Dead Man's Folly - Agatha Christie [38]
‘She didn’t change her clothes?’
‘No. I went into that with the maid. There’s nothing missing – nothing whatever. She didn’t pack a suitcase or anything of that kind. She didn’t even change her shoes. Every pair’s there and accounted for.’
Inspector Bland frowned. Unpleasant possibilities were rising in his mind. He said curtly:
‘Get me that secretary woman again – Bruce – whatever her name is.’
II
Miss Brewis came in looking rather more ruffled than usual, and a little out of breath.
‘Yes, Inspector?’ she said. ‘You wanted me? If it isn’t urgent, Sir George is in a terrible state and –’
‘What’s he in a state about?’
‘He’s only just realized that Lady Stubbs is – well, really missing. I told him she’s probably only gone for a walk in the woods or something, but he’s got it into his head that something’s happened to her. Quite absurd.’
‘It might not be so absurd, Miss Brewis. After all, we’ve had one – murder here this afternoon.’
‘You surely don’t think that Lady Stubbs –? But that’s ridiculous! Lady Stubbs can look after herself.’
‘Can she?’
‘Of course she can! She’s a grown woman, isn’t she?’
‘But rather a helpless one, by all accounts.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Miss Brewis. ‘It suits Lady Stubbs now and then to play the helpless nitwit if she doesn’t want to do anything. It takes her husband in, I dare say, but it doesn’t take me in!’
‘You don’t like her very much, Miss Brewis?’ Bland sounded gently interested.
Miss Brewis’ lips closed in a thin line.
‘It’s not my business either to like or dislike her,’ she said.
The door burst open and Sir George came in.
‘Look here,’ he said violently, ‘you’ve got to do something. Where’s Hattie? You’ve got to find Hattie. What the hell’s going on round here I don’t know. This confounded fête – some ruddy homicidal maniac’s got in here, paying his half-crown and looking like everyone else, spending his afternoon going round murdering people. That’s what it looks like to me.’
‘I don’t think we need take such an exaggerated view as that, Sir George.’
‘It’s all very well for you sitting there behind the table, writing things down. What I want is my wife.’
‘I’m having the grounds searched, Sir George.’
‘Why did nobody tell me she’d disappeared? She’s been missing a couple of hours now, it seems. I thought it was odd that she didn’t turn up to judge the Children’s Fancy Dress stuff, but nobody told me she’d really gone.’
‘Nobody knew,’ said the inspector.
‘Well, someone ought to’ve known. Somebody ought to have noticed.’
He turned on Miss Brewis.
‘You ought to have known, Amanda, you were keeping an eye on things.’
‘I can’t be everywhere,’ said Miss Brewis. She sounded suddenly almost tearful. ‘I’ve got so much to see to. If Lady Stubbs chose to wander away –’
‘Wander away? Why should she wander away? She’d no reason to wander away unless she wanted to avoid that dago fellow.’
Bland seized his opportunity.
‘There is something I want to ask you,’ he said. ‘Did your wife receive a letter from Mr De Sousa some three weeks ago, telling her he was coming to this country?’
Sir George looked astonished.
‘No, of course she didn’t.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Oh, quite sure. Hattie would have told me. Why, she was thoroughly startled and upset when she got his letter this morning. It more or less knocked her out. She was lying down most of the morning with a headache.’
‘What did she say to you privately about her cousin’s visit? Why did she dread seeing him so much?’
Sir George looked rather embarrassed.
‘Blessed if I really know,’ he said. ‘She just kept saying that he was wicked.’
‘Wicked? In what way?’
‘She wasn’t very articulate about it. Just went on rather like a child saying that he was a wicked man. Bad; and that she wished he wasn’t coming here. She said he’d done bad things.’
‘Done bad things? When?’
‘Oh, long ago. I should imagine this Etienne de Sousa was the black sheep of the family and that Hattie picked up odds and ends about him during her childhood without understanding them very well. And as a result she’s got a sort of horror