Murder Is Easy - Agatha Christie [37]
“I suppose,” said Luke, feeling that he was putting it awkwardly but not seeing how to put it better, “that Mrs. Horton had a lot of devoted friends in Wychwood?”
“People were very kind,” said the major somewhat grudgingly. “Whitfield sent down grapes and peaches from his hothouse. And the old tabbies used to come and sit with her. Honoria Waynflete and Lavinia Pinkerton.”
“Miss Pinkerton came often, did she?”
“Yes. Regular old maid—but a kind creature! Very worried about Lydia she was. Used to inquire into the diet and the medicines. All kindly meant, you know, but what I call a lot of fuss.”
Luke nodded comprehendingly.
“Can’t stand fuss,” said the major. “Too many women in this place. Difficult to get a decent game of golf.”
“What about the young fellow at the antique shop?” said Luke.
The major snorted:
“He doesn’t play golf. Much too much of a Miss Nancy.”
“Has he been in Wychwood long?”
“About two years. Nasty sort of fellow. Hate those long-haired purring chaps. Funnily enough Lydia liked him. You can’t trust women’s judgement about men. They cotton to some amazing bounders. She even insisted on taking some patent quack nostrum of his. Stuff in a purple glass jar with signs of the Zodiac all over it! Supposed to be certain herbs picked at the full of the moon. Lot of tomfoolery, but women swallow that stuff—swallow it literally too—ha, ha!”
Luke said, feeling that he was changing the subject rather abruptly, but correctly judging that Major Horton would not be aware of the fact:
“What sort of fellow is Abbot, the local solicitor? Pretty sound on the law? I’ve got to have some legal advice about something and I thought I might go to him.”
“They say he’s pretty shrewd,” acknowledged Major Horton. “I don’t know. Matter of fact I’ve had a row with him. Not seen him since he came out here to make Lydia’s will for her just before she died. In my opinion that man’s a cad. But of course,” he added, “that doesn’t affect his ability as a lawyer.”
“No, of course not,” said Luke. “He seems a quarrelsome sort of man, though. Seems to have fallen out with a good many people from what I hear.”
“Trouble with him is that he’s so confoundedly touchy,” said Major Horton. “Seems to think he’s God Almighty and that anyone who disagrees with him is committing lèse-majesté. Heard of his row with Humbleby?”
“They had a row, did they?”
“First-class row. Mind you, that doesn’t surprise me. Humbleby was an opinionated ass! Still, there it is.”
“His death was very sad.”
“Humbleby’s? Yes, I suppose it was. Lack of ordinary care. Blood poisoning’s a damned dangerous thing. Always put iodine on a cut—I do! Simple precaution. Humbleby, who’s a doctor, doesn’t do anything of the sort. It just shows.”
Luke was not quite sure what it showed, but he let that pass. Glancing at his watch he got up.
Major Horton said:
“Getting on for lunchtime? So it is. Well, glad to have had a chat with you. Does me good to see a man who’s been about the world a bit. We must have a yarn some other time. Where was your show? Mayang Straits? Never been there. Hear you’re writing a book. Superstitions and all that.”
“Yes—I—”
But Major Horton swept on.
“I can tell you several very interesting things. When I was in India, my boy—”
Luke escaped some ten minutes later after enduring the usual histories of fakirs, rope and mango tricks, dear to the retired Anglo-Indian.
As he stepped out into the open air, and heard the major’s voice bellowing to Nero behind him, he marvelled at the miracle of married life. Major Horton seemed genuinely to regret a wife who, by all accounts, not excluding his own, must have been nearly allied to a man-eating tiger.
Or was it—Luke asked himself the question suddenly—was it an exceedingly clever bluff?