Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie [36]
A strange expression came over Mrs Rymer’s face. She thrust back the paper.
‘Take it. I’ve said hard things to you–and some of them you deserved. You’re a downy fellow, but all the same I trust you. Seven hundred pounds I’ll have in the bank here–that’ll buy us a farm we’ve got our eye on. The rest of it–well, let the hospitals have it.’
‘You cannot mean to hand over your entire fortune to hospitals?’
‘That’s just what I do mean. Joe’s a dear, good fellow, but he’s weak. Give him money and you’d ruin him. I’ve got him off the drink now, and I’ll keep him off it. Thank God, I know my own mind. I’m not going to let money come between me and happiness.’
‘You are a remarkable woman,’ said Mr Pyne slowly. ‘Only one woman in a thousand would act as you are doing.’
‘Then only one woman in a thousand’s got sense,’ said Mrs Rymer.
‘I take my hat off to you,’ said Mr Parker Pyne, and there was an unusual note in his voice. He raised his hat with solemnity and moved away.
‘And Joe’s never to know, mind!’ Mrs Rymer called after him.
She stood there with the dying sun behind her, a great blue-green cabbage in her hands, her head thrown back and her shoulders squared. A grand figure of a peasant woman, outlined against the setting sun…
Have You Got Everything You Want?
I
‘Par ici, Madame.’
A tall woman in a mink coat followed her heavily encumbered porter along the platform of the Gare de Lyon.
She wore a dark-brown knitted hat pulled down over one eye and ear. The other side revealed a charming tip-tilted profile and little golden curls clustering over a shell-like ear. Typically an American, she was altogether a very charming-looking creature and more than one man turned to look at her as she walked past the high carriages of the waiting train.
Large plates were stuck in holders on the sides of the carriages.
PARIS-ATHENES. PARIS-BUCHAREST. PARIS-STAMBOUL.
At the last named the porter came to an abrupt halt. He undid the strap which held the suitcases together and they slipped heavily to the ground. ‘Voici, Madame.’
The wagon-lit conductor was standing beside the steps. He came forward, remarking, ‘Bonsoir, Madame,’ with an empressement perhaps due to the richness and perfection of the mink coat.
The woman handed him her sleeping-car ticket of flimsy paper.
‘Number Six,’ he said. ‘This way.’
He sprang nimbly into the train, the woman following him. As she hurried down the corridor after him, she nearly collided with a portly gentleman who was emerging from the compartment next to hers. She had a momentary glimpse of a large bland face with benevolent eyes.
‘Voici, Madame.’
The conductor displayed the compartment. He threw up the window and signalled to the porter. The lesser employee took in the baggage and put it up on the racks. The woman sat down.
Beside her on the seat she had placed a small scarlet case and her handbag. The carriage was hot, but it did not seem to occur to her to take off her coat. She stared out of the window with unseeing eyes. People were hurrying up and down the platform. There were sellers of newspapers, of pillows, of chocolate, of fruit, of mineral waters. They held up their wares to her, but her eyes looked blankly through them. The Gare de Lyon had faded from her sight. On her face were sadness and anxiety.
‘If Madame will give me her passport?’
The words made no impression on her. The conductor, standing in the doorway, repeated them. Elsie Jeffries roused herself with a start.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your passport, Madame.’
She opened her bag, took out the passport and gave it to him.
‘That will be all right, Madame, I will attend to everything.’ A slight significant pause. ‘I shall be going with Madame as far as Stamboul.’
Elsie drew out a fifty-franc note and handed it to him. He accepted it in a business-like manner, and inquired when she would like her bed made up and whether she was taking dinner.