Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [42]
“Celia Austin,” he said, “protested vehemently that it was not she who damaged your papers, Miss Johnston. Do you believe her?”
“I do not think Celia did that. No.”
“You don’t know who did?”
“The obvious answer is Nigel Chapman. But it seems to me a little too obvious. Nigel is intelligent. He would not use his own ink.”
“And if not Nigel, who then?”
“That is more difficult. But I think Celia knew who it was—or at least guessed.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“Not in so many words; but she came to my room on the evening of the day she died, before going down to dinner. She came to tell me that though she was responsible for the thefts she had not sabotaged my work. I told her that I accepted that assurance. I asked her if she knew who had done so.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said”—Elizabeth paused a moment, as though to be sure of the accuracy of what she was about to say—“she said, ‘I can’t really be sure, because I don’t see why . . . It might have been a mistake or an accident . . . I’m sure whoever did it is very unhappy about it, and would really like to own up.’ Celia went on, ‘There are some things I don’t understand, like the electric lightbulbs the day the police came.’ ”
Sharpe interrupted.
“What’s this about the police and electric lightbulbs?”
“I don’t know. All Celia said was: ‘I didn’t take them out.’ And then she said: ‘I wondered if it had anything to do with the passport?’ I said, ‘What passport are you talking about?’ And she said: ‘I think someone might have a forged passport.’ ”
The inspector was silent for a moment or two.
Here at last some vague pattern seemed to be taking shape. A passport. . . .
He asked, “What more did she say?”
“Nothing more. She just said: ‘Anyway I shall know more about it tomorrow.’ ”
“She said that, did she? I shall know more about it tomorrow. That’s a very significant remark, Miss Johnston.”
“Yes.”
The inspector was again silent as he reflected.
Something about a passport—and a visit from the police . . . Before coming to Hickory Road, he had carefully looked up the files. A fairly close eye was kept on hostels which housed foreign students. 26 Hickory Road had a good record. Such details as there were, were meagre and unsuggestive. A West African student wanted by the Sheffield police for living on a woman’s earnings; the student in question had been at Hickory Road for a few days and had then gone elsewhere, and had in due course been gathered in and since deported. There had been a routine check of all hostels and boardinghouses for a Eurasian “wanted to assist the police” in the investigation of the murder of a publican’s wife near Cambridge. That had been cleared up when the young man in question had walked into the police station at Hull and had given himself up for the crime. There had been an inquiry into a student’s distribution of subversive pamphlets. All these occurrences had taken place some time ago and could not possibly have any connection with the death of Celia Austin.
He sighed and looked up to find Elizabeth Johnston’s dark intelligent eyes watching him.
On an impulse, he said, “Tell me, Miss Johnston, have you ever had a feeling—an impression—of something wrong about this place?”
She looked surprised.
“In what way—wrong?”
“I couldn’t really say. I’m thinking of something Miss Sally Finch said to me.”
“Oh—Sally Finch!”
There was an intonation in her voice which he found hard to place. He felt interested and went on:
“Miss Finch seemed to me a good observer, both shrewd and practical. She was very insistent on there being something—odd, about this place—though she found it difficult to define just what it was.”
Elizabeth said sharply:
“That is her American way of thought. They are all the same, these Americans, nervous, apprehensive, suspecting every kind of foolish thing! Look at the fools they make of themselves with their witch hunts, their hysterical spy mania, their obsession over communism. Sally Finch is typical.”
The inspector’s interest grew. So Elizabeth disliked Sally Finch.