Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie [49]
The three passengers took their places in the machine again and the flight continued. They swooped down at Hamadan to drop the mails, but the plane did not stop. Mr Parker Pyne peered down, trying to see if he could distinguish the rock of Behistun, that romantic spot where Darius describes the extent of his empire and conquests in three different languages–Babylonian, Median and Persian.
It was one o’clock when they arrived at Teheran. There were more police formalities. The German pilot had come up and was standing by smiling as Mr Parker Pyne finished answering a long interrogation which he had not understood.
‘What have I said?’ he asked of the German.
‘That your father’s Christian name is Tourist, that your profession is Charles, that the maiden name of your mother is Baghdad, and that you have come from Harriet.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not the least in the world. Just answer something; that is all they need.’
Mr Parker Pyne was disappointed in Teheran. He found it distressingly modern. He said as much the following evening when he happened to run into Herr Schlagal, the pilot, just as he was entering his hotel. On an impulse he asked the other man to dine, and the German accepted.
The Georgian waiter hovered over them and issued his orders. The food arrived.
When they had reached the stage of la torte, a somewhat sticky confection of chocolate, the German said:
‘So you go to Shiraz?’
‘Yes. I shall fly there. Then I shall come back from Shiraz to Ispahan and Teheran by road. Is it you who will fly me to Shiraz tomorrow?’
‘Ach, no. I return to Baghdad.’
‘You have been long here?’
‘Three years. It has only been established three years, our service. So far, we have never had an accident–unberufen!’ He touched the table.
Thick cups of sweet coffee were brought. The two men smoked.
‘My first passengers were two ladies,’ said the German reminiscently. ‘Two English ladies.’
‘Yes?’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘The one she was a young lady very well born, the daughter of one of your ministers, the–how does one say it?–the Lady Esther Carr. She was handsome, very handsome, but mad.’
‘Mad?’
‘Completely mad. She lives there at Shiraz in a big native house. She wears Eastern dress. She will see no Europeans. Is that a life for a well born lady to live?’
‘There have been others,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘There was Lady Hester Stanhope–’
‘This one is mad,’ said the other abruptly. ‘You could see it in her eyes. Just so have I seen the eyes of my submarine commander in the war. He is now in an asylum.’
Mr Parker Pyne was thoughtful. He remembered Lord Micheldever, Lady Esther Carr’s father, well. He had worked under him when the latter was Home Secretary–a big blond man with laughing blue eyes. He had seen Lady Micheldever once–a noted Irish beauty with her black hair and violet-blue eyes. They were both handsome, normal people, but for all that there was insanity in the Carr family. It cropped up every now and then, after missing a generation. It was odd, he thought, that Herr Schlagal should stress the point.
‘And the other lady,’ he asked idly.
‘The other lady–is dead.’
Something in his voice made Mr Parker Pyne look up sharply.
‘I have a heart,’ said Herr Schlagal. ‘I feel. She was, to me, most beautiful, that lady. You know how it is, these things come over you all of a sudden. She was a flower–a flower.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I went to see them once–at the house at Shiraz. The Lady Esther, she asked me to come. My little one, my flower, she was afraid of something, I could see it. When next I came back from Baghdad, I hear that she is dead. Dead!’
He paused and then said thoughtfully: ‘It might be that the other one killed her. She was mad, I tell you.’
He sighed, and Mr Parker Pyne ordered two Benedictines.
‘The curaçao, it is good,’ said the Georgian waiter, and brought them two curaçaos.
II
Just after noon the following day, Mr Parker Pyne had his