4_50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie [68]
Dr. Quimper said calmly:
“Miss Crackenthorpe asked my advice. I gave it to her. In my opinion she did perfectly right.”
“You dare to say—”
“Girl!”
It was old Mr. Crackenthorpe’s familiar salutation. He was peering out of the study door just behind Lucy.
Lucy turned rather reluctantly.
“Yes, Mr. Crackenthorpe?”
“What are you giving us for dinner tonight? I want curry. You make a very good curry. It’s ages since we’ve had curry.”
“The boys don’t care much for curry, you see.”
“The boys—the boys. What do the boys matter? I’m the one who matters. And, anyway, the boys have gone—good riddance. I want a nice hot curry, do you hear?”
“All right, Mr. Crackenthorpe, you shall have it.”
“That’s right. You’re a good girl, Lucy. You look after me and I’ll look after you.”
Lucy went back to the kitchen. Abandoning the fricassée of chicken which she had planned, she began to assemble the preparations for curry. The front door banged and from the window she saw Dr. Quimper stride angrily from the house to his car and drive away.
Lucy sighed. She missed the boys. And in a way she missed Bryan, too.
Oh, well. She sat down and began to peel mushrooms.
At any rate she’d give the family a rattling good dinner.
Feed the brutes!
III
It was 3 a.m. when Dr. Quimper drove his car into the garage, closed the doors and came in pulling the front door behind him rather wearily. Well, Mrs. Josh Simpkins had a fine healthy pair of twins to add to her present family of eight. Mr. Simpkins had expressed no elation over the arrival. “Twins,” he had said gloomily. “What’s the good of they? Quads now, they’re good for something. All sorts of things you get sent, and the Press comes round and there’s pictures in the paper, and they do say as Her Majesty sends you a telegram. But what’s twins except two mouths to feed instead of one? Never been twins in our family, nor in the missus’s either. Don’t seem fair, somehow.”
Dr. Quimper walked upstairs to his bedroom and started throwing off his clothes. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes past three. It had proved an unexpectedly tricky business bringing those twins into the world, but all had gone well. He yawned. He was tired—very tired. He looked appreciatively at his bed.
Then the telephone rang.
Dr. Quimper swore, and picked up the receiver.
“Dr. Quimper?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Lucy Eyelesbarrow from Rutherford Hall. I think you’d better come over. Everybody seems to have taken ill.”
“Taken ill? How? What symptoms?”
Lucy detailed them.
“I’ll be over straight away. In the meantime…” He gave her short sharp instructions.
Then he quickly resumed his clothes, flung a few extra things into his emergency bag, and hurried down to his car.
IV
It was some three hours later when the doctor and Lucy, both of them somewhat exhausted, sat down by the kitchen table to drink large cups of black coffee.
“Ha,” Dr. Quimper drained his cup, set it down with a clatter on the saucer. “I needed that. Now, Miss Eyelesbarrow, let’s get down to brass tacks.”
Lucy looked at him. The lines of fatigue showed clearly on his face making him look older than his forty-four years, the dark hair on his temples was flecked with grey, and there were lines under his eyes.
“As far as I can judge,” said the doctor, “they’ll be all right now. But how come? That’s what I want to know. Who cooked the dinner?”
“I did,” said Lucy.
“And what was it? In detail.”
“Mushroom soup. Curried chicken and rice. Syllabubs. A savoury of chicken livers and bacon.”
“Canapés Diane,” said Dr. Quimper unexpectedly.
Lucy smiled faintly.
“Yes, Canapés Diane.”
“All right—let’s go through it. Mushroom soup—out of a tin, I suppose?”
“Certainly not. I made it.”
“You made it. Out of what?”
“Half a pound of mushrooms, chicken stock, milk, a roux of butter and flour, and lemon juice.”
“Ah. And one’s supposed to say ‘It must have been the mushrooms.’”
“It wasn’t the mushrooms. I had some of the soup myself and