Agatha Christie Investigates Omnibus

by Alison Joseph

‘Someone who died?’

  He flinched.

  ‘We all lost people in that terrible war,’ Agatha said. ‘So much suffering. The casualties, the men I nursed. The damage.’ She shook herself, stepped away from him. ‘We should get back,’ she said. She began to walk towards the door. ‘Even cold ham begins to have a certain appeal.’

  ‘I didn’t bury him.’ The words cut through the air behind her. She turned to face him. Mr. Farrar was white-faced, his fists clenched at his side. ‘He was in the mud … there was blood, he was lying at a strange angle – that sound, that rattle, the dying breath, unmistakable … Come on, they were saying, they took hold of me, come away … There was gunfire …’ He began to hit his fists against his legs. ‘I tried to run back, but they grabbed me, marched me away. “For God’s sake, man,” they were saying, “you’ll get yourself killed …”’ His voice faltered. He was standing in the middle of the room, his eyes fixed, unseeing.

  She took a step towards him. ‘Who?’ she asked, gently.

  He appeared not to hear her. ‘“Woe for the sins of a darkened soul, stubborn sins, fraught with death …”’

  ‘Mr. Farrar …’ She touched his sleeve.

  He gave a choking cry, slapped his hands over his eyes.

  ‘We must go,’ she said.

  ‘He was left unburied. I loved him …’ His words were barely audible. He stood, unmoving.

  She put her hand to his elbow, and began to lead him, out of the room, along the darkened passage. His steps were shuffling, uneven beside her. She had a flash of memory, of taking a soldier’s arm, knowing, as he limped at her side along the hospital corridor, that in the clean white walls he could see only the blood-soaked mud of the Somme.

  She led Mr. Farrar into the hall, and, still holding his arm, opened the front door and pushed it wide open. There was sunlight, and she could see patches of blue in the sky. He stood, breathing hard, then released himself from her grip and stumbled out of the door. It was with relief that Agatha followed him.

  Outside, on the golden stone of the front steps, he took several deep breaths. Then he turned to her, with an odd, exaggerated smile.

  ‘Lunch,’ he said. ‘You’re quite right. We should be just in time.’ He leaned slightly towards her, and she prepared herself to take his arm again, but instead he made a sharp, military turn towards the rough side of the drive, allowing her the easier side as they walked back up the hill to the main path.

  Chapter Eight

  On their return to the hotel, Kurt managed to whisk them both into the kitchen entrance, unseen by the waiting reporters and newsmen. Once inside, he turned to her.

  ‘I must apologise,’ he said. He patted his pockets, drew out a packet of cigarettes.

  They had walked back from Ince Hall in silence. The exertion seemed to have settled him. The colour had returned to his face. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply.

  ‘You have no need,’ she said.

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Mr. Farrar – it seems to me –’

  ‘I appreciate your accompanying me to the house,’ he went on. ‘It means a lot to me, that building.’ His tone was distant; the subject seemed to be closed.

  ‘Perhaps one day you’ll explain,’ she said.

  A clipped, polite smile behind a curl of smoke. ‘I hope one day to be able to, Mrs. Christie. And now I must leave you to take luncheon alone. I do feel so responsible for Blanche. I promised her husband I’d look after her, and I fear I am shirking my responsibilities.’

  Chameleon, she thought, looking at him. The dark anguish had gone, replaced with this artificial brittleness. He leaned towards her and took her hand in a formal grasp. Then he strode away along the carpeted corridor, all rangy, elegant ease.

  How many, Agatha thought, as she turned to walk towards the dining room, how many of our men carry under a façade of normality the open wounds of war? A sudden image came to mind, her husband’s medals set out in their glass cabinet, telling their own story of courage under fire.

  I hope he got my telegram, she thought.

  *

  Lunch was being served with calm and order, as if there was no encampment of press outside or huddles of police on the tennis courts.

  Mr. Finch gave Agatha a brief bow. ‘Table for one?’

  ‘Yes please,’ she said.

  ‘We need all the peace and quiet we can get at the moment,’ he said, with a small smile.

  Mr. Farrar had settled on a table with Mrs. Winters and Sophie. Agatha watched them, and thought how, rather than Kurt having to look after Blanche, all the evidence showed that it was she who was looking after him. There was a concern verging on fussiness, in the way she topped up his lemonade, the way she insisted on his having a second helping of salmon. Next to her sat Sophie, her plate untouched, her gaze drifting beyond the windows to the tennis courts with their bustle of police activity. From time to time the child would tear her attention away from the exterior and survey the room, as if looking for someone. Young Hughes, Agatha surmised, thinking what a shame it was that the girl had found a harmless romance of which she was now deprived.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’ Kurt’s voice cut through the room, as Finch approached their table.

  Agatha winced at such an inappropriate conversational opening. She was aware of Blanche doing the same, a warning hand on Kurt’s arm.

  Kurt shook this off. ‘We’re missing him on this table,’ he said.

  Mr. Finch stood, stiff and correct. ‘We felt that in the circumstances, Sir, it would be better for him to be elsewhere. Until all this blows over.’

  ‘Up at the big house, eh?’ Kurt flashed Finch a smile.

  The manager gave a brief nod. ‘Yes, Sir. Up at Langlands. The police have given Frau Adler permission to return home, and knowing her affection for the boy, I felt it was better for everyone if young Hughes stayed there for a while.’ He reached for the empty serving dish and hurried away with it.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll visit him there.’ Mr. Farrar had turned to Sophie, and this comment was addressed to her with a smile.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Blanche’s voice was sharp. ‘How on earth do you think that would look? Turning up there unannounced – Ah, here’s Sebastian.’ The out-breath of relief was all too apparent, as Blanche moved her chair to make space for the tennis coach.

  ‘So sorry I was delayed.’ He took his place beside her. ‘Our neighbourhood constable was cross-examining me about the layout of the tennis court. Seems to think I’m an expert.’ He gave a bright laugh, and reached for a bread roll. He was in loose white trousers and a white blazer, his tie roughly fastened, as if added as an afterthought.

  ‘I don’t know how poor Sophie is going to improve her game in time, what with all that going on.’ Blanche waved a dismissive arm towards the tennis courts.

  ‘They’ll be gone soon enough,’ Sebastian said, taking the butter dish she passed him. ‘A dead body is a dead body. There’s a limit to what they can find out.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ It was Mr. Farrar who spoke.

  Agatha was aware of a warning glance passing from Blanche to Sebastian.

  ‘When it comes to dead bodies, I mean.’ Kurt was still smiling, but there was a hollowness about his face.

  ‘Kurt –’ Blanche began.

  ‘The stories a dead man can tell you…’

  ‘Not now –’ Blanche tried.

  ‘Oh Uncle Kurt.’ It was Sophie’s light voice, cutting through his speech. ‘Tell us later, not now.’

  He blinked, stared at her.

  ‘Tell us when we’ve got time to listen properly.’ She reached out and took his hand in hers. He gazed at their hands, and a slow smile spread across his face. He nodded. ‘When we’ve got time,’ he repeated. Then he reached for another bread roll, and began to eat hungrily.

  *

  The dining room was filling up. Agatha found there were some guests she didn’t recognize, and wondered whether a ghoulish fascinat
ion was bringing new customers. Two well-dressed, elderly ladies sat at one table. They were wearing almost identical tweed suits, and their conversation, in a refined Scottish accent, seemed to be mostly shrill disagreement.

  Mr. Finch oversaw the service of lunch with his usual composure. There was no sign of Mrs. Collyer, but Mr. Tyndall had just arrived, alone, and was shown to his usual table. He didn’t sit down, however, but began to pace the room, pink-faced and flustered.

  ‘Cross-examined as if I were the murderer,’ he said. ‘Treated like some kind of criminal.’ He had reached their two tables, and now addressed the space in between them. ‘And poor Lillian questioned too. I’d only just arrived at the house and there they were, proceeding to treat her as if she was the killer. “Bolsheviks” was the word they used. No understanding at all, no allowances made. Her secretary and I had to intervene to prevent her being upset by their rudeness.’

  Mr. Farrar was sitting bolt upright. His eyes were fixed on Mr. Tyndall, who continued, ‘Implying that poor Frau Adler is some kind of revolutionary. She’s simply a quiet English widow, living a quiet English life up there. You’d think things would have improved since the war. Any whiff of being foreign, or an artist, or both, and the police start voicing their clumsy suspicions … Just as well Mr. Fitzwilliam was there. Calmed everything down. They wanted to see some papers, and he fished them all out, handed it all over.’

  ‘Papers?’ Kurt’s voice was sharp.

  Mr. Tyndall sighed. ‘The man had no choice. The police seem to think that Frederick’s biographical researches are of interest. Quentin found all the papers he could.’

  ‘Have they taken them away?’ Kurt asked.

  ‘The police? Yes. Outrageous liberty if you ask me. I mean, what on earth do they hope to find, upsetting a respectable woman like Frau Adler …’

  Kurt was squeezing his fists against the table. Blanche put a warning hand on his arm.

  Mr. Tyndall went on, ‘Well, they’re welcome to them. Can’t imagine they’ll draw any useful conclusions, those bumbling constables, treating us all as suspects –’ He broke off, as Finch approached.

  ‘Salmon, Sir?’

  Mr. Tyndall seemed to breathe. He became calm, smiled, turned towards his table. ‘Salmon, Finch. Thank you.’

  The room settled into quiet conversation. Sebastian and Sophie discussed tennis. Mr. Tyndall ate in silence. After a while, Mrs. Collyer appeared, wraith-like in a cream-coloured gown. Finch was at her elbow, steering her towards her table, but she fluttered a hand in refusal, crossed the room to the piano and began to play.

  The sun had emerged again, high in the afternoon sky, and the terrace was illumined with its rays. The notes of Chopin tinkled through the hubbub of the diners. Outside, the tennis courts cleared as the police moved their investigations on to the lawn. Sophie and Sebastian got to their feet and headed out for a game, followed, surprisingly, by Kurt.

  Agatha had bent to her notebook, and was beginning to write in it. A flurry of images circled, of medals and telegrams, misty railway stations and hasty goodbyes. The flowering of love. The past of the story which brings about the present –

  ‘It’s the gunshot.’ Agatha looked up to find Blanche standing by her table. ‘I must apologise for Mr. Farrar’s bad behaviour. I do hope he hasn’t been troubling you.’

  Agatha sighed, and closed her notebook. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not at all. It’s rather stressful for all of us,’ she added.

  Without being invited, Blanche took the seat at her table. ‘I’m so sorry about his rudeness yesterday,’ she said to Agatha. ‘My husband is so fond of him, and when this idea for a holiday was suggested, we wanted to encourage him. Kurt so rarely relaxes, after what he’s been through.’ She leant back in the chair, her gaze following the tennis game in the stormy sunlight.

  ‘Your husband didn’t come with you?’ Agatha asked.

  ‘Oh no,’ Blanche replied, with a girlish shake of her head, ‘Jerry’s always so busy in the City. I thought he might have joined us at the weekend, but I fear these goings-on will keep him away now. It’s a shame, because he’s very fond of Kurt, they’re cousins, and they grew up together. Kurt’s mother died young, you see, and so my husband’s mother took him in when he was about fourteen, so they spent those precious years together, even their schooling.’ Her gaze went to the tennis courts. Agatha could hear the soft bouncing of the ball, Sebastian’s shouts of encouragement. Kurt was sitting on the grass at the side, leaning on one arm, watching.

  ‘He’s still like a child in many ways,’ Blanche said. ‘In spite of what he’s gone through…’

  ‘He was an artist?’ Agatha asked.

  Blanche flicked her a glance. She nodded. ‘He was. Before the war. He studied in London. He was considered very promising, went around with some of the greatest talents of his generation. And then…’ Her face clouded.

  ‘The war,’ Agatha said.

  ‘So terrible. For so many of us.’

  ‘So – the noise of the gunshot, on the tennis courts there –’

  Blanche turned to her. ‘I think it must have triggered something. A memory. I think it caused him to relive some past horror. I’m terribly worried that the police will read more into his behaviour than simply the concerns of an innocent but damaged man.’

  ‘He was telling me about a painting,’ Agatha said. Blanche gave a twitch of something like annoyance. ‘Antigone,’ Agatha went on.

  ‘Oh that darned painting,’ Blanche burst out. ‘He saw it some years ago, in a house near here. Some old Greek tale about a silly girl who disobeys her uncle to sprinkle dust on some poor boy who’s died in battle. It seems to mean something to dear Kurt.’

  ‘Something about his own life?’ Agatha prompted.

  Blanche gave a shrug.

  ‘Antigone broke the rules to bury her dead brother,’ Agatha went on.

  ‘As I said. A silly girl.’ Blanche shifted on her seat.

  ‘Mr. Farrar was telling me, about how the war changed the rules –’

  ‘Rules exist for good reason.’ There was a forcefulness in Blanche’s tone. ‘People shouldn’t go breaking them.’

  ‘He implied,’ Agatha went on, ‘that someone he knew had died. In battle, perhaps.’

  Blanche turned to her. ‘I know very little about it. All I know is, my husband’s cousin came back from the war a changed man. He hasn’t picked up a paintbrush since. Jerry thinks it would help him if he did.’ She shifted her position to face the tennis court, and said no more.

  *

  The game progressed. Kurt seemed to be shouting out the scores. After a while he called up to Blanche, and she went out to join them. The sun dazzled across the tennis courts. On the horizon, the clouds gathered ready for another storm.

  Agatha thought about Blanche’s sweet concern for her husband’s cousin. She reflected on Mr. Tyndall’s outrage. She thought about Frau Adler, and Mr. Farrar’s shock at encountering Quentin Fitzwilliam, the secretary. She saw in her mind the ghostly ruined manor house, heard again Mr. Farrar’s recitation of Antigone, the girl who risks her life in order to bury the dead. She thought about the gaps where the paintings used to be, about Mr. Farrar’s nervous collapse, his talk of art and broken rules.

  She watched the unlikely tennis party, and wondered what had really brought them here.

  Chapter Nine

  The promised storm shrank to mere drizzle overnight, and the next day dawned calm and sunlit. The hotel too, seemed to be asserting normality, and breakfast was orderly and cheerful.

  Agatha was breakfasting alone, her notebook at her side. From time to time she wrote in it. Yesterday it had occurred to her that Captain Wingfield would have to declare himself no longer engaged to the unsuitable fiancée, daughter of Lady Bertram, before he could honourably ask the governess for her hand in marriage –

  ‘More tea, Madam.’ Finch stood at her elbow with a large teapot. ‘I’ve brought your newspaper too.’ He poured her tea. Then, instead of movin
g away, he stood, stock still, staring across the room. ‘I’m worried about that man,’ he said, almost to himself.

  Agatha followed his gaze.

  Mr. Farrar was sitting, alone, a plate of eggs and bacon cooling on one side. In front of him was a stack of files, and he was leafing through them with a rather fretful eagerness.

  ‘More of those papers from Mr. Collyer’s research,’ Mr. Finch said. ‘The police took the ones from the Adlers’ house, but these are a second set. He’s convinced someone that he’s the man to help. It’s a terrible mistake.’

  Agatha watched the feverish flicking of the papers. ‘Who gave them to him?’

  Finch hesitated. He spoke in a low voice. ‘I would not normally dream of indulging in gossip, Madam,’ he said. ‘I speak only from concern. Mr. Farrar’s mental state is not of the strongest. Like many young men after this terrible war …’ Again, he watched as Kurt turned page after page. ‘I gather that he approached Mrs. Collyer last night, and offered to help. I think she was only too glad to get rid of the things. But in my view, if those papers do indeed hold clues to this awful killing, then Detective Inspector Olds needs to know what they say.’

  ‘And do you think they do hold clues?’ Agatha found herself gazing into his clear blue eyes.

  Again, the hesitation. ‘I’m sure the police know what they’re doing. My main concern is that there is a murderer at large, and the sooner he can be caught the better.’ He was looking directly at her, and now a new resolve crossed his face, as if he’d made a decision. ‘Madam, I wonder if I might confide in you, perhaps later on this morning? It is not a liberty I would presume to take in normal circumstances, but with these terrible events …’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I will be in my pantry, after the service of breakfast. If it’s not too much trouble.’

  She assured him that it was no trouble at all, and that she would find him there. She sat at her table and finished her breakfast, flicking through the Times.

  She read about Egyptian tombs and the price of rubber. She studied a story about a missing girl from Dorset, a nursery-maid, who hadn’t been seen for days. Her mother was beside herself with worry. They were trawling the local river with some arrangement of mercury and bread, the mercury buried in a loaf and dangled over the water. Agatha turned the page, scanned the death notices, put the paper down.