4_50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie [58]
“Why the pigsty, dear?” asked Miss Marple with interest. “Do they keep pigs?”
“Oh, no, not nowadays. It’s just— I go there sometimes.”
For some reason Lucy blushed. Miss Marple looked at her with increased interest.
“Who’s at the house now?” asked Craddock.
“Cedric’s there, and Bryan’s down for the weekend. Harold and Alfred are coming down tomorrow. They rang up this morning. I somehow got the impression that you had been putting the cat among the pigeons, Inspector Craddock.”
Craddock smiled.
“I shook them up a little. Asked them to account for their movements on Friday, 20th December.”
“And could they?”
“Harold could. Alfred couldn’t—or wouldn’t.”
“I think alibis must be terribly difficult,” said Lucy. “Times and places and dates. They must be hard to check up on, too.”
“It takes time and patience—but we manage.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll be coming to Rutherford Hall presently to have a word with Cedric, but I want to get hold of Dr. Quimper first.”
“You’ll be just about right. He has his surgery at six and he’s usually finished about half past. I must get back and deal with dinner.”
“I’d like your opinion on one thing, Miss Eyelesbarrow. What’s the family view about this Martine business—amongst themselves?”
Lucy replied promptly.
“They’re all furious with Emma for going to you about it—and with Dr. Quimper who, it seemed, encouraged her to do so. Harold and Alfred think it was a try on and not genuine. Emma isn’t sure. Cedric thinks it was phoney, too, but he doesn’t take it as seriously as the other two. Bryan, on the other hand, seems quite sure that it’s genuine.”
“Why, I wonder?”
“Well, Bryan’s rather like that. Just accepts things at their face value. He thinks it was Edmund’s wife—or rather widow—and that she had suddenly to go back to France, but that they’ll hear from her again sometime. The fact that she hasn’t written, or anything, up to now, seems to him to be quite natural because he never writes letters himself. Bryan’s rather sweet. Just like a dog that wants to be taken for a walk.”
“And do you take him for a walk, dear?” asked Miss Marple. “To the pigsties, perhaps?”
Lucy shot a keen glance at her.
“So many gentlemen in the house, coming and going,” mused Miss Marple.
When Miss Marple uttered the word “gentlemen” she always gave it its full Victorian flavour—an echo from an era actually before her own time. You were conscious at once of dashing full-blooded (and probably whiskered) males, sometimes wicked, but always gallant.
“You’re such a handsome girl,” pursued Miss Marple, appraising Lucy. “I expect they pay you a good deal of attention, don’t they?”
Lucy flushed slightly. Scrappy remembrances passed across her mind. Cedric, leaning against the pigsty wall. Bryan sitting disconsolately on the kitchen table. Alfred’s fingers touching hers as he helped her collect the coffee cups.
“Gentlemen,” said Miss Marple, in the tone of one speaking of some alien and dangerous species, “are all very much alike in some ways—even if they are quite old.…”
“Darling,” cried Lucy. “A hundred years ago you would certainly have been burned as a witch!”
And she told her story of old Mr. Crackenthorpe’s conditional proposal of marriage.
“In fact,” said Lucy, “they’ve all made what you might call advances to me in a way. Harold’s was very correct—an advantageous financial position in the City. I don’t think it’s my attractive appearance—they must think I know something.”
She laughed.
But Inspector Craddock did not laugh.
“Be careful,” he said. “They might murder you instead of making advances to you.”
“I suppose it might be simpler,” Lucy agreed.
Then she gave a slight shiver.
“One forgets,” she said.