ABC Murders - Agatha Christie [55]
“Your sister-in-law is ill and in pain, remember.”
“I know. That’s what I keep saying to myself. One mustn’t judge her. All the same, I thought I’d show you this. I don’t want you to get a false impression of Thora from anything Lady Clarke may have said.”
Poirot returned the letter.
“I can assure you,” he said, smiling, “that I never permit myself to get false impressions from anything anyone tells me. I form my own judgments.”
“Well,” said Clarke, stowing away the letter. “I’m glad I showed it to you anyway. Here come the girls. We’d better be off.”
As we left the room, Poirot called me back.
“You are determined to accompany the expedition, Hastings?”
“Oh, yes. I shouldn’t be happy staying here inactive.”
“There is activity of mind as well as body, Hastings.”
“Well, you’re better at it than I am,” I said.
“You are incontestably right, Hastings. Am I correct in supposing that you intend to be a cavalier to one of the ladies?”
“That was the idea.”
“And which lady did you propose to honour with your company?”
“Well—I—er—hadn’t considered yet.”
“What about Miss Barnard?”
“She’s rather the independent type,” I demurred.
“Miss Grey?”
“Yes. She’s better.”
“I find you, Hastings, singularly though transparently dishonest! All along you had made up your mind to spend the day with your blonde angel!”
“Oh, really, Poirot!”
“I am sorry to upset your plans, but I must request you to give your escort elsewhere.”
“Oh, all right. I think you’ve got a weakness for that Dutch doll of a girl.”
“The person you are to escort is Mary Drower—and I must request you not to leave her.”
“But, Poirot, why?”
“Because, my dear friend, her name begins with a D. We must take no chances.”
I saw the justice of his remark. At first it seemed far-fetched, but then I realized that if A B C had a fanatical hatred of Poirot, he might very well be keeping himself informed of Poirot’s movements. And in that case the elimination of Mary Drower might strike him as a very pat fourth stroke.
I promised to be faithful to my trust.
I went out leaving Poirot sitting in a chair near the window.
In front of him was a little roulette wheel. He spun it as I went out of the door and called after me:
“Rouge—that is a good omen, Hastings. The luck, it turns!”
Twenty-four
NOT FROM CAPTAIN HASTINGS’ PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Below his breath Mr. Leadbetter uttered a grunt of impatience as his next-door neighbour got up and stumbled clumsily past him, dropping his hat over the seat in front, and leaning over to retrieve it.
All this at the culminating moment of Not a Sparrow, that all-star, thrilling drama of pathos and beauty that Mr. Leadbetter had been looking forward to seeing for a whole week.
The golden-haired heroine, played by Katherine Royal (in Mr. Leadbetter’s opinion the leading film actress in the world), was just giving vent to a hoarse cry of indignation:
“Never. I would sooner starve. But I shan’t starve. Remember those words: not a sparrow falls—”
Mr. Leadbetter moved his head irritably from right to left. People! Why on earth people couldn’t wait till the end of a film…And to leave at this soul-stirring moment.
Ah, that was better. The annoying gentleman had passed on and out. Mr. Leadbetter had a full view of the screen and of Katherine Royal standing by the window in the Van Schreiner Mansion in New York.
And now she was boarding the train—the child in her arms…What curious trains they had in America—not at all like English trains.
Ah, there was Steve again in his shack in the mountains….
The film pursued its course to its emotional and semi-religious end.
Mr. Leadbetter breathed a sigh of satisfaction as the lights went up.
He rose slowly to his feet, blinking a little.
He never left the cinema very quickly. It always took him a moment or two to return to the prosaic reality of everyday life.
He glanced round. Not many people this afternoon—naturally. They were all at the races. Mr. Leadbetter did not approve of racing nor of playing cards nor of