After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [64]
He got up and walked up and down the room with a brisk vigorous tread.
“Yes, it is an excellent plan. Write to Helen and accept. What I am really thinking about is you, my dear. It will be a nice rest and change for you. You have been doing far too much lately. The decorators can get on with the painting while we are away and that Gillespie woman can stay here and look after the house.”
“Gilchrist,” said Maude.
Timothy waved a hand and said that it was all the same.
II
“I can’t do it,” said Miss Gilchrist.
Maude looked at her in surprise.
Miss Gilchrist was trembling. Her eyes looked pleadingly into Maude’s.
“It’s stupid of me, I know… But I simply can’t. Not stay here all alone in the house. If there was anyone who could come and—and sleep here too?”
She looked hopefully at the other woman, but Maude shook her head. Maude Abernethie knew only too well how difficult it was to get anyone in the neighbourhood to “live in.”
Miss Gilchrist went on, a kind of desperation in her voice. “I know you’ll think it nervy and foolish—and I wouldn’t have dreamed once that I’d ever feel like this. I’ve never been a nervous woman—or fanciful. But now it all seems different. I’d be terrified—yes, literally terrified—to be all alone here.”
“Of course,” said Maude. “It’s stupid of me. After what happend at Lytchett St. Mary.”
“I suppose that’s it… It’s not logical, I know. And I didn’t feel it at first. I didn’t mind being alone in the cottage after—after it had happened. The feeling’s grown up gradually. You’ll have no opinion of me at all, Mrs. Abernethie, but ever since I’ve been here I’ve been feeling it—frightened, you know. Not of anything in particular—but just frightened… It’s so silly and I really am ashamed. It’s just as though all the time I was expecting something awful to happen… Even that nun coming to the door startled me. Oh dear, I am in a bad way….”
“I suppose it’s what they call delayed shock,” said Maude vaguely.
“Is it? I don’t know. Oh, dear, I’m so sorry to appear so—so ungrateful, and after all your kindness. What you will think—”
Maude soothed her.
“We must think of some other arrangement,” she said.
Sixteen
George Crossfield paused irresolutely for a moment as he watched a particular feminine back disappear through a doorway. Then he nodded to himself and went in pursuit.
The doorway in question was that of a double-fronted shop—a shop that had gone out of business. The plate-glass windows showed a disconcerting emptiness within. The door was closed, but George rapped on it. A vacuous faced young man with spectacles opened it and stared at George.
“Excuse me,” said George. “But I think my cousin just came in here.”
The young man drew back and George walked in.
“Hallo, Susan,” he said.
Susan, who was standing on a packing case and using a footrule, turned her head in some surprise.
“Hallo, George. Where did you spring from?”
“I saw your back. I was sure it was yours.”
“How clever of you. I suppose backs are distinctive.”
“Much more so than faces. Add a beard and pads in your cheeks and do a few things to your hair and nobody will know you when you come face to face with them—but beware of the moment when you walk away.”
“I’ll remember. Can you remember seven feet five inches until I’ve got time to write it down.”
“Certainly. What is this, bookshelves?”
“No, cubicle space. Eight feet nine—and three seven….”
The young man with the spectacles who had been fidgeting from one foot to the other, coughed apologetically.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Banks, but if you want to be here for some time—”
“I do, rather,” said Susan. “If you leave the keys, I’ll lock the door and return them to the office when I go past. Will that be all right?”
“Yes, thank you. If it weren’t that we’re short staffed this morning—”
Susan accepted the apologetic intent of the half-finished sentence