A Pocket Full of Rye mm-7

by Agatha Christie

  Yes, Inspector Neele thought, it was indeed astonishing. He sorted through the papers in front of him, fished out a letter and shoved it across the desk towards Lance.

  "This is a letter you wrote last August, isn't it, Mr Fortescue?"

  Lance took it, glanced at it and returned it.

  "Yes," he said, "I wrote it after I got back to Kenya last summer. Dad kept it, did he? Where was it – here in the office?"

  "No, Mr Fortescue, it was among your father's papers in Yewtree Lodge."

  The Inspector considered it speculatively as it lay on the desk in front of him. It was not a long letter.

  "Dear Dad,

  I've talked things over with Pat and I agree to your proposition. It will take me a little time to get things fixed up here, say about the end of October or beginning of November. I'll let you know nearer the time. I hope we'll pull together better than we used to do. Anyway, I'll do my best. I can't say more. Look after yourself.

  Yours,

  Lance."

  "Where did you address this letter, Mr Fortescue. To the office or Yewtree Lodge?"

  Lance frowned in an effort of recollection.

  "It's difficult. I can't remember. You see it's almost three months now. The office, I think. Yes, I'm almost sure. Here to the office." He paused a moment before asking with frank curiosity, "Why?"

  "I wondered," said Inspector Neele. "Your father did not put it on the file here among his private papers. He took it back with him to Yewtree Lodge, and I found it in his desk there. I wondered why he should have done that."

  Lance laughed.

  "To keep it out of Percy's way, I suppose."

  "Yes," said Inspector Neele, "it would seem so. Your brother, then, had access to your father's private papers here?"

  "Well," Lance hesitated and frowned, "not exactly. I mean, I suppose he could have looked through them at any time if he liked, but he wouldn't be…"

  Inspector Neele finished the sentence for him.

  "Wouldn't be supposed to do so?"

  Lance grinned broadly. "That's right. Frankly, it would have been snooping. But Percy, I should imagine, always did snoop."

  Inspector Neele nodded. He also thought it probable that Percival Fortescue snooped. It would be in keeping with what the Inspector was beginning to learn of his character.

  "And talk of the devil," murmured Lance, as at that moment the door opened and Percival Fortescue came in. About to speak to the Inspector he stopped, frowning, as he saw Lance.

  "Hallo," he said. "You here? You didn't tell me you were coming here today."

  "I felt a kind of zeal for work coming over me," said Lance, "so here I am ready to make myself useful. What do you want me to do?"

  Percival said testily:

  "Nothing at present. Nothing at all. We shall have to come to some kind of arrangement as to what side of the business you're going to look after. We shall have to arrange for an office for you."

  Lance inquired with a grin:

  "By the way, why did you get rid of glamorous Grosvenor, old boy, and replace her by Horsefaced Hetty out there?"

  "Really, Lance," Percival protested sharply.

  "Definitely a change for the worse," said Lance. "I've been looking forward to the glamorous Grosvenor. Why did you sack her? Thought she knew a bit too much?"

  "Of course not. What an idea!" Percy spoke angrily, a flush mounting his pale face. He turned to the Inspector. "You mustn't pay any attention to my brother," he said coldly. "He has a rather peculiar sense of humour." He added, "I never had a very high opinion of Miss Grosvenor's intelligence. Mrs Hardcastle has excellent references and is most capable besides being very moderate in her terms."

  "Very moderate in her terms," murmured Lance, casting his eyes towards the ceiling. "You know, Percy, I don't really approve of skimping over the office personnel. By the way, considering how loyally the staff has stood by us during these last tragic weeks, don't you think we ought to raise their salaries all round?"

  "Certainly not," snapped Percival Fortescue. "Quite uncalled for and unnecessary."

  Inspector Neele noticed the gleam of devilry in Lance's eyes. Percival, however, was far too much upset to notice it.

  "You always had the most extraordinarily extravagant ideas," he stuttered. "In the state in which this firm has been left, economy is our only hope."

  Inspector Neele coughed apologetically.

  "That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Mr Fortescue," he said to Percival.

  "Yes, Inspector?" Percival switched his attention to Neele.

  "I want to put certain suggestions before you, Mr Fortescue. I understand that for the past six months or longer, possibly a year, your father's general behaviour and conduct has been a source of increasing anxiety to you."

  "He wasn't well," said Percival, with finality. "He certainly wasn't at all well."

  "You tried to induce him to see a doctor but you failed. He refused catagorically?"

  "That is so."

  "May I ask you if you suspected that your father was suffering from what is familiarly referred to as G.P.I. General Paralysis of the Insane, a condition with signs of megalomania and irritability which terminates sooner or later in hopeless insanity?"

  Percival looked surprised. "It is remarkably astute of you, Inspector. That is exactly what I did fear. That is why I was so anxious for my father to submit to medical treatment."

  Neele went on:

  "In the meantime, until you could persuade your father to do that, he was capable of causing a great deal of havoc to the business?"

  "He certainly was," Percival agreed.

  "A very unfortunate state of affairs," said the Inspector.

  "Quite terrible. No one knows the anxiety I have been through."

  Neele said gently:

  "From the business point of view, your father's death was an extremely fortunate circumstance."

  Percival said sharply:

  "You can hardly think I would regard my father's death in that light."

  "It is not a question of how you regard it, Mr Fortescue. I'm speaking merely of a question of fact. Your father died before his finances were completely on the rocks."

  Percival said impatiently:

  "Yes, yes. As a matter of actual fact, you are right."

  "It was a fortunate occurrence for your whole family, since they are dependent on this business."

  "Yes. But really Inspector, I don't see what you're driving at…" Percival broke off.

  "Oh, I'm not driving at anything, Mr Fortescue," said Neele. "I just like getting my facts straight. Now there's another thing. I understood you to say that you'd had no communication of any kind with your brother here since he left England many years ago."

  "Quite so," said Percival.

  "Yes, but it isn't quite so, is it, Mr Fortescue? I mean that last spring when you were so worried about your father's health, you actually wrote to your brother in Africa , told him of your anxiety about your father's behaviour. You wanted, I think, your brother to combine with you in getting your father medically examined and put under restraint, if necessary."

  "I – I – really, I don't see…" Percival was badly shaken.

  "That is so, isn't it, Mr Fortescue?"

  "Well, actually, I thought it only right. After all, Lancelot was a junior partner."

  Inspector Neele transferred his gaze to Lance. Lance was grinning.

  "You received that letter?" Inspector Neele asked.

  Lance Fortescue nodded.

  "What did you reply to it?"

  Lance's grin widened.

  "I told Percy to go and boil his head and to let the old man alone. I said the old man probably knew what he was doing quite well."

  Inspector Neele's gaze went back again to Percival.

  "Were those the terms of your brother's answer?"

  "I – I – well, I suppose roughly, yes. Far more offensively couched, however."

  "I thought the Inspec
tor had better have a bowdlerised version," said Lance. He went on, "Frankly, Inspector Neele, that is one of the reasons why, when I got a letter from my father, I came home to see for myself what I thought. In the short interview I had with my father, frankly I couldn't see anything much wrong with him. He was slightly excitable, that was all. He appeared to me perfectly capable of managing his own affairs. Anyway, after I got back to Africa and had talked things over with Pat, I decided that I'd come home and – what shall we say – see fair play."

  He shot a glance at Percival as he spoke.

  "I object," said Percival Fortescue. "I object strongly to what you are suggesting. I was not intending to victimise my father, I was concerned for his health. I admit that I was also concerned…" he paused.

  Lance filled the pause quickly.

  "You were also concerned for your pocket, eh? For Percy's little pocket." He got up and all of a sudden his manner changed. "All right, Percy, I'm through. I was going to string you along a bit by pretending to work here. I wasn't going to let you have things all your own sweet way, but I'm damned if I'm going on with it. Frankly, it makes me sick to be in the same room with you. You've always been a dirty, mean little skunk all your life. Prying and snooping and lying and making trouble. I'll tell you another thing. I can't prove it, but I've always believed it was you who forged that cheque there was all the row about, that got me shot out of here. For one thing it was a damn bad forgery, a forgery that drew attention to itself in letters a foot high. My record was too bad for me to be able to protest effectively, but I often wondered that the old boy didn't realise that if I had forged his name I could have made a much better job of it than that."

  Lance swept on, his voice rising, "Well, Percy, I'm not going on with this silly game. I'm sick of this country, and of the City. I'm sick of little men like you with their pinstripe trousers and their black coats and their mincing voices and their mean, shoddy financial deals. We'll share out as you suggested, and I'll get back with Pat to a different country – a country where there's room to breathe and move about. You can make your own division of securities. Keep the gilt-edged and the conservative ones, keep the safe 2 per cent and 3 per cent and 3 1/2 per cent. Give me father's latest wildcat speculations as you call them. Most of them are probably duds. But I'll bet that one or two of them will pay better in the end than all your playing safe with three per cent Trustee Stocks will do. Father was a shrewd old devil. He took chances, plenty of them. Some of those chances paid five and six and seven hundred per cent. I'll back his judgment and his luck. As for you, you little worm…" Lance advanced towards his brother, who retreated rapidly, round the end of the desk towards Inspector Neele. "All right," said Lance, "I'm not going to touch you. You wanted me out of here, you're getting me out of here. You ought to be satisfied." He added as he strode towards the door, "You can throw in the old Blackbird Mine concession too, if you like. If we've got the murdering MacKenzies on our trail, I'll draw them off to Africa ." He added as he swung through the doorway, "Revenge – after all these years – scarcely seems credible. But Inspector Neele seems to take it seriously, don't you, Inspector?"

  "Nonsense," said Percival. "Such a thing is impossible!"

  "Ask him," said Lance. "Ask him why he's making all these inquiries into blackbirds and rye in father's pocket."

  Gently stroking his upper lip, Inspector Neele said:

  "You remember the blackbirds last summer, Mr Fortescue. There are certain grounds for inquiry."

  "Nonsense," said Percival again. "Nobody's heard of the MacKenzies for years."

  "And yet," said Lance, "I'd almost dare to swear that there's a MacKenzie in our midst. I rather imagine the Inspector thinks so, too."

  II

  Inspector Neele caught up Lancelot Fortescue as the latter emerged into the street below.

  Lance grinned at him rather sheepishly.

  "I didn't mean to do that," he said. "But I suddenly lost my temper. Oh! well – it would have come to the same before long. I'm meeting Pat at the Savoy – are you coming my way, Inspector?"

  "No, I'm returning to Baydon Heath. But there's just something I'd like to ask you, Mr Fortescue."

  "Yes!"

  "When you came into the inner office and saw me there – you were surprised. Why?"

  "Because I didn't expect to see you, I suppose. I thought I'd find Percival there."

  "You weren't told that he'd gone out?"

  Lance looked at him curiously.

  "No. They said he was in his office."

  "I see – nobody knew he'd gone out. There's no second door out of the inner office – but there is a door leading straight into the corridor from the little antechamber – I suppose your brother went out that way – but I'm surprised Mrs Hardcastle didn't tell you so."

  Lance laughed.

  "She'd probably been to collect her cup of tea."

  "Yes – yes – quite so."

  Lance looked at him.

  "What's the idea, Inspector?"

  "Just puzzling over a few little things, that's all, Mr Fortescue –"

  Chapter 24

  I

  In the train on the way down to Baydon Heath, Inspector Neele had singularly little success doing The Times crossword. His mind was distracted by various possibilities. In the same way he read the news with only half his brain taking it in. He read of an earthquake in Japan , of the discovery of uranium deposits in Tanganyika , of the body of a merchant seaman washed up near Southampton , and of the imminent strike among the dockers. He read of the latest victims of the cosh and of a new drug that had achieved wonders in advanced cases of tuberculosis.

  All these items made a queer kind of pattern in the back of his mind. Presently he returned to the crossword puzzle and was able to put down three clues in rapid succession.

  When he reached Yewtree Lodge he had come to a certain decision. He said to Sergeant Hay:

  "Where's that old lady? Is she still here?"

  "Miss Marple? Oh, yes, she's here still. Great buddies with the old lady upstairs."

  "I see." Neele paused for a moment and then said: "Where is she now? I'd like to see her."

  Miss Marple arrived in a few minutes' time, looking rather flushed and breathing fast.

  "You want to see me. Inspector Neele? I do hope I haven't kept you waiting. Sergeant Hay couldn't find me at first. I was in the kitchen, talking to Mrs Crump. I was congratulating her on her pastry and how light her hand is and telling her how delicious the soufflй was last night. I always think, you know, it's better to approach a subject gradually, don't you? At least, I suppose it isn't so easy for you. You more or less have to come almost straight away to the questions you want to ask. But of course for an old lady like me who has all the time in the world, as you might say, it's really expected other that there should be a great deal of unnecessary talk. And the way to a cook's heart, as they say, is through her pastry."

  "What you really wanted to talk to her about," said Inspector Neele, "was Gladys Martin?"

  Miss Marple nodded.

  "Yes. Gladys. You see, Mrs Crump could really tell me a lot about the girl. Not in connection with the murder. I don't mean that. But about her spirits lately and the odd things she said. I don't mean odd in the sense of peculiar. I mean just the odds and ends of conversation."

  "Did you find it helpful?" asked Inspector Neele.

  "Yes," said Miss Marple. "I found it very helpful indeed. I really think, you know, that things are becoming very much clearer, don't you?"

  "I do and I don't," said Inspector Neele.

  Sergeant Hay, he noticed, had left the room. He was glad of it because what he was about to do now was, to say the least of it, slightly unorthodox.

  "Look here, Miss Marple," he said, "I want to talk to you seriously."

  "Yes, Inspector Neele?"

  "In a way," said Inspector Neele, "you and I represent different points of view. I admit, Miss Marple, that I've heard something about you at the Yard." He s
miled, "It seems you're fairly well known there."

  "I don't know how it is," fluttered Miss Marple, "but I so often seem to get mixed up in things that are really no concern of mine. Crimes I mean, and peculiar happenings."

  "You've got a reputation," said Inspector Neele.

  "Sir Henry Clithering, of course," said Miss Marple, "is a very old friend of mine."

  "As I said before," Neele went on, "you and I represent opposite points of view. One might almost call them sanity and insanity."

  Miss Marple put her head a little on one side.

  "Now what exactly do you mean by that, I wonder, Inspector?"

  "Well, Miss Marple, there's a sane way of looking at things. This murder benefits certain people. One person, I may say, in particular. The second murder benefits the same person. The third murder one might call a murder for safety."

  "But which do you call the third murder?" Miss Marple asked.

  Her eyes, a very bright china blue, looked shrewdly at the Inspector. He nodded.

  "Yes. You've got something there perhaps. You know the other day when the A.C. was speaking to me of these murders, something that he said seemed to me to be wrong. That was it. I was thinking, of course, of the nursery rhyme. The king in his counting-house, the queen in the parlour and the maid hanging out the clothes."

  "Exactly," said Miss Marple. "A sequence in that order, but actually Gladys must have been murdered before Mrs Fortescue, mustn't she?"

  "I think so," said Neele. "I take it it's quite certainly so. Her body wasn't discovered till late that night, and of course it was difficult then to say exactly how long she'd been dead. But I think myself that she must almost certainly have been murdered round about five o'clock, because otherwise…"

  Miss Marple cut in. "Because otherwise she would certainly have taken the second tray into the drawing-room?"

  "Quite so. She took one tray in with the tea on it, she brought the second tray into the hall, and then something happened. She saw something or she heard something. The question is what that something was. It might have been Dubois coming down the stairs from Mrs Fortescue's room. It might have been Elaine Fortescue's young man, Gerald Wright, coming in at the side door. Whoever it was, lured her away from the tea-tray and out into the garden. And once that had happened I don't see any possibility of her death being long delayed. It was cold out and she was only wearing her thin uniform."