At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha Christie [69]
Bridget giggled.
“He had a terrific crush on Elvira,” she said.
“And you and your friend used to meet him places?”
“Well, I don’t mind telling you,” said Bridget. “After all you’re the police. It isn’t important to you, that sort of thing and I expect you understand. Countess Martinelli was frightfully strict—or thought she was. And of course we had all sorts of dodges and things. We all stood in with each other. You know.”
“And told the right lies, I suppose?”
“Well, I’m afraid so,” said Bridget. “But what can one do when anyone is so suspicious?”
“So you did meet Guido and all that. And used he to threaten Elvira?”
“Oh, not seriously, I don’t think.”
“Then perhaps there was someone else she used to meet?”
“Oh—that—well, I don’t know.”
“Please tell me, Miss Bridget. It might be—vital, you know.”
“Yes. Yes I can see that. Well there was someone. I don’t know who it was, but there was someone else—she really minded about. She was deadly serious. I mean it was a really important thing.”
“She used to meet him?”
“I think so. I mean she’d say she was meeting Guido but it wasn’t Guido. It was this other man.”
“Any idea who it was?”
“No.” Bridget sounded a little uncertain.
“It wouldn’t be a racing motorist called Ladislaus Malinowski?”
Bridget gaped at him.
“So you know?”
“Am I right?”
“Yes—I think so. She’d got a photograph of him torn out of a paper. She kept it under her stockings.”
“That might have been just a pin-up hero, mightn’t it?”
“Well it might, of course, but I don’t think it was.”
“Did she meet him here in this country, do you know?”
“I don’t know. You see I don’t know really what she’s been doing since she came back from Italy.”
“She came up to London to the dentist,” Davy prompted her. “Or so she said. Instead she came to you. She rang up Mrs. Melford with some story about an old governess.”
A faint giggle came from Bridget.
“That wasn’t true, was it?” said the Chief-Inspector, smiling. “Where did she really go?”
Bridget hesitated and then said, “She went to Ireland.”
“She went to Ireland, did she? Why?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. She said there was something she had to find out.”
“Do you know where she went in Ireland?”
“Not exactly. She mentioned a name. Bally something. Ballygowlan, I think it was.”
“I see. You’re sure she went to Ireland?”
“I saw her off at Kensington Airport. She went by Aer Lingus.”
“She came back when?”
“The following day.”
“Also by air?”
“Yes.”
“You’re quite sure, are you, that she came back by air?”
“Well—I suppose she did!”
“Had she taken a return ticket?”
“No. No, she didn’t. I remember.”
“She might have come back another way, mightn’t she?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“She might have come back for instance by the Irish Mail?”
“She didn’t say she had.”
“But she didn’t say she’d come by air, did she?”
“No,” Bridget agreed. “But why should she come back by boat and train instead of by air?”
“Well, if she had found out what she wanted to know and had had nowhere to stay, she might think it would be easier to come back by the Night Mail.”
“Why, I suppose she might.”
Davy smiled faintly.
“I don’t suppose you young ladies,” he said, “think of going anywhere except in terms of flying, do you, nowadays?”
“I suppose we don’t really,” agreed Bridget.
“Anyway, she came back to England. Then what happened? Did she come to you or ring you up?”
“She rang up.”
“What time of day?”
“Oh, in the morning sometime. Yes, it must have been about eleven or twelve o’clock, I think.”
“And she said, what?”
“Well, she just asked if everything was all right.”
“And was it?”
“No, it wasn’t, because, you see, Mrs. Melford had rung up and Mummy had answered the phone and things had been very difficult and I hadn’t known what to say. So Elvira said she would not come to Onslow Square, but that she’d ring up her cousin Mildred and try to fix up some story or other.”
“And that’s all that you can remember?”
“That’s all,” said Bridget, making certain reservations. She thought of Mr. Bollard and the bracelet. That was certainly a thing she was not going to tell Chief-Inspector