Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [39]
“That means,” said Neele, “that it could have been tampered with several days before it was actually brought onto the breakfast table. And anyone who was in the house or had access to the house could have tampered with it.”
The term “access to the house” puzzled Sergeant Hay slightly. He did not see in what way his superior’s mind was working.
But Neele was postulating what seemed to him a logical assumption.
If the marmalade had been tampered with beforehand—then surely that ruled out those persons who were actually at the breakfast table on the fatal morning.
Which opened up some interesting new possibilities.
He planned in his mind interviews with various people—this time with rather a different angle of approach.
He’d keep an open mind. . . .
He’d even consider seriously that old Miss Whatshername’s suggestions about the nursery rhyme. Because there was no doubt that that nursery rhyme fitted in a rather startling way. It fitted with a point that had worried him from the beginning. The pocketful of rye.
“Blackbirds?” murmured Inspector Neele to himself.
Sergeant Hay stared.
“It’s not blackberry jelly, sir,” he said. “It’s marmalade.”
II
Inspector Neele went in search of Mary Dove.
He found her in one of the bedrooms on the first floor superintending Ellen, who was denuding the bed of what seemed to be clean sheets. A little pile of clean towels lay on a chair.
Inspector Neele looked puzzled.
“Somebody coming to stay?” he asked.
Mary Dove smiled at him. In contrast to Ellen, who looked grim and truculent, Mary was her usual imperturbable self.
“Actually,” she said, “the opposite is the case.”
Neele looked inquiringly at her.
“This is the guest room we had prepared for Mr. Gerald Wright.”
“Gerald Wright? Who is he?”
“He’s a friend of Miss Elaine Fortescue’s.” Mary’s voice was carefully devoid of inflection.
“He was coming here—when?”
“I believe he arrived at the Golf Hotel the day after Mr. Fortescue’s death.”
“The day after.”
“So Miss Fortescue said.” Mary’s voice was still impersonal: “She told me she wanted him to come and stay in the house—so I had a room prepared. Now—after these other two—tragedies—it seems more suitable that he should remain at the hotel.”
“The Golf Hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Quite,” said Inspector Neele.
Ellen gathered up the sheets and towels and went out of the room.
Mary Dove looked inquiringly at Neele.
“You wanted to see me about something?”
Neele said pleasantly:
“It’s becoming important to get exact times very clearly stated. Members of the family all seem a little vague about time—perhaps understandably. You, on the other hand, Miss Dove, I have found extremely accurate in your statements as to times.”
“Again understandably!”
“Yes—perhaps—I must certainly congratulate you on the way you have kept this house going in spite of the—well, panic—these last deaths must have caused.” He paused and then asked curiously: “How did you do it?”
He had realized, astutely, that the one chink in the armour of Mary Dove’s inscrutability was her pleasure in her own efficiency. She unbent slightly now as she answered.
“The Crumps wanted to leave at once, of course.”
“We couldn’t have allowed that.”
“I know. But I also told them that Mr. Percival Fortescue would be more likely to be—well—generous—to those who had spared him inconvenience.”
“And Ellen?”
“Ellen does not wish to leave.”
“Ellen does not wish to leave,” Neele repeated. “She has good nerves.”
“She enjoys disasters,” said Mary Dove. “Like Mrs. Percival, she finds in disaster a kind of pleasurable drama.”
“Interesting. Do you think Mrs. Percival has—enjoyed the tragedies?”
“No—of course not. That is going too far. I would merely say that it has enabled her to—well—stand up to them—”
“And how have you yourself been affected, Miss Dove?”
Mary Dove shrugged her shoulders.
“It has not been a pleasant experience,” she said dryly.
Inspector Neele felt again a longing to break down this cool young woman’s defences—to find out