ABC Murders - Agatha Christie [62]
“What’s he like?”
“A bit quiet and lah-di-dah—not my idea of a detective.”
“That’s Lord Trenchard’s new kind,” said Lily with respect. “Some of them are ever so grand. Well, what did he say?”
Tom gave her a brief résumé of the interview.
“So they think as it really was him?”
“They think it might be. Anyway, they’ll come along and ask him a question or two.”
“Poor Mr. Cust.”
“It’s no good saying poor Mr. Cust, my girl. If he’s A B C, he’s committed four terrible murders.”
Lily sighed and shook her head.
“It does seem awful,” she observed.
“Well, now you’re going to come and have a bite of lunch, my girl. Just you think that if we’re right I expect my name will be in the papers!”
“Oh, Tom, will it?”
“Rather. And yours, too. And your mother’s. And I dare say you’ll have your picture in it, too.”
“Oh, Tom.” Lily squeezed his arm in an ecstasy.
“And in the meantime what do you say to a bite at the Corner House?”
Lily squeezed tighter.
“Come on then!”
“All right—half a minute. I must just telephone from the station.”
“Who to?”
“A girl I was going to meet.”
She slipped across the road, and rejoined him three minutes later, looking rather flushed.
“Now then, Tom.”
She slipped her arm in his.
“Tell me more about Scotland Yard. You didn’t see the other one there?”
“What other one?”
“The Belgian gentleman. The one that A B C writes to always.”
“No. He wasn’t there.”
“Well, tell me all about it. What happened when you got inside? Who did you speak to and what did you say?”
II
Mr. Cust put the receiver back very gently on the hook.
He turned to where Mrs. Marbury was standing in the doorway of the room, clearly devoured with curiosity.
“Not often you have a telephone call, Mr. Cust?”
“No—er—no, Mrs. Marbury. It isn’t.”
“Not bad news, I trust?”
“No—no.” How persistent the woman was. His eyes caught the legend on the newspaper he was carrying.
Births—Marriages—Deaths….
“My sister’s just had a little boy,” he blurted out.
He—who had never had a sister!
“Oh, dear! Now—well, that is nice, I am sure. (‘And never once mentioned a sister all these years,’ was her inward thought. ‘If that isn’t just like a man!’) I was surprised, I’ll tell you, when the lady asked to speak to Mr. Cust. Just at first I fancied it was my Lily’s voice—something like hers, it was—but haughtier if you know what I mean—sort of high up in the air. Well, Mr. Cust, my congratulations, I’m sure. Is it the first one, or have you other little nephews and nieces?”
“It’s the only one,” said Mr. Cust. “The only one I’ve ever had or likely to have, and—er—I think I must go off at once. They—they want me to come. I—I think I can just catch a train if I hurry.”
“Will you be away long, Mr. Cust?” called Mrs. Marbury as he ran up the stairs.
“Oh, no—two or three days—that’s all.”
He disappeared into his bedroom. Mrs. Marbury retired into the kitchen, thinking sentimentally of “the dear little mite.”
Her conscience gave her a sudden twinge.
Last night Tom and Lily and all the hunting back over dates! Trying to make out that Mr. Cust was that dreadful monster, A B C. Just because of his initials and because of a few coincidences.
“I don’t suppose they meant it seriously,” she thought comfortably. “And now I hope they’ll be ashamed of themselves.”
In some obscure way that she could not have explained, Mr. Cust’s statement that his sister had had a baby had effectually removed any doubts Mrs. Marbury might have had of her lodger’s bona fides.
“I hope she didn’t have too hard a time of it, poor dear,” thought Mrs. Marbury, testing an iron against her cheek before beginning to iron out Lily’s silk slip.
Her mind ran comfortably on a well-worn obstetric track.
Mr. Cust came quietly down the stairs, a bag in his hand. His eyes rested a minute on the telephone.
That brief conversation reechoed in his brain.
“Is that you, Mr. Cust? I thought you might like to know there’s an inspector from Scotland Yard may be coming to see you….”
What had he said? He couldn’t remember.
“Thank