Body in the Library - Agatha Christie [8]
A car had drawn up outside with a scream of brakes. Out of it tumbled a young woman dressed in flapping black-and-white pyjamas. She had scarlet lips, blackened eyelashes, and a platinum-blonde head. She strode up to the door, flung it open, and exclaimed angrily:
“Why did you run out on me, you brute?”
Basil Blake had risen.
“So there you are! Why shouldn’t I leave you? I told you to clear out and you wouldn’t.”
“Why the hell should I because you told me to? I was enjoying myself.”
“Yes—with that filthy brute Rosenberg. You know what he’s like.”
“You were jealous, that’s all.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I hate to see a girl I like who can’t hold her drink and lets a disgusting Central European paw her about.”
“That’s a damned lie. You were drinking pretty hard yourself—and going on with the black-haired Spanish bitch.”
“If I take you to a party I expect you to be able to behave yourself.”
“And I refuse to be dictated to, and that’s that. You said we’d go to the party and come on down here afterwards. I’m not going to leave a party before I’m ready to leave it.”
“No—and that’s why I left you flat. I was ready to come down here and I came. I don’t hang round waiting for any fool of a woman.”
“Sweet, polite person you are!”
“You seem to have followed me down all right!”
“I wanted to tell you what I thought of you!”
“If you think you can boss me, my girl, you’re wrong!”
“And if you think you can order me about, you can think again!”
They glared at each other.
It was at this moment that Colonel Melchett seized his opportunity, and cleared his throat loudly.
Basil Blake swung round on him.
“Hallo, I forgot you were here. About time you took yourself off, isn’t it? Let me introduce you—Dinah Lee—Colonel Blimp of the County Police. And now, Colonel, that you’ve seen my blonde is alive and in good condition, perhaps you’ll get on with the good work concerning old Bantry’s little bit of fluff. Good morning!”
Colonel Melchett said:
“I advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head, young man, or you’ll let yourself in for trouble,” and stumped out, his face red and wrathful.
Three
I
In his office at Much Benham, Colonel Melchett received and scrutinized the reports of his subordinates:
“… so it all seems clear enough, sir,” Inspector Slack was concluding: “Mrs. Bantry sat in the library after dinner and went to bed just before ten. She turned out the lights when she left the room and, presumably, no one entered the room afterwards. The servants went to bed at half-past ten and Lorrimer, after putting the drinks in the hall, went to bed at a quarter to eleven. Nobody heard anything out of the usual except the third housemaid, and she heard too much! Groans and a blood-curdling yell and sinister footsteps and I don’t know what. The second housemaid who shares a room with her says the other girl slept all night through without a sound. It’s those ones that make up things that cause us all the trouble.”
“What about the forced window?”
“Amateur job, Simmons says; done with a common chisel—ordinary pattern—wouldn’t have made much noise. Ought to be a chisel about the house but nobody can find it. Still, that’s common enough where tools are concerned.”
“Think any of the servants know anything?”
Rather unwillingly Inspector Slack replied:
“No, sir, I don’t think they do. They all seemed very shocked and upset. I had my suspicions of Lorrimer—reticent, he was, if you know what I mean—but I don’t think there’s anything in it.”
Melchett nodded. He attached no importance to Lorrimer’s reticence. The energetic Inspector Slack often produced that effect on people he interrogated.
The door opened and Dr. Haydock came in.
“Thought I’d look in and give you the rough gist of things.”
“Yes, yes, glad to see you. Well?”
“Nothing much. Just what you’d think. Death was due to strangulation. Satin waistband of her own dress, which was passed round the neck and crossed at the back. Quite easy and simple to do. Wouldn’t have