Curtain - Agatha Christie [21]
‘You know far too much, Sir William!’
Nurse Craven seemed delighted with this badinage. She said reluctantly: ‘Well, I suppose I ought to be going to see about Mrs Franklin’s malted milk.’
She moved away slowly and Boyd Carrington stood looking after her.
‘Good-looking girl,’ he remarked. ‘Lovely hair and teeth. Fine specimen of womanhood. Must be a dull life on the whole always looking after sick people. A girl like that deserves a better fate.’
‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘I suppose she’ll marry one day.’
‘I expect so.’
He sighed – and it occurred to me that he was thinking of his dead wife. Then he said: ‘Like to come over with me to Knatton and see the place?’
‘Rather. I’d like to. I’ll just see first if Poirot needs me.’
I found Poirot sitting on the veranda, well muffled up. He encouraged me to go.
‘But certainly go, Hastings, go. It is, I believe, a most handsome property. You should certainly see it.’
‘I’d like to. But I didn’t want to desert you.’
‘My faithful friend! No, no, go with Sir William. A charming man, is he not?’
‘First class,’ I said with enthusiasm.
Poirot smiled. ‘Ah yes. I thought he was your type.’
III
I enjoyed my expedition enormously.
Not only was the weather fine – a really lovely summer’s day – but I enjoyed the companionship of the man.
Boyd Carrington had that personal magnetism, that wide experience of life and of places that made him excellent company. He told me stories of his administrative days in India, some intriguing details of East African tribal lore, and was altogether so interesting that I was quite taken out of myself and forgot my worries about Judith and the deep anxieties that Poirot’s revelations had given me.
I liked, too, the way Boyd Carrington spoke of my friend. He had a deep respect for him – both for his work and his character. Sad though his present condition of ill health was, Boyd Carrington uttered no facile words of pity. He seemed to think that a lifetime spent as Poirot’s had been was in itself a rich reward and that in his memories my friend could find satisfaction and self-respect.
‘Moreover,’ he said, ‘I’d wager his brain is as keen as ever it was.’
‘It is, indeed it is,’ I assented eagerly.
‘No greater mistake than to think that because a man’s tied by the leg it affects his brain pan. Not a bit of it. Anno Domini affects head work much less than you’d think. By Jove, I wouldn’t care to undertake to commit a murder under Hercule Poirot’s nose – even at this time of day.’
‘He’d get you if you did,’ I said grinning.
‘I bet he would. Not,’ he added ruefully, ‘that I should be much good at doing a murder anyway. I can’t plan things, you know. Too impatient. If I did a murder it would be done on the spur of the moment.’
‘That might be the most difficult crime to spot.’
‘I hardly think so. I’d probably leave clues trailing along behind me in every direction. Well, it’s lucky I haven’t got a criminal mind. Only kind of man I can imagine myself killing is a blackmailer. That is a foul thing if you like. I’ve always thought a blackmailer ought to be shot. What do you say?’
I confessed to some sympathy with his point of view.
Then we passed on to an examination of the work done on the house as a young architect came forward to meet us.
Knatton was mainly of Tudor date with a wing added later. It had not been modernized or altered since the installation of two primitive bathrooms in the eighteen forties or thereabouts.
Boyd Carrington explained that his uncle had been more or less of a hermit, disliking people and living in a corner of the vast house. Boyd Carrington and his brother had been tolerated, and had spent their holidays there as schoolboys before Sir Everard had become as much of a recluse as he afterwards became.
The old man had never married, and had spent only a tenth of his large income, so that even after death duties had been paid, the present baronet had found himself a very rich man.
‘But a very lonely one,’ he said sighing.
I was silent. My sympathy was too acute to be put into words. For I, too, was a lonely man. Since