By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie [71]
‘I don’t want anything to eat,’ said Tommy. ‘What I want is a drink. Bring me a double whisky.’
‘Coming, sir,’ said Albert.
A few moments later he brought the required refreshment to where Tommy had slumped down in the worn but comfortable chair reserved for his special use.
‘And now, I suppose,’ said Tommy, ‘you want to hear everything.’
‘Matter of fact, sir,’ said Albert in a slightly apologetic tone, ‘I know most of it. You see, seeing as it was a question of the missus and all that, I took the liberty of lifting up the extension in the bedroom. I didn’t think you’d mind, sir, not as it was the missus.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ said Tommy. ‘Actually, I’m grateful to you. If I had to start explaining–’
‘Got on to everyone, didn’t you? The hospital and the doctor and the matron.’
‘No need to go over it all again,’ said Tommy.
‘Market Basing Hospital,’ said Albert. ‘Never breathed a word of that, she didn’t. Never left it behind as an address or anything like that.’
‘She didn’t intend it to be her address,’ said Tommy. ‘As far as I can make out she was probably coshed on the head in an out of the way spot somewhere. Someone took her along in a car and dumped her at the side of the road somewhere, to be picked up as an ordinary hit and run.’ He added, ‘Call me at six-thirty tomorrow morning. I want to get an early start.’
‘I’m sorry about your chicken getting burnt up again in the oven. I only put it in to keep warm and forgot about it.’
‘Never mind chickens,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve always thought they were very silly birds, running under cars and clucking about. Bury the corpse tomorrow morning and give it a good funeral.’
‘She’s not at death’s door or anything, is she, sir?’ asked Albert.
‘Subdue your melodramatic fancies,’ said Tommy. ‘If you’d done any proper listening you’d have heard that she’s come nicely to herself again, knows who she is or was and where she is and they’ve sworn to keep her there waiting for me until I arrive to take charge of her again. On no account is she to be allowed to slip out by herself and go off again doing some more tomfool detective work.’
‘Talking of detective work,’ said Albert, and hesitated with a slight cough.
‘I don’t particularly want to talk about it,’ said Tommy. ‘Forget it, Albert. Teach yourself bookkeeping or window-box gardening or something.’
‘Well, I was just thinking–I mean, as a matter of clues–’
‘Well, what about clues?’
‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘That’s where all the trouble in life comes from. Thinking.’
‘Clues,’ said Albert again. ‘That picture, for instance. That’s a clue, isn’t it?’
Tommy observed that Albert had hung the picture of the house by the canal up on the wall.
‘If that picture’s a clue to something, what do you think it’s a clue to?’ He blushed slightly at the inelegancy of the phrase he had just coined. ‘I mean–what’s it all about? It ought to mean something. What I was thinking of,’ said Albert, ‘if you’ll excuse me mentioning it–’
‘Go ahead, Albert.’
‘What I was thinking of was that desk.’
‘Desk?’
‘Yes. The one that came by the furniture removers with the little table and the two chairs and the other things. Family property, it was, you said?’
‘It belonged to my Aunt Ada,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, that’s what I meant, sir. That’s the sort of place where you find clues. In old desks. Antiques.’
‘Possibly,’ said Tommy.
‘It wasn’t my business, I know, and I suppose I really oughtn’t to have gone messing about with it, but while you were away, sir, I couldn’t help it. I had to go and have a look.’
‘What–a look into the desk?’
‘Yes, just to see if there might be a clue there. You see, desks like that, they have secret drawers.’
‘Possibly,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, there you are. There might be a clue there, hidden. Shut up in the secret drawer.’
‘It’s an agreeable idea,’ said Tommy. ‘But there’s no reason as far as I know for my Aunt Ada to hide things away in secret drawers.’
‘You never know with old ladies. They like tucking things away. Like jackdaws, they are, or magpies. I forget