Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [61]
Miss Bulstrode waved that aside impatiently.
“Miss Chadwick always finds the French Mistresses sly. She’s got a thing about them.” She looked at Adam. “What do you think?”
“I think she pries,” said Adam slowly. “It may be just natural inquisitiveness. It may be something more. I can’t make up my mind. She doesn’t look to me like a killer, but how does one know?”
“That’s just it,” said Kelsey. “There is a killer here, a ruthless killer who has killed twice—but it’s very hard to believe that it’s one of the staff. Miss Johnson was with her sister last night at Limeston on Sea, and anyway she’s been with you seven years. Miss Chadwick’s been with you since you started. Both of them, anyway, are clear of Miss Springer’s death. Miss Rich has been with you over a year and was staying last night at the Alton Grange Hotel, twenty miles away, Miss Blake was with friends at Littleport, Miss Rowan has been with you for a year and has a good background. As for your servants, frankly I can’t see any of them as murderers. They’re all local, too….”
Miss Bulstrode nodded pleasantly.
“I quite agree with your reasoning. It doesn’t leave much, does it? So—” She paused and fixed an accusing eye on Adam. “It looks really—as though it must be you.”
His mouth opened in astonishment.
“On the spot,” she mused. “Free to come and go … Good story to account for your presence here. Background OK but you could be a double-crosser, you know.”
Adam recovered himself.
“Really, Miss Bulstrode,” he said admiringly, “I take off my hat to you. You think of everything!”
II
“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Sutcliffe at the breakfast table. “Henry!”
She had just unfolded her newspaper.
The width of the table was between her and her husband since her weekend guests had not yet put in an appearance for the meal.
Mr. Sutcliffe, who had opened his paper to the financial page, and was absorbed in the unforeseen movements of certain shares, did not reply.
“Henry!”
The clarion call reached him. He raised a startled face.
“What’s the matter, Joan?”
“The matter? Another murder! At Meadowbank! At Jennifer’s school.”
“What? Here, let me see!”
Disregarding his wife’s remark that it would be in his paper, too, Mr. Sutcliffe leant across the table and snatched the sheet from his wife’s grasp.
“Miss Eleanor Vansittart … Sports Pavilion … same spot where Miss Springer, the Games Mistress … hm … hm….”
“I can’t believe it!” Mrs. Sutcliffe was wailing. “Meadowbank. Such an exclusive school. Royalty there and everything….”
Mr. Sutcliffe crumpled up the paper and threw it down on the table.
“Only one thing to be done,” he said. “You get over there right away and take Jennifer out of it.”
“You mean take her away—altogether?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“You don’t think that would be a little too drastic? After Rosamond being so good about it and managing to get her in?”
“You won’t be the only one taking your daughter away! Plenty of vacancies soon at your precious Meadowbank.”
“Oh, Henry, do you think so?”
“Yes, I do. Something badly wrong there. Take Jennifer away today.”
“Yes—of course—I suppose you’re right. What shall we do with her?”
“Send her to a secondary modern somewhere handy. They don’t have murders there.”
“Oh, Henry, but they do. Don’t you remember? There was a boy who shot the science master at one. It was in last week’s News of the World.”
“I don’t know what England’s coming to,” said Mr. Sutcliffe.
Disgusted, he threw his napkin on the table and strode from the room.
III
Adam was alone in the Sports Pavilion … His deft fingers were turning over the contents of the lockers. It was unlikely that he would find anything where the police had failed but after all, one could never be sure. As Kelsey had said every department’s technique varied a little.
What was there that linked this expensive modern building with sudden and violent death? The idea of a rendezvous was out. No one would choose to keep a rendezvous a second time in the same place where murder had occurred. It came back