After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [68]
“I’ve been—thinking about things. About what to do….”
Michael came round the table to her in a satisfying spontaneous rush. His voice held fervour as he cried:
“Darling—you know I love you madly!”
She responded satisfactorily to the embrace, but as they drew apart he was struck again disagreeably by the odd calculation in those beautiful eyes.
“Whatever I’d done, you’d always forgive me, wouldn’t you?” he demanded.
“I suppose so,” said Rosamund vaguely. “That’s not the point. You see, it’s all different now. We’ve got to think and plan.”
“Think and plan—what?”
Rosamund, frowning, said:
“Things aren’t over when you’ve done them. It’s really a sort of beginning and then one’s got to arrange what to do next, and what’s important and what is not.”
“Rosamund….”
She sat, her face perplexed, her wide gaze on a middle distance in which Michael, apparently, did not feature.
At the third repetition of her name, she started slightly and came out of her reverie.
“What did you say?”
“I asked you what you were thinking about….”
“Oh? Oh yes, I was wondering if I’d go down to—what is it?—Lytchett St. Mary, and see that Miss Somebody—the one who was with Aunt Cora.”
“But why?”
“Well, she’ll be going away soon, won’t she? To relatives or someone. I don’t think we ought to let her go away until we’ve asked her.”
“Asked her what?”
“Asked her who killed Aunt Cora.”
Michael stared.
“You mean—you think she knows?”
Rosamund said rather absently:
“Oh yes, I expect so… She lived there, you see.”
“But she’d have told the police.”
“Oh, I don’t mean she knows that way—I just mean that she’s probably quite sure. Because of what Uncle Richard said when he went down there. He did go down there, you know, Susan told me so.”
“But she wouldn’t have heard what he said.”
“Oh yes, she would, darling.” Rosamund sounded like someone arguing with an unreasonable child.
“Nonsense, I can hardly see old Richard Abernethie discussing his suspicions of his family before an outsider.”
“Well, of course. She’d have heard it through the door.”
“Eavesdropping, you mean?”
“I expect so—in fact I’m sure. It must be deadly dull shut up, two women in a cottage and nothing ever happening except washing up and the sink and putting the cat out and things like that. Of course she listened and read letters—anyone would.”
Michael looked at her with something faintly approaching dismay.
“Would you?” he demanded bluntly.
“I wouldn’t go and be a companion in the country.” Rosamund shuddered. “I’d rather die.”
“I mean—would you read letters and—and all that?”
Rosamund said calmly:
“If I wanted to know, yes. Everybody does, don’t you think so?”
The limpid gaze met his.
“One just wants to know,” said Rosamund. “One doesn’t want to do anything about it. I expect that’s how she feels—Miss Gilchrist, I mean. But I’m certain she knows.”
Michael said in a stifled voice:
“Rosamund, who do you think killed Cora? And old Richard?”
Once again that limpid blue gaze met his.
“Darling—don’t be absurd… You know as well as I do. But it’s much, much better never to mention it. So we won’t.”
Eighteen
From his seat by the fireplace in the library, Hercule Poirot looked at the assembled company.
His eyes passed thoughtfully over Susan, sitting upright, looking vivid and animated, over her husband, sitting near her, his expression rather vacant and his fingers twisting a loop of string; they went on to George Crossfield, debonair and distinctly pleased with himself, talking about card sharpers on Atlantic cruises to Rosamund, who said mechanically, “How extraordinary, darling. But why?” in a completely uninterested voice; went on to Michael with his very individual type of haggard good looks and his very apparent charm; to Helen, poised and slightly remote; to Timothy, comfortably settled in the best armchair with an extra cushion at his back; and Maude, sturdy and thickset, in devoted attendance, and finally to the figure sitting with a tinge of apology just beyond the range of the family