Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [18]
“That was all it said?”
“The note? Yes.”
“Have you kept it, Mrs. Sutcliffe?”
“Kept the note he left? No, of course I haven’t. It was quite trivial. I tore it up and threw it away. Why should I keep it?”
“No reason,” said O’Connor. “I just wondered.”
“Wondered what?” said Mrs. Sutcliffe crossly.
“Whether there might have been some—other message concealed in it. After all—” he smiled, “—There is such a thing as invisible ink, you know.”
“Invisible ink!” said Mrs. Sutcliffe, with a great deal of distaste, “do you mean the sort of thing they use in spy stories?”
“Well, I’m afraid I do mean just that,” said O’Connor, rather apologetically.
“How idiotic,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “I’m sure Bob would never use anything like invisible ink. Why should he? He was a dear matter-of-fact sensible person.” A tear dripped down her cheek again. “Oh dear, where is my bag? I must have a handkerchief. Perhaps I left it in the other room.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said O’Connor.
He went through the communicating door and stopped as a young man in overalls who was bending over a suitcase straightened up to face him, looking rather startled.
“Electrician,” said the young man hurriedly. “Something wrong with the lights here.”
O’Connor flicked a switch.
“They seem all right to me,” he said pleasantly.
“Must have given me the wrong room number,” said the electrician.
He gathered up his tool bag and slipped out quickly through the door to the corridor.
O’Connor frowned, picked up Mrs. Sutcliffe’s bag from the dressing table and took it back to her.
“Excuse me,” he said, and picked up the telephone receiver. “Room 310 here. Have you just sent up an electrician to see to the light in this suite? Yes … Yes, I’ll hang on.”
He waited.
“No? No, I thought you hadn’t. No, there’s nothing wrong.”
He replaced the receiver and turned to Mrs. Sutcliffe.
“There’s nothing wrong with any of the lights here,” he said. “And the office didn’t send up an electrician.”
“Then what was that man doing? Was he a thief?”
“He may have been.”
Mrs. Sutcliffe looked hurriedly in her bag. “He hasn’t taken anything out of my bag. The money is all right.”
“Are you sure, Mrs. Sutcliffe, absolutely sure that your brother didn’t give you anything to take home, to pack among your belongings?”
“I’m absolutely sure,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe.
“Or your daughter—you have a daughter, haven’t you?”
“Yes. She’s downstairs having tea.”
“Could your brother have given anything to her?”
“No, I’m sure he couldn’t.”
“There’s another possibility,” said O’Connor. “He might have hidden something in your baggage among your belongings that day when he was waiting for you in your room.”
“But why should Bob do such a thing? It sounds absolutely absurd.”
“It’s not quite so absurd as it sounds. It seems possible that Prince Ali Yusuf gave your brother something to keep for him and that your brother thought it would be safer among your possessions than if he kept it himself.”
“Sounds very unlikely to me,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe.
“I wonder now, would you mind if we searched?”
“Searched through my luggage, do you mean? Unpack?” Mrs. Sutcliffe’s voice rose with a wail on that word.
“I know,” said O’Connor. “It’s a terrible thing to ask you. But it might be very important. I could help you, you know,” he said persuasively. “I often used to pack for my mother. She said I was quite a good packer.”
He exerted all the charm which was one of his assets to Colonel Pikeaway.
“Oh well,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe, yielding, “I suppose—If you say so—if, I mean, it’s really important—”
“It might be very important,” said Derek O’Connor. “Well, now,” he smiled at her. “Suppose we begin.”
II
Three-quarters of an hour later Jennifer returned from her tea. She looked round the room and gave a gasp of surprise.
“Mummy, what have you been doing?”
“We’ve been unpacking,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe crossly. “Now we’re packing things up again. This is Mr. O’Connor. My daughter Jennifer.”
“But why are you packing and unpacking?”
“Don’t ask me why,” snapped her mother. “There seems to be