Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie [37]
This was a totally unexpected development. As we retraced our steps Melchett caught me by the arm and murmured:
‘If she’s gone to confess to the crime, too, I really shall go off my head.’
Chapter 13
I hardly thought it likely that Mrs Price Ridley had anything so dramatic in view, but I did wonder what had taken her to the police station. Had she really got evidence of importance, or that she thought of importance, to offer? At any rate, we should soon know.
We found Mrs Price Ridley talking at a high rate of speed to a somewhat bewildered-looking police constable. That she was extremely indignant I knew from the way the bow in her hat was trembling. Mrs Price Ridley wears what, I believe, are known as ‘Hats for Matrons’ – they make a speciality of them in our adjacent town of Much Benham. They perch easily on a superstructure of hair and are somewhat overweighted with large bows of ribbon. Griselda is always threatening to get a matron’s hat.
Mrs Price Ridley paused in her flow of words upon our entrance.
‘Mrs Price Ridley?’ inquired Colonel Melchett, lifting his hat.
‘Let me introduce Colonel Melchett to you, Mrs Price Ridley,’ I said. ‘Colonel Melchett is our Chief Constable.’
Mrs Price Ridley looked at me coldly, but produced the semblance of a gracious smile for the Colonel.
‘We’ve just been round to your house, Mrs Price Ridley,’ explained the Colonel, ‘and heard you had come down here.’
Mrs Price Ridley thawed altogether.
‘Ah!’she said,‘I’m glad some notice is being taken of the occurrence. Disgraceful, I call it. Simply disgraceful.’
There is no doubt that murder is disgraceful, but it is not the word I should use to describe it myself. It surprised Melchett too, I could see.
‘Have you any light to throw upon the matter?’ he asked.
‘That’s your business. It’s the business of the police. What do we pay rates and taxes for, I should like to know?’
One wonders how many times that query is uttered in a year!
‘We’re doing our best, Mrs Price Ridley,’ said the Chief Constable.
‘But the man here hadn’t even heard of it till I told him about it!’ cried the lady.
We all looked at the constable.
‘Lady been rung up on the telephone,’ he said. ‘Annoyed. Matter of obscene language, I understand.’
‘Oh! I see.’ The Colonel’s brow cleared. ‘We’ve been talking at cross purposes. You came down here to make a complaint, did you?’
Melchett is a wise man. He knows that when it is a question of an irate middle-aged lady, there is only one thing to be done – listen to her. When she had said all that she wants to say, there is a chance that she will listen to you.
Mrs Price Ridley surged into speech.
‘Such disgraceful occurrences ought to be prevented. They ought not to occur. To be rung up in one’s own house and insulted – yes, insulted. I’m not accustomed to such things happening. Ever since the war there has been a loosening of moral fibre. Nobody minds what they say, and as to the clothes they wear –’
‘Quite,’ said Colonel Melchett hastily. ‘What happened exactly?’
Mrs Price Ridley took breath and started again.
‘I was rung up –’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday afternoon – evening to be exact. About half-past six. I went to the telephone, suspecting nothing. Immediately I was foully attacked, threatened –’
‘What actually was said?’
Mrs Price Ridley got slightly pink.
‘That I decline to state.’
‘Obscene language,’ murmured the constable in a ruminative bass.
‘Was bad language used?’ asked Colonel Melchett.
‘It depends on what you call bad language.’
‘Could you understand it?’ I asked.
‘Of course I could understand it.’
‘Then it couldn’t have been bad language,’ I said.
Mrs Price Ridley looked at me suspiciously.
‘A refined lady,’ I explained, ‘is naturally unacquainted with bad language.’
‘It wasn’t that kind of thing,’ said Mrs Price Ridley. ‘At first, I must admit, I was quite taken in. I thought it was a genuine message. Then the – er – person became abusive.’
‘Abusive?’
‘Most abusive.