N or M_ - Agatha Christie [34]
She went into her room, put on her soft felt bedroom slippers, and then went along the landing and into Mrs Perenna’s room.
Once inside she looked round her and felt a certain distaste sweep over her. Not a nice job, this. Quite unpardonable if Mrs Perenna was simply Mrs Perenna. Prying into people’s private affairs–
Tuppence shook herself, an impatient terrier shake that was a reminiscence of her girlhood. There was a war on!
She went over to the dressing-table.
Quick and deft in her movements, she had soon gone through the contents of the drawers there. In the tall bureau, one of the drawers was locked. That seemed more promising.
Tommy had been entrusted with certain tools and had received some brief instruction on the manipulation of them. These indications he had passed on to Tuppence.
A deft twist or two of the wrist and the drawer yielded.
There was a cash box containing twenty pounds in notes and some piles of silver–also a jewel case. And there were a heap of papers. These last were what interested Tuppence most. Rapidly she went through them; necessarily it was a cursory glance. She could not afford time for more.
Papers relating to a mortgage on Sans Souci, a bank account, letters. Time flew past; Tuppence skimmed through the documents, concentrating furiously on anything that might bear a double meaning. Two letters from a friend in Italy, rambling, discursive letters, seemingly quite harmless. But possibly not so harmless as they sounded. A letter from one Simon Mortimer, of London–a dry business-like letter containing so little of moment that Tuppence wondered why it had been kept. Was Mr Mortimer not so harmless as he seemed? At the bottom of the pile a letter in faded ink signed Pat and beginning ‘This will be the last letter I’ll be writing you, Eileen my darling–’
No, not that! Tuppence could not bring herself to read that! She refolded it, tidied the letters on top of it and then, suddenly alert, pushed the drawer to–no time to relock it–and when the door opened and Mrs Perenna came in, she was searching vaguely amongst the bottles on the washstand.
Mrs Blenkensop turned a flustered, but foolish face towards her hostess.
‘Oh, Mrs Perenna, do forgive me. I came in with such a blinding headache, and I thought I would lie down on my bed with a little aspirin, and I couldn’t find mine, so I thought you wouldn’t mind–I know you must have some because you offered it to Miss Minton the other day.’
Mrs Perenna swept into the room. There was a sharpness in her voice as she said:
‘Why, of course, Mrs Blenkensop, why ever didn’t you come and ask me?’
‘Well, of course, yes, I should have done really. But I knew you were all at lunch, and I do so hate, you know, making a fuss–’
Passing Tuppence, Mrs Perenna caught up the bottle of aspirin from the washstand.
‘How many would you like?’ she demanded crisply.
Mrs Blenkensop accepted three. Escorted by Mrs Perenna she crossed to her own room and hastily demurred to the suggestion of a hot-water bottle.
Mrs Perenna used her parting shot as she left the room.
‘But you have some aspirin of your own, Mrs Blenkensop. I’ve seen it.’
Tuppence cried quickly:
‘Oh, I know. I know I’ve got some somewhere, but, so stupid of me, I simply couldn’t lay my hands on it.’
Mrs Perenna said with a flash of her big white teeth:
‘Well, have a good rest until tea time.’
She went out, closing the door behind her. Tuppence drew a deep breath, lying on her bed rigidly lest Mrs Perenna should return.
Had the other suspected anything? Those teeth, so big and so white–the better to eat you with, my dear. Tuppence always thought of that when she noticed those teeth. Mrs Perenna’s hands too, big cruel-looking hands.
She had appeared to accept Tuppence’s presence in her bedroom quite naturally. But later she would find the bureau drawer unlocked. Would she suspect then? Or would she think she had left it unlocked herself by accident?