Murder Is Easy - Agatha Christie [51]
“Very good, one murder successfully accomplished. Who’s the next? Amy Gibbs. Yes, perfectly credible. Amy was in the house. She may have seen something—the major administering a soothing cup of beef tea or gruel? She mayn’t have realized the point of what she saw till some time later. The hat paint trick is the sort of thing that would occur to the major quite naturally—a very masculine man with little knowledge of women’s fripperies.
“Amy Gibbs all serene and accounted for.
“The drunken Carter? Same suggestion as before. Amy told him something. Another straightforward murder.
“Now Tommy Pierce. We’ve got to fall back on his inquisitive nature. I suppose the letter in Abbot’s office couldn’t have been a complaint from Mrs. Horton that her husband was trying to poison her? That’s a wild suggestion, but it might be so. Anyway, the major becomes alive to the fact that Tommy is a menace, so Tommy joins Amy and Carter. All quite simple and straightforward and according to Cocker. Easy to kill? My God, yes.
“But now we come to something rather more difficult. Humbleby! Motive? Very obscure. Humbleby was attending Mrs. Horton originally. Did he get puzzled by the illness, and did Horton influence his wife to change to the younger, more unsuspicious doctor? But if so, what made Humbleby a danger so long after? Difficult, that…The manner of his death, too. A poisoned finger. Doesn’t connect up with the major.
“Miss Pinkerton? That’s perfectly possible. He has a car. I saw it. And he was away from Wychwood that day, supposedly gone to the Derby. It might be—yes. Is Horton a cold-blooded killer? Is he? Is he? I wish I knew….”
Luke stared ahead of him. His brow was puckered with thought.
“It’s one of them…I don’t think it’s Ellsworthy—but it might be! He’s the most obvious one! Thomas is wildly unlikely—if it weren’t for the manner of Humbleby’s death. That blood poisoning definitely points to a medical murderer! It could be Abbot—there’s not as much evidence against him as against the others—but I can see him in the part, somehow…Yes—he fits as the others don’t. And it could be Horton! Bullied by his wife for years, feeling his insignificance—yes, it could be! But Miss Waynflete doesn’t think it is, and she’s no fool—and she knows the place and the people in it….
“Which does she suspect, Abbot or Thomas? It must be one of these two…If I tackled her outright—‘Which of them is it?’—I’d get it out of her then, perhaps.
“But even then she might be wrong. There’s no way of proving her right—like Miss Pinkerton proved herself. More evidence—that’s what I want. If there were to be one more case—just one more—then I’d know—”
He stopped himself with a start.
“My God,” he said under his breath. “What I’m asking for is another murder….”
Fifteen
IMPROPER CONDUCT OF A CHAUFFEUR
In the bar of the Seven Stars Luke drank his pint and felt somewhat embarrassed. The stare of half a dozen bucolic pairs of eyes followed his least movement, and conversation had come to a standstill upon his entrance. Luke essayed a few comments of general interest such as the crops, the state of the weather, and football coupons, but to none did he get any response.
He was reduced to gallantry. The fine-looking girl behind the counter with her black hair and red cheeks he rightly judged to be Miss Lucy Carter.
His advances were received in a pleasant spirit. Miss Carter duly giggled and said, “Go on with you! I’m sure you don’t think nothing of the kind! That’s telling!”—and other such rejoinders. But the performance was clearly mechanical.
Luke, seeing no advantage to be gained by remaining, finished his beer and departed. He walked along the path to where the river was spanned by a footbridge. He was standing looking at this when a quavering voice behind him said:
“That’s it, mister, that’s where old Harry went over.”
Luke turned to see one of his late fellow drinkers, one who had been particularly unresponsive to the topic of crops, weather and coupons. He was now clearly about to enjoy himself