Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [65]
There was a perfunctory tap on the door and Sally Finch entered. Her eyes widened with surprise. Pat, clasping a handful of Nigel’s socks, was sitting on the bed, and Nigel, the bureau drawers all pulled out, was burrowing like an excited terrier into a heap of pullovers whilst about him were strewn panties, brassières, stockings, and other component parts of female attire.
“For land’s sake,” said Sally, “what goes on?”
“Looking for bicarbonate,” said Nigel briefly.
“Bicarbonate? Why?”
“I’ve got a pain,” said Nigel, grinning. “A pain in my tum-tum-tum—and nothing but bicarbonate will assuage it.”
“I’ve got some somewhere, I believe.”
“No good, Sally, it’s got to be Pat’s. Hers is the only brand that will ease my particular ailment.”
“You’re crazy,” said Sally. “What’s he up to, Pat?”
Patricia shook her head miserably.
“You haven’t seen my soda bic, have you, Sally?” she asked. “Just a little in the bottom of the bottle?”
“No.” Sally looked at her curiously. Then she frowned. “Let me see. Somebody around here—no, I can’t remember—Have you got a stamp, Pat? I want to mail a letter and I’ve run out.”
“In the drawer there.”
Sally opened the shallow drawer of the writing table, took out a book of stamps, extracted one, affixed it to the letter she held in her hand, dropped the stamp book back in the drawer, and put twopence-halfpenny on the desk.
“Thanks. Shall I mail this letter of yours at the same time?”
“Yes—no—no, I think I’ll wait.”
Sally nodded and left the room.
Pat dropped the socks she had been holding, and twisted her fingers nervously together.
“Nigel?”
“Yes?” Nigel had transferred his attention to the wardrobe and was looking in the pockets of a coat.
“There’s something else I’ve got to confess.”
“Good lord, Pat, what else have you been doing?”
“I’m afraid you’ll be angry.”
“I’m past being angry. I’m just plain scared. If Celia was poisoned with the stuff that I pinched, I shall probably go to prison for years and years, even if they don’t hang me.”
“It’s nothing to do with that. It’s about your father.”
“What?” Nigel spun round, an expression of incredulous astonishment on his face.
“You do know he’s very ill, don’t you?”
“I don’t care how ill he is.”
“It said so on the wireless last night. ‘Sir Arthur Stanley, the famous research chemist, is lying in a very critical condition.’ ”
“So nice to be a VIP. All the world gets the news when you’re ill.”
“Nigel, if he’s dying, you ought to be reconciled to him.”
“Like hell I will!”
“But if he’s dying.”
“He’s the same swine dying as he was when he was in the pink of condition!”
“You mustn’t be like that, Nigel. So bitter and unforgiving.”
“Listen, Pat—I told you once: he killed my mother.”
“I know you said so, and I know you adored her. But I do think, Nigel, that you sometimes exaggerate. Lots of husbands are unkind and unfeeling and their wives resent it and it makes them very unhappy. But to say your father killed your mother is an extravagant statement and isn’t really true.”
“You know so much about it, don’t you?”
“I know that some day you’ll regret not having made it up with your father before he died. That’s why—” Pat paused and braced herself. “That’s why I—I’ve written to your father—telling him—”
“You’ve written to him? Is that the letter Sally wanted to post?” He strode over to the writing table. “I see.”
He picked up the letter lying addressed and stamped, and with quick, nervous fingers, he tore it into small pieces and threw it into the wastepaper basket.
“That’s that! And don’t you dare do anything of that kind again.”
“Really, Nigel, you are absolutely childish. You can tear the letter up, but you can’t stop me writing another, and I shall.”
“You’re so incurably sentimental. Did it ever occur to you that when I said my father killed my mother, I was stating just a plain unvarnished fact. My mother died of an overdose of medinal. Took it by mistake, they said at the inquest. But she didn’t take it by mistake. It was given to her, deliberately, by my father. He wanted