Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [66]
“Nigel—I’m sorry . . . I never dreamed. . . .”
“Well, you know now . . . The respected and famous Arthur Stanley with his researches and antibiotics. Flourishing like the green bay tree! But his fancy piece didn’t marry him after all. She sheered off. I think she guessed what he’d done—”
“Nigel dear, how awful—I am sorry. . . .”
“All right. We won’t talk of it again. Let’s get back to this blasted bicarbonate business. Now think back carefully to exactly what you did with the stuff. Put your head in your hands and think, Pat.”
VI
Genevieve entered the common room in a state of great excitement. She spoke to the assembled students in a low thrilled voice.
“I am sure now, but absolutely sure I know who killed the little Celia.”
“Who was it, Genevieve?” demanded René. “What has arrived to make you so positive?”
Genevieve looked cautiously round to make sure the door of the common room was closed. She lowered her voice.
“It is Nigel Chapman.”
“Nigel Chapman, but why?”
“Listen. I pass along the corridor to go down the stairs just now and I hear voices in Patricia’s room. It is Nigel who speaks.”
“Nigel? In Patricia’s room?” Jean spoke in a disapproving voice. But Genevieve swept on.
“And he is saying to her that his father killed his mother, and that, pour ça, he has changed his name. So it is clear, is it not? His father was a convicted murderer, and Nigel he has the hereditary taint. . . .”
“It is possible,” said Mr. Chandra Lal, dwelling pleasurably on the possibility. “It is certainly possible. He is so violent, Nigel, so unbalanced. No self-control. You agree?” He turned condescendingly to Akibombo, who nodded an enthusiastic black woolly head and showed his white teeth in a pleased smile.
“I’ve always felt very strongly,” said Jean, “that Nigel has no moral sense . . . A thoroughly degenerate character.”
“It is sex murder, yes,” said Mr. Achmed Ali. “He sleeps with this girl, then he kills her. Because she is a nice girl, respectable, she will expect marriage. . . .”
“Rot,” said Leonard Bateson explosively.
“What did you say?”
“I said rot!” roared Len.
Chapter Seventeen
I
Seated in a room at the police station, Nigel looked nervously into the stern eyes of Inspector Sharpe. Stammering slightly, he had just brought his narrative to a close.
“You realise, Mr. Chapman, that what you have just told us is very serious? Very serious indeed.”
“Of course I realise it. I wouldn’t have come here to tell you about it unless I’d felt that it was urgent.”
“And you say Miss Lane can’t remember exactly when she last saw this bicarbonate bottle containing morphine?”
“She’s got herself all muddled up. The more she tries to think the more uncertain she gets. She said I flustered her. She’s trying to think it out while I came round to you.”
“We’d better go round to Hickory Road right away.”
As the inspector spoke the telephone on the table rang, and the constable who had been taking notes of Nigel’s story stretched out his hand and lifted the receiver.
“It’s Miss Lane now,” he said, as he listened. “Wanting to speak to Mr. Chapman.”
Nigel leaned across the table and took the receiver from him.
“Pat? Nigel here.”
The girl’s voice came, breathless, eager, the words tumbling over each other.
“Nigel. I think I’ve got it! I mean, I think I know now who must have taken—you know—taken it from my handkerchief drawer, I mean—you see, there’s only one person who—”
The voice broke off.
“Pat. Hallo? Are you there? Who was it?”
“I can’t tell you now. Later. You’ll be coming round?”
The receiver was near enough for the constable and the inspector to have heard the conversation clearly, and the latter nodded in answer to Nigel’s questioning look.
“Tell her ‘at once,’ ” he said.
“We’re