N or M_ - Agatha Christie [57]
Deborah enjoyed her job, though she found it made somewhat strenuous demands on her powers of concentration. It was tiring, but it was worthwhile and it gave her a pleasant feeling of importance. This was real work–not just hanging about a hospital waiting for a chance to nurse.
She said:
‘Oh, nothing. Just family! You know.’
‘Families are a bit trying. What’s yours been up to?’
‘It’s my mother. To tell the truth, I’m just a bit worried about her.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Well, you see, she went down to Cornwall to a frightfully trying old aunt of mine. Seventy-eight and completely ga ga.’
‘Sounds grim,’ commented the young man sympathetically.
‘Yes, it was really very noble of Mother. But she was rather hipped anyway because nobody seemed to want her in this war. Of course, she nursed and did things in the last one–but it’s all quite different now, and they don’t want these middle-aged people. They want people who are young and on the spot. Well, as I say, Mother got a bit hipped over it all, and so she went off down to Cornwall to stay with Aunt Gracie, and she’s been doing a bit in the garden, extra vegetable growing and all that.’
‘Quite sound,’ commented Tony.
‘Yes, much the best thing she could do. She’s quite active still, you know,’ said Deborah kindly.
‘Well, that sounds all right.’
‘Oh yes, it isn’t that. I was quite happy about her–had a letter only two days ago sounding quite cheerful.’
‘What’s the trouble, then?’
‘The trouble is that I told Charles, who was going down to see his people in that part of the world, to go and look her up. And he did. And she wasn’t there.’
‘Wasn’t there?’
‘No. And she hadn’t been there! Not at all apparently!’
Tony looked a little embarrassed.
‘Rather odd,’ he murmured. ‘Where’s–I mean–your father?’
‘Carrot Top? Oh, he’s in Scotland somewhere. In one of those dreadful Ministries where they file papers in triplicate all day long.’
‘Your mother hasn’t gone to join him, perhaps?’
‘She can’t. He’s in one of those area things where wives can’t go.’
‘Oh–er–well, I suppose she’s just slopped off somewhere.’
Tony was decidedly embarrassed now–especially with Deborah’s large worried eyes fixed plaintively upon him.
‘Yes, but why? It’s so queer. All her letters–talking about Aunt Gracie and the garden and everything.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Tony hastily. ‘Of course, she’d want you to think–I mean–nowadays–well, people do slope off now and again if you know what I mean–’
Deborah’s gaze, from being plaintive, became suddenly wrathful.
‘If you think Mother’s just gone off weekending with someone you’re absolutely wrong. Absolutely. Mother and Father are devoted to each other–really devoted. It’s quite a joke in the family. She’d never–’
Tony said hastily:
‘Of course not. Sorry. I really didn’t mean–’
Deborah, her wrath appeased, creased her forehead.
‘The odd thing is that someone the other day said they’d seen Mother in Leahampton, of all places, and of course I said it couldn’t be her because she was in Cornwall, but now I wonder–’
Tony, his match held to a cigarette, paused suddenly and the match went out.
‘Leahampton?’ he said sharply.
‘Yes. Just the last place you could imagine Mother going off to. Nothing to do and all old Colonels and maiden ladies.’
‘Doesn’t sound a likely spot, certainly,’ said Tony.
He lit his cigarette and asked casually:
‘What did your mother do in the last war?’
Deborah answered mechanically:
‘Oh, nursed a bit and drove a General–Army, I mean, not a bus. All the usual sort of things.’
‘Oh, I thought perhaps she’d been like you–in the Intelligence.’
‘Oh, Mother would never have had the head for this sort of work. I believe, though, that she and Father did do something in the sleuthing line. Secret papers and master spies–that sort of thing. Of course, the darlings exaggerate it all a good deal and make it all sound as though it had been frightfully important. We don’t really encourage them to talk about