Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [55]
“Oh dear,” said Miss Chadwick. “I’ll have to take some aspirin.”
She got out of bed and went over to the washstand. She took two aspirins with a drink of water. On her way back, she pulled aside the curtain of the window and peered out. She did so to reassure herself more than for any other reason. She wanted to feel that of course there would never again be a light in the Sports Pavilion in the middle of the night.
But there was.
In a minute Chaddy had leapt to action. She thrust her feet into stout shoes, pulled on a thick coat, picked up her electric torch and rushed out of her room and down the stairs. She had blamed Miss Springer for not obtaining support before going out to investigate, but it never occurred to her to do so. She was only eager to get out to the Pavilion and find out who the intruder was. She did pause to pick up a weapon—not perhaps a very good one, but a weapon of kinds, and then she was out of the side door and following quickly along the path through the shrubbery. She was out of breath, but completely resolute. Only when she got at last to the door, did she slacken up and take care to move softly. The door was slightly ajar. She pushed it further open and looked in….
II
At about the time when Miss Chadwick was rising from bed in search of aspirin, Ann Shapland, looking very attractive in a black dance frock, was sitting at a table in Le Nid Sauvage eating Supreme of Chicken and smiling at the young man opposite her. Dear Dennis, thought Ann to herself, always so exactly the same. It is what I simply couldn’t bear if I married him. He is rather a pet, all the same. Aloud she remarked:
“What fun this is, Dennis. Such a glorious change.”
“How is the new job?” said Dennis.
“Well, actually, I’m rather enjoying it.”
“Doesn’t seem to me quite your sort of thing.”
Ann laughed. “I’d be hard put to it to say what is my sort of thing. I like variety, Dennis.”
“I never can see why you gave up your job with old Sir Mervyn Todhunter.”
“Well, chiefly because of Sir Mervyn Todhunter. The attention he bestowed on me was beginning to annoy his wife. And it’s part of my policy never to annoy wives. They can do you a lot of harm, you know.”
“Jealous cats,” said Dennis.
“Oh no, not really,” said Ann. “I’m rather on the wives’ side. Anyway I liked Lady Todhunter much better than old Mervyn. Why are you surprised at my present job?”
“Oh, a school. You’re not scholastically minded at all, I should have said.”
“I’d hate to teach in a school. I’d hate to be penned up. Herded with a lot of women. But the work as the secretary of a school like Meadowbank is rather fun. It really is a unique place, you know. And Miss Bulstrode’s unique. She’s really something, I can tell you. Her steel-grey eye goes through you and sees your innermost secrets. And she keeps you on your toes. I’d hate to make a mistake in any letters I’d taken down for her. Oh yes, she’s certainly something.”
“I wish you’d get tired of all these jobs,” said Dennis. “It’s quite time, you know, Ann, that you stopped all this racketing about with jobs here and jobs there and—and settled down.”
“You are sweet, Dennis,” said Ann in a noncommittal manner.
“We could have quite fun, you know,” said Dennis.
“I daresay,” said Ann, “but I’m not ready yet. And anyway, you know, there’s my mamma.”
“Yes, I was—going to talk to you about that.”
“About my mamma? What were you going to say?”
“Well, Ann, you know I think you’re wonderful. The way you get an interesting job and then you chuck it all up and go home to her.”
“Well, I have to now and again when she gets a really bad attack.”
“I know. As I say, I think it’s wonderful of you. But all the same there are places, you know, very good places nowadays where—where people like your mother are well looked after and all that sort of thing. Not really loony bins.”
“And which cost the earth,” said Ann.
“No, no, not necessarily. Why, even under the Health Scheme—”
A bitter note crept into Ann’s voice.