Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie [47]
‘Has Mrs Oliver been to see you?’
Mrs Lorrimer shook her head.
‘No one has been to see me except M. Poirot.’
‘I didn’t mean—’ began Anne.
‘Didn’t you? I think you did,’ said Mrs Lorrimer.
The girl looked up—a quick, frightened glance. Something she saw in Mrs Lorrimer’s face seemed to reassure her.
‘He hasn’t been to see me,’ she said slowly.
There was a pause.
‘Hasn’t Superintendent Battle been to see you?’ asked Anne.
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Mrs Lorrimer.
Anne said hesitatingly:
‘What sort of things did he ask you?’
Mrs Lorrimer sighed wearily.
‘The usual things, I suppose. Routine inquiries. He was very pleasant over it all.’
‘I suppose he interviewed everyone?’
‘I should think so.’
There was another pause.
Anne said:
‘Mrs Lorrimer, do you think—they will ever find out who did it?’
Her eyes were bent on her plate. She did not see the curious expression in the older woman’s eyes as she watched the downcast head.
Mrs Lorrimer said quietly:
‘I don’t know…’
Anne murmured:
‘It’s not—very nice, is it?’
There was that same curious appraising and yet sympathetic look on Mrs Lorrimer’s face, as she asked:
‘How old are you, Anne Meredith?’
‘I—I?’ the girl stammered. ‘I’m twenty-five.’
‘And I’m sixty-three,’ said Mrs Lorrimer.
She went on slowly:
‘Most of your life is in front of you…’
Anne shivered.
‘I might be run over by a bus on the way home,’ she said.
‘Yes, that’s true. And I—might not.’
She said it in an odd way. Anne looked at her in astonishment.
‘Life is a difficult business,’ said Mrs Lorrimer. ‘You’ll know that when you come to my age. It needs infinite courage and a lot of endurance. And in the end one wonders: “Was it worth while?”’
‘Oh, don’t,’ said Anne.
Mrs Lorrimer laughed, her old competent self again.
‘It’s rather cheap to say gloomy things about life,’ she said.
She called the waitress and settled the bill.
As they got to the shop door a taxi crawled past, and Mrs Lorrimer hailed it.
‘Can I give you a lift?’ she asked. ‘I am going south of the park.’
Anne’s face had lighted up.
‘No, thank you. I see my friend turning the corner. Thank you so much, Mrs Lorrimer. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye. Good luck,’ said the older woman.
She drove away and Anne hurried forward.
Rhoda’s face lit up when she saw her friend, then changed to a slightly guilty expression.
‘Rhoda, have you been to see Mrs Oliver?’ demanded Anne.
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have.’
‘And I just caught you.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by caught. Let’s go down here and take a bus. You’d gone off on your own ploys with the boy friend. I thought at least he’d give you tea.’
Anne was silent for a minute—a voice ringing in her ears.
‘Can’t we pick up your friend somewhere and all have tea together?’
And her own answer—hurried, without taking time to think:
‘Thanks awfully, but we’ve got to go out to tea together with some people.’
A lie—and such a silly lie. The stupid way one said the first thing that came into one’s head instead of just taking a minute or two to think. Perfectly easy to have said ‘Thanks, but my friend has got to go out to tea.’ That is, if you didn’t, as she hadn’t, wanted to have Rhoda too.
Rather odd, that, the way she hadn’t wanted Rhoda. She had wanted, definitely, to keep Despard to herself. She had felt jealous. Jealous of Rhoda. Rhoda was so bright, so ready to talk, so full of enthusiasm and life. The other evening Major Despard had looked as though he thought Rhoda nice. But it was her, Anne Meredith, he had come down to see. Rhoda was like that. She didn’t mean it, but she reduced you to the background. No, definitely she hadn’t wanted Rhoda there.
But she had managed it very stupidly, getting flurried like that. If she’d managed better, she might be sitting now having tea with Major Despard at his club or somewhere.
She felt definitely annoyed with Rhoda. Rhoda was a nuisance. And what had she been doing going to see Mrs Oliver?
Out loud she said:
‘Why