Body in the Library - Agatha Christie [39]
The Glenshire police had been busy. Cameras had clicked and the position of the charred body had been carefully noted before the police surgeon had started his own investigation.
The latter came over now to Harper, dusting black ash off his hands, his lips set grimly together.
“A pretty thorough job,” he said. “Part of one foot and shoe are about all that has escaped. Personally I myself couldn’t say if the body was a man’s or a woman’s at the moment, though we’ll get some indication from the bones, I expect. But the shoe is one of the black strapped affairs—the kind schoolgirls wear.”
“There’s a schoolgirl missing from the next county,” said Harper; “quite close to here. Girl of sixteen or so.”
“Then it’s probably her,” said the doctor. “Poor kid.”
Harper said uneasily: “She wasn’t alive when—?”
“No, no, I don’t think so. No signs of her having tried to get out. Body was just slumped down on the seat—with the foot sticking out. She was dead when she was put there, I should say. Then the car was set fire to in order to try and get rid of the evidence.”
He paused, and asked:
“Want me any longer?”
“I don’t think so, thank you.”
“Right. I’ll be off.”
He strode away to his car. Harper went over to where one of his sergeants, a man who specialized in car cases, was busy.
The latter looked up.
“Quite a clear case, sir. Petrol poured over the car and the whole thing deliberately set light to. There are three empty cans in the hedge over there.”
A little farther away another man was carefully arranging small objects picked out of the wreckage. There was a scorched black leather shoe and with it some scraps of scorched and blackened material. As Harper approached, his subordinate looked up and exclaimed:
“Look at this, sir. This seems to clinch it.”
Harper took the small object in his hand. He said:
“Button from a Girl Guide’s uniform?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes,” said Harper, “that does seem to settle it.”
A decent, kindly man, he felt slightly sick. First Ruby Keene and now this child, Pamela Reeves.
He said to himself, as he had said before:
“What’s come to Glenshire?”
His next move was first to ring up his own Chief Constable, and afterwards to get in touch with Colonel Melchett. The disappearance of Pamela Reeves had taken place in Radfordshire though her body had been found in Glenshire.
The next task set him was not a pleasant one. He had to break the news to Pamela Reeves’s father and mother….
II
Superintendent Harper looked up consideringly at the façade of Braeside as he rang the front door bell.
Neat little villa, nice garden of about an acre and a half. The sort of place that had been built fairly freely all over the countryside in the last twenty years. Retired Army men, retired Civil Servants—that type. Nice decent folk; the worst you could say of them was that they might be a bit dull. Spent as much money as they could afford on their children’s education. Not the kind of people you associated with tragedy. And now tragedy had come to them. He sighed.
He was shown at once into a lounge where a stiff man with a grey moustache and a woman whose eyes were red with weeping both sprang up. Mrs. Reeves cried out eagerly:
“You have some news of Pamela?”
Then she shrank back, as though the Superintendent’s commiserating glance had been a blow.
Harper said:
“I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for bad news.”
“Pamela—” faltered the woman.
Major Reeves said sharply:
“Something’s happened—to the child?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you mean she’s dead?”
Mrs. Reeves burst out:
“Oh no, no,” and broke into a storm of weeping. Major Reeves put his arm round his wife and drew