Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [18]
Porter took a step towards him.
‘But he let her be accused!’ he cried. ‘He stood by and let her be accused. Why? Why?’
‘I think I know why,’ said Mr Quin. ‘I should guess–it’s only guess-work on my part, mind–that Richard Scott was once madly in love with Iris Staverton–so madly that even meeting her years afterwards stirred up the embers of jealousy again. I should say that Iris Staverton once fancied that she might love him, that she went on a hunting trip with him and another–and that she came back in love with the better man.’
‘The better man,’ muttered Porter, dazed. ‘You mean–?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Quin, with a faint smile. ‘I mean you.’ He paused a minute, and then said: ‘If I were you–I should go to her now.’
‘I will,’ said Porter.
He turned and left the room.
Chapter 3
At the ‘Bells and Motley’
Mr Satterthwaite was annoyed. Altogether it had been an unfortunate day. They had started late, there had been two punctures already, finally they had taken the wrong turning and lost themselves amidst the wilds of Salisbury Plain. Now it was close on eight o’clock, they were still a matter of forty miles from Marswick Manor whither they were bound, and a third puncture had supervened to render matters still more trying.
Mr Satterthwaite, looking like some small bird whose plumage had been ruffled, walked up and down in front of the village garage whilst his chauffeur conversed in hoarse undertones with the local expert.
‘Half an hour at least,’ said that worthy pronouncing judgment.
‘And lucky at that,’ supplemented Masters, the chauffeur. ‘More like three quarters if you ask me.’
‘What is this–place, anyway?’ demanded Mr Satterthwaite fretfully. Being a little gentleman considerate of the feelings of others, he substituted the word ‘place’ for ‘God-forsaken hole’ which had first risen to his lips.
‘Kirtlington Mallet.’
Mr Satterthwaite was not much wiser, and yet a faint familiarity seemed to linger round the name. He looked round him disparagingly. Kirtlington Mallet seemed to consist of one straggling street, the garage and the post office on one side of it balanced by three indeterminate shops on the other side. Farther down the road, however, Mr Satterthwaite perceived something that creaked and swung in the wind, and his spirits rose ever so slightly.
‘There’s an Inn here, I see,’ he remarked.
‘“Bells and Motley”,’ said the garage man. ‘That’s it–yonder.’
‘If I might make a suggestion, sir,’ said Masters, ‘why not try it? They would be able to give you some sort of a meal, no doubt–not, of course, what you are accustomed to.’ He paused apologetically, for Mr Satterthwaite was accustomed to the best cooking of continental chefs, and had in his own service a cordon bleu to whom he paid a fabulous salary.
‘We shan’t be able to take the road again for another three quarters of an hour, sir. I’m sure of that. And it’s already past eight o’clock. You could ring up Sir George Foster, sir, from the Inn, and acquaint him with the cause of our delay.’
‘You seem to think you can arrange everything, Masters,’ said Mr Satterthwaite snappily.
Masters, who did think so, maintained a respectful silence.
Mr Satterthwaite, in spite of his earnest wish to discountenance any suggestion that might possibly be made to him–he was in that mood–nevertheless looked down the road towards the creaking Inn sign with faint inward approval. He was a man of birdlike appetite, an epicure, but even such men can be hungry.
‘The “Bells and Motley”,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That’s an odd name for an Inn. I don’t know that I ever heard it before.’
‘There’s odd folks come to it by all account,’ said the local man.
He was bending over the wheel, and his voice came muffled and indistinct.
‘Odd folks?’ queried Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Now what do you mean by that?’
The other hardly seemed to know what he meant.
‘Folks that come and go. That kind,’ he said vaguely.
Mr Satterthwaite reflected