At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha Christie [35]
Dr. Weissgarten was at his home. As soon as he heard who was speaking to him he launched out into a torrent of verbiage consisting mostly of disparaging criticism of two papers that had been read at the conference in Lucerne.
“Most unsound, that fellow Hogarov,” he said, “most unsound. How he gets away with it I don’t know! Fellow isn’t a scholar at all. Do you know what he actually said?”
The Archdeacon sighed and had to be firm with him. Otherwise there was a good chance that the rest of the evening would be spent in listening to criticism of fellow scholars at the Lucerne Conference. With some reluctance Dr. Weissgarten was pinned down to more personal matters.
“Pennyfather?” he said. “Pennyfather? He ought to have been there. Can’t think why he wasn’t there. Said he was going. Told me so only a week before when I saw him in the Athenaeum.”
“You mean he wasn’t at the conference at all?”
“That’s what I’ve just said. He ought to have been there.”
“Do you know why he wasn’t there? Did he send an excuse?”
“How should I know? He certainly talked about being there. Yes, now I remember. He was expected. Several people remarked on his absence. Thought he might have had a chill or something. Very treacherous weather.” He was about to revert to his criticisms of his fellow scholars but Archdeacon Simmons rang off.
He had got a fact but it was a fact that for the first time awoke in him an uneasy feeling. Canon Pennyfather had not been at the Lucerne Conference. He had meant to go to that conference. It seemed very extraordinary to the Archdeacon that he had not been there. He might, of course, have taken the wrong plane, though on the whole BEA were pretty careful of you and shepherded you away from such possibilities. Could Canon Pennyfather have forgotten the actual day that he was going to the conference? It was always possible, he supposed. But if so where had he gone instead?
He addressed himself now to the air terminal. It involved a great deal of patient waiting and being transferred from department to department. In the end he got a definite fact. Canon Pennyfather had booked as a passenger on the 21:40 plane to Lucerne on the 18th but he had not been on the plane.
“We’re getting on,” said Archdeacon Simmons to Mrs. McCrae, who was hovering in the background. “Now, let me see. Who shall I try next?”
“All this telephoning will cost a fearful lot of money,” said Mrs. McCrae.
“I’m afraid so. I’m afraid so,” said Archdeacon Simmons. “But we’ve got to get on his track, you know. He’s not a very young man.”
“Oh, sir, you don’t think there’s anything could really have happened to him?”
“Well, I hope not…I don’t think so, because I think you’d have heard if so. He—er—always had his name and address on him, didn’t he?”
“Oh yes, sir, he had cards on him. He’d have letters too, and all sorts of things in his wallet.”
“Well, I don’t think he’s in a hospital then,” said the Archdeacon. “Let me see. When he left the hotel he took a taxi to the Athenaeum. I’ll ring them up next.”
Here he got some definite information. Canon Pennyfather, who was well known there, had dined there at seven thirty on the evening of the 19th. It was then that the Archdeacon was struck by something he had overlooked until then. The aeroplane ticket had been for the 18th but the Canon had left Bertram’s Hotel by taxi to the Athenaeum, having mentioned he was going to the Lucerne Conference, on the 19th. Light began to break. “Silly old ass,” thought Archdeacon Simmons to himself, but careful not to say it aloud in front of Mrs. McCrae. “Got his dates wrong. The conference was on the 19th. I’m sure of it. He must have thought that he was leaving on the 18th. He was one day wrong.”
He went over the next bit carefully. The Canon would have gone to the Athenaeum, he would have dined, he would have gone on to Kensington Air Station. There, no doubt, it would have been pointed out to him that his ticket was for the day before and he would then