N or M_ - Agatha Christie [66]
Tuppence shook her head.
‘Things don’t happen that way.’
‘You’re right.’ The other spoke in a deep, bitter voice. ‘It’s got to be sorrow and bitterness and dust and ashes. It’s got to be the way things tear you to pieces…. I’m sick of the cruelty–the unfairness of this world. I’d like to smash it and break it–and let us all start again near to the earth and without these rules and laws and the tyranny of nation over nation. I’d like–’
A cough interrupted her. A deep, throaty cough. Mrs O’Rourke was standing in the doorway, her vast bulk filling the aperture completely.
‘Am I interrupting now?’ she demanded.
Like a sponge across a slate, all evidence of Mrs Perenna’s outburst vanished from her face–leaving in their wake only the mild worried face of the proprietress of a guesthouse whose guests were causing trouble.
‘No, indeed, Mrs O’Rourke,’ she said. ‘We were just talking about what had become of Mr Meadowes. It’s amazing the police can find no trace of him.’
‘Ah, the police!’ said Mrs O’Rourke in tones of easy contempt. ‘What good would they be? No good at all, at all! Only fit for fining motor-cars, and dropping on poor wretches who haven’t taken out their dog licences.’
‘What’s your theory, Mrs O’Rourke?’ asked Tuppence.
‘You’ll have been hearing the story that’s going about?’
‘About his being a Fascist and an enemy agent–yes,’ said Tuppence coldly.
‘It might be true now,’ said Mrs O’Rourke thoughtfully. ‘For there’s been something about the man that’s intrigued me from the beginning. I’ve watched him, you know,’ she smiled directly at Tuppence–and like all Mrs O’Rourke’s smiles it had a vaguely terrifying quality–the smile of an ogress. ‘He’d not the look of a man who’d retired from business and had nothing to do with himself. If I was backing my judgement, I’d say he came here with a purpose.’
‘And when the police got on his track he disappeared, is that it?’ demanded Tuppence.
‘It might be so,’ said Mrs O’Rourke. ‘What’s your opinion, Mrs Perenna?’
‘I don’t know,’ sighed Mrs Perenna. ‘It’s a most vexing thing to happen. It makes so much talk.’
‘Ah! Talk won’t hurt you. They’re happy now out there on the terrace wondering and surmising. They’ll have it in the end that the quiet, inoffensive man was going to blow us all up in our beds with bombs.’
‘You haven’t told us what you think?’ said Tuppence.
Mrs O’Rourke smiled, that same slow ferocious smile.
‘I’m thinking that the man is safe somewhere–quite safe…’
Tuppence thought:
‘She might say that if she knew…but he isn’t where she thinks he is!’
She went up to her room to get ready. Betty Sprot came running out of the Cayleys’ bedroom with a smile of mischievous and impish glee on her face.
‘What have you been up to, minx?’ demanded Tuppence.
Betty gurgled:
‘Goosey, goosey gander…’
Tuppence chanted:
‘Whither will you wander? Upstairs!’ She snatched up Betty high over her head. ‘Downstairs!’ She rolled her on the floor–
At this minute Mrs Sprot appeared and Betty was led off to be attired for her walk.
‘Hide?’ said Betty hopefully. ‘Hide?’
‘You can’t play hide-and-seek now,’ said Mrs Sprot.
Tuppence went into her room, donned her hat (a nuisance having to wear a hat–Tuppence Beresford never did–but Patricia Blenkensop would certainly wear one, Tuppence felt).
Somebody, she noted, had altered the position of the hats in her hat-cupboard. Had someone been searching her room? Well, let them. They wouldn’t find anything to cast doubt on blameless Mrs Blenkensop.
She left Penelope Playne’s letter artistically on the dressing-table and went downstairs and out of the house.
It was ten o’clock as she turned out of the gate. Plenty of time. She looked up at the sky, and in doing so stepped into a dark puddle by the gatepost, but without apparently noticing it she went on.
Her heart was dancing wildly. Success–success–they were going to succeed.
II
Yarrow was a small country station where the village was some distance from the