Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [20]
‘Of course,’ he repeated. ‘It was at Kirtlington Mallet it happened.’
‘It was at this house he stayed for the hunting last winter,’ said the landlord. ‘Oh! I knew him well. A main handsome young gentleman and not one that you’d think had a care on his mind. He was done away with–that’s my belief. Many’s the time I’ve seen them come riding home together–he and Miss Le Couteau, and all the village saying there’d be a match come of it–and sure enough, so it did. A very beautiful young lady, and well thought of, for all she was a Canadian and a stranger. Ah! there’s some dark mystery there. We’ll never know the rights of it. It broke her heart, it did, sure enough. You’ve heard as she’s sold the place up and gone abroad, couldn’t bear to go on here with everyone staring and pointing after her–through no fault of her own, poor young dear! A black mystery, that’s what it is.’
He shook his head, then suddenly recollecting his duties, hurried from the room.
‘A black mystery,’ said Mr Quin softly.
His voice was provocative in Mr Satterthwaite’s ears.
‘Are you pretending that we can solve the mystery where Scotland Yard failed?’ he asked sharply.
The other made a characteristic gesture.
‘Why not? Time has passed. Three months. That makes a difference.’
‘That is a curious idea of yours,’ said Mr Satterthwaite slowly. ‘That one sees things better afterwards than at the time.’
‘The longer the time that has elapsed, the more things fall into proportion. One sees them in their true relationship to one another.’
There was a silence which lasted for some minutes.
‘I am not sure,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, in a hesitating voice, ‘that I remember the facts clearly by now.’
‘I think you do,’ said Mr Quin quietly.
It was all the encouragement Mr Satterthwaite needed. His general role in life was that of listener and looker-on. Only in the company of Mr Quin was the position reversed. There Mr Quin was the appreciative listener, and Mr Satterthwaite took the centre of the stage.
‘It was just over a year ago,’ he said, ‘that Ashley Grange passed into the possession of Miss Eleanor Le Couteau. It is a beautiful old house, but it had been neglected and allowed to remain empty for many years. It could not have found a better chatelaine. Miss Le Couteau was a French Canadian, her forebears were émigrés from the French Revolution, and had handed down to her a collection of almost priceless French relics and antiques. She was a buyer and a collector also, with a very fine and discriminating taste. So much so, that when she decided to sell Ashley Grange and everything it contained after the tragedy, Mr Cyrus G. Bradburn, the American millionaire, made no bones about paying the fancy price of sixty thousand pounds for the Grange as it stood.’
Mr Satterthwaite paused.
‘I mention these things,’ he said apologetically, ‘not because they are relevant to the story–strictly speaking, they are not–but to convey an atmosphere, the atmosphere of young Mrs Harwell.’
Mr Quin nodded.
‘Atmosphere is always valuable,’ he said gravely.
‘So we get a picture of this girl,’ continued the other. ‘Just twenty-three, dark, beautiful, accomplished, nothing crude and unfinished about her. And rich–we must not forget that. She was an orphan. A Mrs St Clair, a lady of unimpeachable breeding and social standing, lived with her as duenna. But Eleanor Le Couteau had complete control of her own fortune. And fortune-hunters are never hard to seek. At least a dozen impecunious young men were to be found dangling round her on all occasions, in the hunting field, in the ballroom, wherever she went. Young Lord Leccan, the most eligible parti in the country, is reported to have asked her to marry him, but she remained heart free. That is, until the coming of Captain Richard Harwell.
‘Captain Harwell had put up at the local Inn