Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [28]
“Hallo. Here I am.”
He disengaged himself gently.
“This is Jennifer?”
Jennifer Fortescue looked at him with eager curiosity.
“I’m afraid Val’s been detained in town,” she said. “There’s so much to see to, you know. All the arrangements to make and everything. Of course it all comes on Val. He has to see to everything. You can really have no idea what we’re all going through.”
“It must be terrible for you,” said Lance gravely.
He turned to the woman on the sofa, who was sitting with a piece of scone and honey in her hand, quietly appraising him.
“Of course,” cried Jennifer, “you don’t know Adele, do you?”
Lance murmured, “Oh yes, I do,” as he took Adele Fortescue’s hand in his. As he looked down at her, her eyelids fluttered. She set down the scone she was eating with her left hand and just touched the arrangement of her hair. It was a feminine gesture. It marked her recognition of the entry to the room of a personable man. She said in her thick, soft voice:
“Sit down here on the sofa beside me, Lance.” She poured out a cup of tea for him. “I’m so glad you’ve come,” she went on. “We badly need another man in the house.”
Lance said:
“You must let me do everything I can to help.”
“You know—but perhaps you don’t know—we’ve had the police here. They think—they think—” she broke off and cried out passionately: “Oh, it’s awful! Awful!”
“I know.” Lance was grave and sympathetic. “As a matter of fact they met me at London Airport.”
“The police met you?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
“Well,” Lance was deprecating. “They told me what had happened.”
“He was poisoned,” said Adele, “that’s what they think, what they say. Not food poisoning. Real poisoning, by someone. I believe, I really do believe they think it’s one of us.”
Lance gave her a sudden quick smile.
“That’s their pigeon,” he said consolingly. “It’s no good our worrying. What a scrumptious tea! It’s a long time since I’ve seen a good English tea.”
The others fell in with his mood soon enough. Adele said suddenly:
“But your wife—haven’t you got a wife, Lance?”
“I’ve got a wife, yes. She’s in London.”
“But aren’t you—hadn’t you better bring her down here?”
“Plenty of time to make plans,” said Lance. “Pat—oh, Pat’s quite all right where she is.”
Elaine said sharply:
“You don’t mean—you don’t think—”
Lance said quickly:
“What a wonderful-looking chocolate cake. I must have some.”
Cutting himself a slice, he asked:
“Is Aunt Effie alive still?”
“Oh, yes, Lance. She won’t come down and have meals with us or anything, but she’s quite well. Only she’s getting very peculiar.”
“She always was peculiar,” said Lance. “I must go up and see her after tea.”
Jennifer Fortescue murmured:
“At her age one does really feel that she ought to be in some kind of a home. I mean somewhere where she will be properly looked after.”
“Heaven help any old ladies’ home that got Aunt Effie in their midst,” said Lance. He added, “Who’s the demure piece of goods who let me in?”
Adele looked surprised.
“Didn’t Crump let you in? The butler? Oh no, I forgot. It’s his day out today. But surely Gladys—”
Lance gave a description. “Blue eyes, hair parted in the middle, soft voice, butter wouldn’t melt in the mouth. What goes on behind it all, I wouldn’t like to say.”
“That,” said Jennifer, “would be Mary Dove.”
Elaine said:
“She sort of runs things for us.”
“Does she, now?”
Adele said:
“She’s really very useful.”
“Yes,” said Lance thoughtfully, “I should think she might be.”
“But what is so nice is,” said Jennifer, “that she knows her place. She never presumes, if you know what I mean.”
“Clever Mary Dove,” said Lance, and helped himself to another piece of chocolate cake.
Chapter Twelve
I
“So you’ve turned up again like a bad penny,” said Miss Ramsbottom.
Lance grinned at her. “Just as you say, Aunt Effie.”
“Humph!” Miss Ramsbottom sniffed disapprovingly. “You’ve chosen a nice time to do it. Your father got himself murdered yesterday, the house is full of police poking