Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  She was at work on the baths when the telephone rang.

  Molly first cursed at being interrupted, then felt a slight feeling of relief that the telephone at least was still in action, as she ran down to answer it. She arrived in the library a little breathless and lifted the receiver.

  "Yes?"

  A hearty voice with a slight but pleasant country burr asked, "Is that Monkswell Manor?"

  "Monkswell Manor Guest House."

  "Can I speak to Commander David, please?"

  "I'm afraid he can't come to the telephone just now," said Molly. "This is Mrs Davis. Who is speaking, please?"

  "Superintendent Hogben, Berkshire Police."

  Molly gave a slight gasp. She said, "Oh, yes - er - yes?"

  "Mrs Davis, rather an urgent matter has arisen. I don't wish to say very much over the telephone, but I have sent Detective Sergeant Trotter out to you, and he should be there any minute now."

  "But he won't get here. We're snowed up - completely snowed up. The roads are impassable."

  There was no break in the confidence of the voice at the other end.

  "Trotter will get to you, all right," it said. "And please impress upon your husband, Mrs Davis, to listen very carefully to what Trotter has to tell you, and to follow his instructions implicitly. That's all."

  "But, Superintendent Hogben, what -"

  But there was a decisive click. Hogben had clearly said all he had to say and rung off. Molly waggled the telephone rest once or twice, then gave up. She turned as the door opened.

  "Oh, Giles darling, there you are."

  Giles had snow on his hair and a good deal of coal grime on his face.

  He looked hot.

  "What is it, sweetheart? I've filled the coal scuttles and brought in the wood. I'll do the hens next and then have a look at the boiler. Is that right? What's the matter, Molly? You looked scared."

  "Giles, it was the police."

  "The police?" Giles sounded incredulous.

  "Yes, they're sending out an inspector or a sergeant or something."

  "But why? What have we done?"

  "I don't know. Do you think it could be that two pounds of butter we had from Ireland?"

  Giles was frowning. "I did remember to get the wireless license, didn't I?"

  "Yes, it's in the desk. Giles, old Mrs Bidlock gave me five of her coupons for that old tweed coat of mine. I suppose that's wrong - but I think it's perfectly fair. I'm a coat less so why shouldn't I have the coupons? Oh, dear, what else is there we've done?"

  "I had a near shave with the car the other day. But it was definitely the other fellow's fault. Definitely."

  "We must have done something," wailed Molly.

  "The trouble is that practically everything one does nowadays is illegal," said Giles gloomily. "That's why one has a permanent feeling of guilt. Actually I expect it's something to do with running this place.

  Running a guest house is probably chock-full of snags we've never heard of."

  "I thought drink was the only thing that mattered. We haven't given anyone anything to drink. Otherwise, why shouldn't we run our own house any way we please?"

  "I know. It sounds all right. But as I say, everything's more or less forbidden nowadays."

  "Oh, dear," sighed Molly. "I wish we'd never started. We're going to be snowed up for days, and everybody will be cross and they'll eat all our reserves of tins -"

  "Cheer up, sweetheart," said Giles. "We're having a bad break at the moment, but it will pan out all right."

  He kissed the top of her head rather absentmindedly and, releasing her, said in a different voice, "You know, Molly, come to think of it, it must be something pretty serious to send a police sergeant trekking out here in all this." He waved a hand toward the snow outside. He said, "It must be something really urgent -"

  As they stared at each other, the door opened, and Mrs Boyle came in.

  "Ah, here you are, Mr Davis," said Mrs Boyle. "Do you know the central heating in the drawing-room is practically stone-cold?"

  "I'm sorry, Mrs Boyle. We're rather short of coke and -"

  Mrs Boyle cut in ruthlessly. "I am paying seven guineas a week here seven guineas. And I do not expect to freeze."

  Giles flushed. He said shortly, "I'll go and stoke it up." He went out of the room, and Mrs Boyle turned to Molly.

  "If you don't mind my saying so, Mrs Davis, that is a very extraordinary young man you have staying here. His manners - and his ties - And does he never brush his hair?"

  "He's an extremely brilliant young architect," said Molly.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Christopher Wren is an architect and -"

  "My dear young woman," snapped Mrs Boyle, "I have naturally heard of Sir Christopher Wren. Of course he was an architect. He built St.

  Paul's. You young people seem to think that education came in with the Education Act."

  "I meant this Wren. His name is Christopher. His parents called him that because they hoped he'd be an architect. And he is - or nearly one, so it turned out all right."

  "Humph," Mrs Boyle snorted. "It sounds a very fishy story to me. I should make some inquiries about him if I were you. What do you know about him?"

  "Just as much as I know about you, Mrs Boyle - which is that both you and he are paying us seven guineas a week. That's really all that I need to know, isn't it? And all that concerns me. It doesn't matter to me whether I like my guests, or whether -" Molly looked very steadily at Mrs Boyle - "or whether I don't."

  Mrs Boyle flushed angrily. "You are young and inexperienced and should welcome advice from someone more knowledgeable than yourself. And what about this queer foreigner? When did he arrive?"

  "In the middle of the night."

  "Indeed. Most peculiar. Not a very conventional hour."

  "To turn away bona fide travellers would be against the law, Mrs Boyle." Molly added sweetly. "You may not be aware of that."

  "All I can say is that this Paravicini, or whatever he calls himself, seems to me -" "Beware, beware, dear lady. You talk of the devil and then -"

  Mrs Boyle jumped as though it had been indeed the devil who addressed her. Mr Paravicini, who had minced quietly in without either of the two women noticing him, laughed and rubbed his hands together with a kind of elderly satanic glee.

  "You startled me," said Mrs Boyle. "I did not hear you come in."

  "I come in on tiptoe, so," said Mr Paravicini, "nobody ever hears me come and go. That I find very amusing. Sometimes I overhear things.

  That, too, amuses me." He added softly, "But I do not forget what I hear."

  Mrs Boyle said rather feebly, "Indeed? I must get my knitting -1 left it in the drawing-room."

  She went out hurriedly. Molly stood looking at Mr Paravicini with a puzzled expression. He approached her with a kind of hop and skip.

  "My charming hostess looks upset." Before she could prevent it, he picked up her hand and kissed it. "What is it, dear lady?"

  Molly drew back a step. She was not sure that she liked Mr Paravicini much. He was leering at her like an elderly satyr.

  "Everything is rather difficult this morning," she said lightly. "Because of the snow."

  "Yes." Mr Paravicini turned his head round to look out of the window.

  "Snow makes everything very difficult, does it not? Or else it makes things very easy."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "No," he said thoughtfully. "There is quite a lot that you do not know. I think, for one thing, that you do not know very much about running a guest house."

  Molly's chin went up belligerently. "I daresay we don't. But we mean to make a go of it."

  "Bravo, bravo."

  "After all," Molly's voice betrayed slight anxiety, "I'm not such a very bad cook -"

  "You are, without doubt, an enchanting cook," said Mr Paravicini.

  What a nuisance foreigners were, thought Molly.

  Perhaps Mr Paravicini read her thoughts. At all events his
manner changed. He spoke quietly and quite seriously.

  "May I give you a little word of warning, Mrs Davis? You and your husband must not be too trusting, you know. Have you references with these guests of yours?"

  "Is that usual?" Molly looked troubled. "I thought people just -just came."

  "It is advisable always to know a little about the people who sleep under your roof." He leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder in a minatory kind of way. "Take myself, for example. I turn up in the middle of the night. My car, I say, is overturned in a snowdrift. What do you know of me? Nothing at all. Perhaps you know nothing, either, of your other guests."

  "Mrs Boyle -" began Molly, but stopped as that lady herself re-entered the room, knitting in hand.

  "The drawing-room is too cold. I shall sit in here." She marched toward the fireplace. Mr Paravicini pirouetted swiftly ahead of her. "Allow me to poke the fire for you."

  Molly was struck, as she had been the night before, by the youthful jauntiness of his step. She noticed that he always seemed careful to keep his back to the light, and now, as he knelt, poking the fire, she thought she saw the reason for it. Mr Paravicini's face was cleverly but decidedly "made up."

  So the old idiot tried to make himself look younger than he was, did he? Well, he didn't succeed. He looked all his age and more. Only the youthful walk was incongruous.

  Perhaps that, too, had been carefully counterfeited.

  She was brought back from speculation to the disagreeable realities by the brisk entrance of Major Metcalf.

  "Mrs Davis. I'm afraid the pipes of the - er -" he lowered his voice modestly, "downstairs cloakroom are frozen."

  "Oh, dear," groaned Molly. "What an awful day. First the police and then the pipes."

  Mr Paravicini dropped the poker into the grate with a clatter. Mrs Boyle stopped knitting.

  Molly, looking at Major Metcalf, was puzzled by his sudden stiff immobility and by the indescribable expression on his face. It was an expression she could not place. It was as though all emotion had been drained out of it, leaving something carved out of wood behind.

  He said in a short, staccato voice, "Police, did you say?"

  She was conscious that behind the stiff immobility of his demeanour, some violent emotion was at work. It might have been fear or alertness or excitement - but there was something. This man, she said to herself, could be dangerous.

  He said again, and this time his voice was just mildly curious, "What's that about the police?"

  "They rang up," said Molly. "Just now. To say they're sending a sergeant out here." She looked toward the window. "But I shouldn't think he'll ever get here," she said hopefully.

  "Why are they sending the police here?" He took a step nearer to her, but before she could reply the door opened, and Giles came in.

  "This ruddy coke's more than half stones," he said angrily. Then he added sharply, "Is anything the matter?"

  Major Metcalf turned to him. "I hear the police are coming out here," he said. "Why?"

  "Oh, that's all right," said Giles. "No one can ever get through in this.

  Why, the drifts are five feet deep. The road's all banked up. Nobody will get here today."

  And at that moment there came distinctly three loud taps on the window.

  It startled them all. For a moment or two they did not locate the sound.

  It came with the emphasis and menace of a ghostly warning. And then, with a cry, Molly pointed to the French window. A man was standing there tapping on the pane, and the mystery of his arrival was explained by the fact that he wore skis.

  With an exclamation, Giles crossed the room, fumbled with the catch, and threw open the French window.

  "Thank you, sir," said the new arrival. He had a slightly common, cheerful voice and a well-bronzed face.

  "Detective Sergeant Trotter," he announced himself.

  Mrs Boyle peered at him over her knitting with disfavour.

  "You can't be a sergeant," she said disapprovingly. "You're too young."

  The young man, who was indeed very young, looked affronted at this criticism and said in a slightly annoyed tone, "I'm not quite as young as I look, madam."

  His eye roved over the group and picked out Giles.

  "Are you Mr Davis? Can I get these skis off and stow them somewhere?"

  "Of course, come with me."

  Mrs Boyle said acidly as the door to the hall closed behind them, "I suppose that's what we pay our police force for, nowadays, to go round enjoying themselves at winter sports."

  Paravicini had come close to Molly. There was quite a hiss in his voice as he said in a quick, low voice, "Why did you send for the police, Mrs Davis?"

  She recoiled a little before the steady malignity of his glance. This was a new Mr Paravicini. For a moment she felt afraid. She said helplessly, "But I didn't. I didn't."

  And then Christopher Wren came excitedly through the door, saying in a high penetrating whisper, "Who's that man in the hall? Where did he come from? So terribly hearty and all over snow."

  Mrs Boyle's voice boomed out over the click of her knitting-needles.

  "You may believe it or not, but that man is a policeman. A policeman skiing!"

  The final disruption of the lower classes had come, so her manner seemed to say.

  Major Metcalf murmured to Molly, "Excuse me, Mrs Davis, but may I use your telephone?"

  "Of course, Major Metcalf."

  He went over to the instrument, just as Christopher Wren said shrilly, "He's very handsome, don't you think so? I always think policemen are terribly attractive."

  "Hullo, hullo -" Major Metcalf was rattling the telephone irritably. He turned to Molly. "Mrs Davis, this telephone is dead, quite dead." "It was all right just now. I -"

  She was interrupted. Christopher Wren was laughing, a high, shrill, almost hysterical laugh. "So we're quite cut off now. Quite cut off.

  That's funny, isn't it?"

  "I don't see anything to laugh at," said Major Metcalf stiffly. "No, indeed," said Mrs Boyle.

  Christopher was still in fits of laughter. "It's a private joke of my own," he said. "Hsh," he put his finger to his lips, "the sleuth is coming."

  Giles came in with Sergeant Trotter. The latter had got rid of his skis and brushed off the snow and was holding in his hand a large notebook and pencil. He brought an atmosphere of unhurried judicial procedure with him.

  "Molly," said Giles, "Sergeant Trotter wants a word with us alone."

  Molly followed them both out of the room. "We'll go in the study," Giles said.

  They went into the small room at the back of the hall which was dignified by that name. Sergeant Trotter closed the door carefully behind him.

  "What have we done, Sergeant?" Molly demanded plaintively.

  "Done?" Sergeant Trotter stared at her. Then he smiled broadly. "Oh," he said. "It's nothing of that kind, madam. I'm sorry if there's been a misapprehension of any kind. No, Mrs Davis, it's something quite different. It's more a matter of police protection, if you understand me."

  Not understanding him in the least, they both looked at him inquiringly.

  Sergeant Trotter went on fluently, "It relates to the death of Mrs Lyon, Mrs Maureen Lyon, who was murdered in London two days ago. You may have read about the case."

  "Yes," said Molly.

  "The first thing I want to know is if you were acquainted with this Mrs Lyon?"

  "Never heard of her," said Giles, and Molly murmured concurrence.

  "Well, that's rather what we expected. But as a matter of fact Lyon wasn't the murdered woman's real name. She had a police record, and her fingerprints were on file, so we were able to identify her without any difficulty. Her real name was Gregg; Maureen Gregg. Her late husband, John Gregg, was a farmer who resided at Longridge Farm not very far from here. You may have heard of the Longridge Farm case."

  The room was very still. Only one sound broke the stillness, a soft, unexpected plop as snow slithered off the roof and fell to
the ground outside. It was a secret, almost sinister sound.

  Trotter went on. "Three evacuee children were billeted on the Greggs at Longridge Farm in 1940. One of those children subsequently died as the result of criminal neglect and ill-treatment. The case made quite a sensation, and the Greggs were both sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Gregg escaped on his way to prison, he stole a car and had a crash while trying to evade the police. He was killed outright.

  Mrs Gregg served her sentence and was released two months ago."

  "And now she's been murdered," said Giles. "Who do they think did it?"

  But Sergeant Trotter was not to be hurried. "You remember the case, sir?" he asked.

  Giles shook his head. "In 1940 I was a midshipman serving in the Mediterranean."

  "I -1 do remember hearing about it, I think," said Molly rather breathlessly. "But why do you come to us? What have we to do with it?"

  "It's a question of your being in danger, Mrs Davis!" "Danger?" Giles spoke incredulously.

  "It's like this, sir. A notebook was picked up near the scene of the crime. In it were written two addresses. The first was Seventy-Four Culver Street."

  "Where the woman was murdered?" Molly put in.

  "Yes" Mrs Davis. The other address was Monkswell Manor."

  "What?" Molly's tone was incredulous. "But how extraordinary."

  "Yes. That's why Superintendent Hogben thought it imperative to find out if you knew of any connection between you, or between this house, and the Longridge Farm case."

  "There's nothing - absolutely nothing," said Giles. "It must be some coincidence."

  Sergeant Trotter said gently, "Superintendent Hogben doesn't think it is a coincidence. He'd have come himself if it had been at all possible.

  Under the weather conditions, and as I'm an expert skier, he sent me with instructions to get full particulars of everyone in this house, to report back to him by phone, and to take all measures I thought expedient for the safety of the household."

  Giles said sharply. "Safety? Good Lord, man, you don't think somebody is going to be killed here?"

  Trotter said apologetically, "I didn't want to upset the lady, but yes, that is just what Superintendent Hogben does think."

  "But what earthly reason could there be -"

  Giles broke off, and Trotter said, "That's just what I'm here to find out."