled down here from London and that she had
recently come from abroad. Probably (though we are not sure of that) from
France.”
Mr. Wimborne again raised his eyebrows.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
“Indeed,” he said. “Indeed?”
“That being the case,” explained Inspector Bacon, “the Chief Constable felt
that the Yard was better fitted to investigate the matter.”
“I can only hope,” said Mr. Wimborne, “that the case will be solved quickly.
| 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
As you can no doubt appreciate, the whole business has been a source of much
distress to the family. Although not personally concerned in any way, they
are—”
He paused for a bare second, but Inspector Craddock filled the gap quickly.
“It’s not a pleasant thing to find a murdered woman on your property? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I
couldn’t agree with you more. Now I should like to have a brief interview with
the various members of the family—”
“I really cannot see—”
“What they can tell me? Probably nothing of interest—but one never knows. | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |
I
dare say I can get most of the information I want from you, sir. Information
about this house and the family.”
“And what can that possibly have to do with an unknown young woman coming from
abroad and getting herself killed here?”
“Well, that’s rather the point,” said Craddock. “Why did she come here? | 4-50 from paddington - agatha christie.epub |