Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [49]
“It was really no trouble. Only I confess I felt a little shy. Schools always make me feel shy. So many girls. Oh, by the way, I was asked to bring back your old racquet with me.”
She picked up the racquet Jennifer had dropped.
“Your aunt—no—godmother—said she would have it restrung. It needs it badly, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think that it’s really worthwhile,” said Jennifer, but without paying much attention.
She was still experimenting with the swing and balance of her new treasure.
“But an extra racquet is always useful,” said her new friend. “Oh dear,” she glanced at her watch. “It is much later than I thought. I must run.”
“Have you—do you want a taxi? I could telephone—”
“No, thank you, dear. My car is right by the gate. I left it there so that I shouldn’t have to turn in a narrow space. Good-bye. So pleased to have met you. I hope you enjoy the racquet.”
She literally ran along the path towards the gate. Jennifer called after her once more. “Thank you very much.”
Then, gloating, she went in search of Julia.
“Look,” she flourished the racquet dramatically.
“I say! Where did you get that?”
“My godmother sent it to me. Aunt Gina. She’s not my aunt, but I call her that. She’s frightfully rich. I expect Mummy told her about me grumbling about my racquet. It is smashing, isn’t it? I must remember to write and thank her.”
“I should hope so!” said Julia virtuously.
“Well, you know how one does forget things sometimes. Even things you really mean to do. Look, Shaista,” she added as the latter girl came towards them. “I’ve got a new racquet. Isn’t it a beauty?”
“It must have been very expensive,” said Shaista, scanning it respectfully. “I wish I could play tennis well.”
“You always run into the ball.”
“I never seem to know where the ball is going to come,” said Shaista vaguely. “Before I go home, I must have some really good shorts made in London. Or a tennis dress like the American champion Ruth Allen wears. I think that is very smart. Perhaps I will have both,” she smiled in pleasurable anticipation.
“Shaista never thinks of anything except things to wear,” said Julia scornfully as the two friends passed on. “Do you think we shall ever be like that?”
“I suppose so,” said Jennifer gloomily. “It will be an awful bore.”
They entered the Sports Pavilion, now officially vacated by the police, and Jennifer put her racquet carefully into her press.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said, stroking it affectionately.
“What have you done with the old one?”
“Oh, she took it.”
“Who?”
“The woman who brought this. She’d met Aunt Gina at a cocktail party, and Aunt Gina asked her to bring me this as she was coming down here today, and Aunt Gina said to bring up my old one and she’d have it restrung.”
“Oh, I see … ” But Julia was frowning.
“What did Bully want with you?” asked Jennifer.
“Bully? Oh, nothing really. Just Mummy’s address. But she hasn’t got one because she’s on a bus. In Turkey somewhere. Jennifer—look here. Your racquet didn’t need restringing.”
“Oh, it did, Julia. It was like a sponge.”
“I know. But it’s my racquet really. I mean, we exchanged. It was my racquet that needed restringing. Yours, the one I’ve got now, was restrung. You said yourself your mother had had it restrung before you went abroad.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Jennifer looked a little startled. “Oh well, I suppose this woman—whoever she was—I ought to have asked her name, but I was so entranced—just saw that it needed restringing.”
“But you said that she said that it was your Aunt Gina who had said it needed restringing. And your Aunt Gina couldn’t have thought it needed restringing if it didn’t.”
“Oh, well—” Jennifer looked impatient. “I suppose—I suppose—”
“You suppose what?”
“Perhaps Aunt Gina just thought that if I wanted a new racquet, it was because the old one wanted restringing. Anyway what does it matter?”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” said Julia slowly. “But I do think it’s odd, Jennifer. It’s like—like new lamps for old. Aladdin, you know.”
Jennifer giggled.
“Fancy rubbing my old racquet—your old racquet, I mean, and having