Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [78]
“Dennis?” said Adam. “That’s the one you mentioned to me, wasn’t it? As far as I remember his work takes him to Burma and Malaya and Singapore and Japan and places like that. It won’t be exactly settling down, will it, if you marry him?”
Ann laughed suddenly. “No, no, I suppose it won’t. Not in the physical, geographical sense.”
“I think you can do better than Dennis,” said Adam.
“Are you making me an offer?” said Ann.
“Certainly not,” said Adam. “You’re an ambitious girl, you wouldn’t like to marry a humble jobbing gardener.”
“I was wondering about marrying into the C.I.D.,” said Ann.
“I’m not in the C.I.D.,” said Adam.
“No, no, of course not,” said Ann. “Let’s preserve the niceties of speech. You’re not in the C.I.D. Shaista wasn’t kidnapped, everything in the garden’s lovely. It is rather,” she added, looking round. “All the same,” she said after a moment or two, “I don’t understand in the least about Shaista turning up in Geneva or whatever the story is. How did she get there? All you people must be very slack to allow her to be taken out of this country.”
“My lips are sealed,” said Adam.
“I don’t think you know the first thing about it,” said Ann.
“I will admit,” said Adam, “that we have to thank Monsieur Hercule Poirot for having had a bright idea.”
“What, the funny little man who brought Julia back and came to see Miss Bulstrode?”
“Yes. He calls himself,” said Adam, “a consultant detective.”
“I think he’s pretty much of a has-been,” said Ann.
“I don’t understand what he’s up to at all,” said Adam. “He even went to see my mother—or some friend of his did.”
“Your mother?” said Ann. “Why?”
“I’ve no idea. He seems to have a kind of morbid interest in mothers. He went to see Jennifer’s mother too.”
“Did he go and see Miss Rich’s mother, and Chaddy’s?”
“I gather Miss Rich hasn’t got a mother,” said Adam. “Otherwise, no doubt, he would have gone to see her.”
“Miss Chadwick’s got a mother in Cheltenham, she told me,” said Ann, “but she’s about eighty-odd, I believe. Poor Miss Chadwick, she looks about eighty herself. She’s coming to talk to us now.”
Adam looked up. “Yes,” he said, “she’s aged a lot in the last week.”
“Because she really loves the school,” said Ann. “It’s her whole life. She can’t bear to see it go downhill.”
Miss Chadwick indeed looked ten years older than she had done on the day of the opening term. Her step had lost its brisk efficiency. She no longer trotted about, happy and bustling. She came up to them now, her steps dragging a little.
“Will you please come to Miss Bulstrode,” she said to Adam. “She has some instruction about the garden.”
“I’ll have to clean up a bit first,” said Adam. He laid down his tools and moved off in the direction of the potting shed.
Ann and Miss Chadwick walked together towards the house.
“It does seem quiet, doesn’t it,” said Ann, looking round. “Like an empty house at the theatre,” she added thoughtfully, “with people spaced out by the box office as tactfully as possible to make them look like an audience.”
“It’s dreadful,” said Miss Chadwick, “dreadful! Dreadful to think that Meadowbank has come to this. I can’t get over it. I can’t sleep at night. Everything in ruins. All the years of work, of building up something really fine.”
“It may get all right again,” said Ann cheerfully. “People have got very short memories, you know.”
“Not as short as all that,” said Miss Chadwick grimly.
Ann did not answer. In her heart she rather agreed with Miss Chadwick.
III
Mademoiselle Blanche came out of the classroom where she had been teaching French literature.
She glanced at her watch. Yes, there would be plenty of time for what she intended