Читать книгу The Body in the Library - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 9

St Mary Mead was having the most exciting morning it had known for a long time.

Miss Wetherby, a long-nosed, acidulated spinster, was the first to spread the intoxicating information. She dropped in upon her friend and neighbour Miss Hartnell.

‘Forgive me coming so early, dear, but I thought, perhaps, you mightn’t have heard the news.’

‘What news?’ demanded Miss Hartnell. She had a deep bass voice and visited the poor indefatigably, however hard they tried to avoid her ministrations.

‘About the body in Colonel Bantry’s library—a woman’s body—’

‘In Colonel Bantry’s library?’

‘Yes. Isn’t it terrible?’

‘His poor wife.’ Miss Hartnell tried to disguise her deep and ardent pleasure.

‘Yes, indeed. I don’t suppose she had any idea.’

Miss Hartnell observed censoriously:

‘She thought too much about her garden and not enough about her husband. You’ve got to keep an eye on a man—all the time—all the time,’ repeated Miss Hartnell fiercely.

‘I know. I know. It’s really too dreadful.’

‘I wonder what Jane Marple will say. Do you think she knew anything about it? She’s so sharp about these things.’

‘Jane Marple has gone up to Gossington.’

‘What? This morning?’

‘Very early. Before breakfast.’

‘But really! I do think! Well, I mean, I think that is carrying things too far. We all know Jane likes to poke her nose into things—but I call this indecent!’

‘Oh, but Mrs Bantry sent for her.’

‘Mrs Bantry sent for her?’

‘Well, the car came—with Muswell driving it.’

‘Dear me! How very peculiar …’

They were silent a minute or two digesting the news.

‘Whose body?’ demanded Miss Hartnell.

‘You know that dreadful woman who comes down with Basil Blake?’

‘That terrible peroxide blonde?’ Miss Hartnell was slightly behind the times. She had not yet advanced from peroxide to platinum. ‘The one who lies about in the garden with practically nothing on?’

‘Yes, my dear. There she was—on the hearthrug—strangled!’

‘But what do you mean—at Gossington?’

Miss Wetherby nodded with infinite meaning.

‘Then—Colonel Bantry too—?’

Again Miss Wetherby nodded.

‘Oh!’

There was a pause as the ladies savoured this new addition to village scandal.

‘What a wicked woman!’ trumpeted Miss Hartnell with righteous wrath.

‘Quite, quite abandoned, I’m afraid!’

‘And Colonel Bantry—such a nice quiet man—’

Miss Wetherby said zestfully:

‘Those quiet ones are often the worst. Jane Marple always says so.’

Mrs Price Ridley was among the last to hear the news.

A rich and dictatorial widow, she lived in a large house next door to the vicarage. Her informant was her little maid Clara.

‘A woman, you say, Clara? Found dead on Colonel Bantry’s hearthrug?’

‘Yes, mum. And they say, mum, as she hadn’t anything on at all, mum, not a stitch!’

‘That will do, Clara. It is not necessary to go into details.’

‘No, mum, and they say, mum, that at first they thought it was Mr Blake’s young lady—what comes down for the weekends with ’im to Mr Booker’s new ’ouse. But now they say it’s quite a different young lady. And the fishmonger’s young man, he says he’d never have believed it of Colonel Bantry—not with him handing round the plate on Sundays and all.’

‘There is a lot of wickedness in the world, Clara,’ said Mrs Price Ridley. ‘Let this be a warning to you.’

‘Yes, mum. Mother, she never will let me take a place where there’s a gentleman in the ’ouse.’

‘That will do, Clara,’ said Mrs Price Ridley.

It was only a step from Mrs Price Ridley’s house to the vicarage.

Mrs Price Ridley was fortunate enough to find the vicar in his study.

The vicar, a gentle, middle-aged man, was always the last to hear anything.

‘Such a terrible thing,’ said Mrs Price Ridley, panting a little, because she had come rather fast. ‘I felt I must have your advice, your counsel about it, dear vicar.’

Mr Clement looked mildly alarmed. He said:

‘Has anything happened?’

‘Has anything happened?’ Mrs Price Ridley repeated the question dramatically. ‘The most terrible scandal! None of us had any idea of it. An abandoned woman, completely unclothed, strangled on Colonel Bantry’s hearthrug.’

The vicar stared. He said:

‘You—you are feeling quite well?’

‘No wonder you can’t believe it! I couldn’t at first. The hypocrisy of the man! All these years!’

‘Please tell me exactly what all this is about.’

Mrs Price Ridley plunged into a full-swing narrative. When she had finished Mr Clement said mildly:

‘But there is nothing, is there, to point to Colonel Bantry’s being involved in this?’

‘Oh, dear vicar, you are so unworldly! But I must tell you a little story. Last Thursday—or was it the Thursday before? well, it doesn’t matter—I was going up to London by the cheap day train. Colonel Bantry was in the same carriage. He looked, I thought, very abstracted. And nearly the whole way he buried himself behind The Times. As though, you know, he didn’t want to talk.’

The vicar nodded with complete comprehension and possible sympathy.

‘At Paddington I said good-bye. He had offered to get me a taxi, but I was taking the bus down to Oxford Street—but he got into one, and I distinctly heard him tell the driver to go to—where do you think?’

Mr Clement looked inquiring.

‘An address in St John’s Wood!’

Mrs Price Ridley paused triumphantly.

The vicar remained completely unenlightened.

‘That, I consider, proves it,’ said Mrs Price Ridley.

At Gossington, Mrs Bantry and Miss Marple were sitting in the drawing-room.

‘You know,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘I can’t help feeling glad they’ve taken the body away. It’s not nice to have a body in one’s house.’

Miss Marple nodded.

‘I know, dear. I know just how you feel.’

‘You can’t,’ said Mrs Bantry; ‘not until you’ve had one. I know you had one next door once, but that’s not the same thing. I only hope,’ she went on, ‘that Arthur won’t take a dislike to the library. We sit there so much. What are you doing, Jane?’

For Miss Marple, with a glance at her watch, was rising to her feet.

‘Well, I was thinking I’d go home. If there’s nothing more I can do for you?’

‘Don’t go yet,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘The finger-print men and the photographers and most of the police have gone, I know, but I still feel something might happen. You don’t want to miss anything.’

The telephone rang and she went off to answer. She returned with a beaming face.

‘I told you more things would happen. That was Colonel Melchett. He’s bringing the poor girl’s cousin along.’

‘I wonder why,’ said Miss Marple.

‘Oh, I suppose, to see where it happened and all that.’

‘More than that, I expect,’ said Miss Marple.

‘What do you mean, Jane?’

‘Well, I think—perhaps—he might want her to meet Colonel Bantry.’

Mrs Bantry said sharply:

‘To see if she recognizes him? I suppose—oh, yes, I suppose they’re bound to suspect Arthur.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘As though Arthur could have anything to do with it!’

Miss Marple was silent. Mrs Bantry turned on her accusingly.

‘And don’t quote old General Henderson—or some frightful old man who kept his housemaid—at me. Arthur isn’t like that.’

‘No, no, of course not.’

‘No, but he really isn’t. He’s just—sometimes—a little silly about pretty girls who come to tennis. You know—rather fatuous and avuncular. There’s no harm in it. And why shouldn’t he? After all,’ finished Mrs Bantry rather obscurely, ‘I’ve got the garden.’

Miss Marple smiled.

‘You must not worry, Dolly,’ she said.

‘No, I don’t mean to. But all the same I do a little. So does Arthur. It’s upset him. All these policemen prowling about. He’s gone down to the farm. Looking at pigs and things always soothes him if he’s been upset. Hallo, here they are.’

The Chief Constable’s car drew up outside.

Colonel Melchett came in accompanied by a smartly dressed young woman.

‘This is Miss Turner, Mrs Bantry. The cousin of the—er—victim.’

‘How do you do,’ said Mrs Bantry, advancing with outstretched hand. ‘All this must be rather awful for you.’

Josephine Turner said frankly: ‘Oh, it is. None of it seems real, somehow. It’s like a bad dream.’

Mrs Bantry introduced Miss Marple.

Melchett said casually: ‘Your good man about?’

‘He had to go down to one of the farms. He’ll be back soon.’

‘Oh—’ Melchett seemed rather at a loss.

Mrs Bantry said to Josie: ‘Would you like to see where—where it happened? Or would you rather not?’

Josephine said after a moment’s pause:

‘I think I’d like to see.’

Mrs Bantry led her to her library with Miss Marple and Melchett following behind.

‘She was there,’ said Mrs Bantry, pointing dramatically; ‘on the hearthrug.’

‘Oh!’ Josie shuddered. But she also looked perplexed. She said, her brow creased: ‘I just can’t understand it! I can’t!’

‘Well, we certainly can’t,’ said Mrs Bantry.

Josie said slowly:

‘It isn’t the sort of place—’ and broke off.

Miss Marple nodded her head gently in agreement with the unfinished sentiment.

‘That,’ she murmured, ‘is what makes it so very interesting.’

‘Come now, Miss Marple,’ said Colonel Melchett good-humouredly, ‘haven’t you got an explanation?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve got an explanation,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Quite a feasible one. But of course it’s only my own idea. Tommy Bond,’ she continued, ‘and Mrs Martin, our new schoolmistress. She went to wind up the clock and a frog jumped out.’

Josephine Turner looked puzzled. As they all went out of the room she murmured to Mrs Bantry: ‘Is the old lady a bit funny in the head?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mrs Bantry indignantly.

Josie said: ‘Sorry; I thought perhaps she thought she was a frog or something.’

Colonel Bantry was just coming in through the side door. Melchett hailed him, and watched Josephine Turner as he introduced them to each other. But there was no sign of interest or recognition in her face. Melchett breathed a sigh of relief. Curse Slack and his insinuations!

In answer to Mrs Bantry’s questions Josie was pouring out the story of Ruby Keene’s disappearance.

‘Frightfully worrying for you, my dear,’ said Mrs Bantry.

‘I was more angry than worried,’ said Josie. ‘You see, I didn’t know then that anything had happened to her.’

‘And yet,’ said Miss Marple, ‘you went to the police. Wasn’t that—excuse me—rather premature?’

Josie said eagerly:

‘Oh, but I didn’t. That was Mr Jefferson—’

Mrs Bantry said: ‘Jefferson?’

‘Yes, he’s an invalid.’

‘Not Conway Jefferson? But I know him well. He’s an old friend of ours. Arthur, listen—Conway Jefferson. He’s staying at the Majestic, and it was he who went to the police! Isn’t that a coincidence?’

Josephine Turner said:

‘Mr Jefferson was here last summer too.’

‘Fancy! And we never knew. I haven’t seen him for a long time.’ She turned to Josie. ‘How—how is he, nowadays?’

Josie considered.

‘I think he’s wonderful, really—quite wonderful. Considering, I mean. He’s always cheerful—always got a joke.’

‘Are the family there with him?’

‘Mr Gaskell, you mean? And young Mrs Jefferson? And Peter? Oh, yes.’

There was something inhibiting Josephine Turner’s usual attractive frankness of manner. When she spoke of the Jeffersons there was something not quite natural in her voice.

Mrs Bantry said: ‘They’re both very nice, aren’t they? The young ones, I mean.’

Josie said rather uncertainly:

‘Oh yes—yes, they are. I—we—yes, they are, really.’

‘And what,’ demanded Mrs Bantry as she looked through the window at the retreating car of the Chief Constable, ‘did she mean by that? “They are, really.” Don’t you think, Jane, that there’s something—’

Miss Marple fell upon the words eagerly.

‘Oh, I do—indeed I do. It’s quite unmistakable! Her manner changed at once when the Jeffersons were mentioned. She had seemed quite natural up to then.’

‘But what do you think it is, Jane?’

‘Well, my dear, you know them. All I feel is that there is something, as you say, about them which is worrying that young woman. Another thing, did you notice that when you asked her if she wasn’t anxious about the girl being missing, she said that she was angry! And she looked angry—really angry! That strikes me as interesting, you know. I have a feeling—perhaps I’m wrong—that that’s her main reaction to the fact of the girl’s death. She didn’t care for her, I’m sure. She’s not grieving in any way. But I do think, very definitely, that the thought of that girl, Ruby Keene, makes her angry. And the interesting point is—why?’

‘We’ll find out!’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘We’ll go over to Danemouth and stay at the Majestic—yes, Jane, you too. I need a change for my nerves after what has happened here. A few days at the Majestic—that’s what we need. And you’ll meet Conway Jefferson. He’s a dear—a perfect dear. It’s the saddest story imaginable. Had a son and daughter, both of whom he loved dearly. They were both married, but they still spent a lot of time at home. His wife, too, was the sweetest woman, and he was devoted to her. They were flying home one year from France and there was an accident. They were all killed: the pilot, Mrs Jefferson, Rosamund, and Frank. Conway had both legs so badly injured they had to be amputated. And he’s been wonderful—his courage, his pluck! He was a very active man and now he’s a helpless cripple, but he never complains. His daughter-in-law lives with him—she was a widow when Frank Jefferson married her and she had a son by her first marriage—Peter Carmody. They both live with Conway. And Mark Gaskell, Rosamund’s husband, is there too most of the time. The whole thing was the most awful tragedy.’