Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie [13]
‘Well, you should know,’ admitted Mr Parker Pyne, mindful of the authoress’s forty-six successful works of fiction, all best sellers in England and America, and freely translated into French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese and Abyssinian. ‘How about expenses?’
Mrs Oliver drew a paper towards her. ‘Very moderate, on the whole. The two darkies, Percy and Jerry, wanted very little. Young Lorrimer, the actor, was willing to enact the part of Mr Reid for five guineas. The cellar speech was a phonograph record, of course.’
‘Whitefriars has been extremely useful to me,’ said Mr Pyne. ‘I bought it for a song and it has already been the scene of eleven exciting dramas.’
‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Johnny’s wages. Five shillings.’
‘Johnny?’
‘Yes. The boy who poured the water from the watering cans through the hole in the wall.’
‘Ah yes. By the way, Mrs Oliver, how did you happen to know Swahili?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I see. The British Museum perhaps?’
‘No. Delfridge’s Information Bureau.’
‘How marvellous are the resources of modern commerce!’ he murmured.
‘The only thing that worries me,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘is that those two young people won’t find any cache when they get there.’
‘One cannot have everything in this world,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘They will have had a honeymoon.’
Mrs Wilbraham was sitting in a deck-chair. Her husband was writing a letter. ‘What’s the date, Freda?’
‘The sixteenth.’
‘The sixteenth. By jove!’
‘What is it, dear?’
‘Nothing. I just remembered a chap named Jones.’
However happily married, there are some things one never tells.
‘Dash it all,’ thought Major Wilbraham. ‘I ought to have called at that place and got my money back.’ And then, being a fair-minded man, he looked at the other side of the question. ‘After all, it was I who broke the bargain. I suppose if I’d gone to see Jones something would have happened. And, anyway, as it turns out, if I hadn’t been going to see Jones, I should never have heard Freda cry for help, and we might never have met. So, indirectly, perhaps they have a right to the fifty pounds!’
Mrs Wilbraham was also following out a train of thought. ‘What a silly little fool I was to believe in that advertisement and pay those people three guineas. Of course, they never did anything for it and nothing ever happened. If I’d only known what was coming–first Mr Reid, and then the queer, romantic way that Charlie came into my life. And to think that but for pure chance I might never have met him!’
She turned and smiled adoringly at her husband.
The Case of the Distressed Lady
I
The buzzer on Mr Parker Pyne’s desk purred discreetly. ‘Yes?’ said the great man.
‘A young lady wishes to see you,’ announced his secretary. ‘She has no appointment.’
‘You may send her in, Miss Lemon.’ A moment later he was shaking hands with his visitor. ‘Good-morning,’ he said. ‘Do sit down.’
The girl sat down and looked at Mr Parker Pyne. She was a pretty girl and quite young. Her hair was dark and wavy with a row of curls at the nape of the neck. She was beautifully turned out from the white knitted cap on her head to the cobweb stockings and dainty shoes. Clearly she was nervous.
‘You are Mr Parker Pyne?’ she asked.
‘I am.’
‘The one who–advertises?’
‘The one who advertises.’
‘You say that if people aren’t–aren’t happy–to–to come to you.’ ‘Yes.’
She took the plunge. ‘Well, I’m frightfully unhappy. So I thought I’d come along and just–and just see.’
Mr Parker Pyne waited. He felt there was more to come.
‘I–I’m in frightful trouble.’ She clenched her hands nervously.
‘So I see,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘Do you think you could tell me about it?’
That, it seemed, was what the girl was by no means sure of. She stared at Mr Parker Pyne with a desperate intentness. Suddenly she spoke