Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [55]
Percival said:
“Of course, some of these holdings are highly speculative, but remember, they may turn out immensely valuable.”
“Changed your tune, haven’t you?” said Lance, grinning. “Going to offer me father’s latest wildcat acquisition as well as the old Blackbird Mine and things of that kind. By the way, has the inspector been asking you about this Blackbird Mine?”
Percival frowned.
“Yes, he did. I can’t imagine what he wanted to know about it. I couldn’t tell him much. You and I were children at the time. I just remember vaguely that Father went out there and came back saying the whole thing was no good.”
“What was it—a gold mine?”
“I believe so. Father came back pretty certain that there was no gold there. And, mind you, he wasn’t the sort of man to be mistaken.”
“Who got him into it? A man called MacKenzie, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. MacKenzie died out there.”
“MacKenzie died out there,” said Lance thoughtfully. “Wasn’t there a terrific scene? I seem to remember . . . Mrs. MacKenzie, wasn’t it? Came here. Ranted and stormed at Father. Hurled down curses on his head. She accused him, if I remember rightly, of murdering her husband.”
“Really,” said Percival repressively. “I can’t recollect anything of the kind.”
“I remember it, though,” said Lance. “I was a good bit younger than you, of course. Perhaps that’s why it appealed to me. As a child it struck me as full of drama. Where was Blackbird? West Africa wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I must look up the concession sometime,” said Lance, “when I’m at the office.”
“You can be quite sure,” said Percival, “that Father made no mistake. If he came back saying there was no gold, there was no gold.”
“You’re probably right there,” said Lance. “Poor Mrs. MacKenzie. I wonder what happened to her and to those two kids she brought along. Funny—they must be grown-up by now.”
Chapter Twenty
At the Pinewood Private Sanatorium, Inspector Neele, sitting in the visitors’ parlour, was facing a grey-haired, elderly lady. Helen MacKenzie was sixty-three, though she looked younger. She had pale blue, rather vacant-looking eyes, and a weak, indeterminate chin. She had a long upper lip which occasionally twitched. She held a large book in her lap and was looking down at it as Inspector Neele talked to her. In Inspector Neele’s mind was the conversation he had just had with Dr. Crosbie, the head of the establishment.
“She’s a voluntary patient, of course,” said Dr. Crosbie, “not certified.”
“She’s not dangerous, then?”
“Oh, no. Most of the time she’s as sane to talk to as you or me. It’s one of her good periods now so that you’ll be able to have a perfectly normal conversation with her.”
Bearing this in mind, Inspector Neele started his first conversational essay.
“It’s very kind of you to see me, madam,” he said. “My name is Neele. I’ve come to see you about a Mr. Fortescue who has recently died. A Mr. Rex Fortescue. I expect you know the name.”
Mrs. MacKenzie’s eyes were fixed on her book. She said:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mr. Fortescue, madam. Mr. Rex Fortescue.”
“No,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “No. Certainly not.”
Inspector Neele was slightly taken aback. He wondered whether this was what Dr. Crosbie called being completely normal.
“I think, Mrs. MacKenzie, you knew him a good many years ago.”
“Not really,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “It was yesterday.”
“I see,” said Inspector Neele, falling back upon this formula rather uncertainly. “I believe,” he went on, “that you paid him a visit many years ago at his residence, Yewtree Lodge.”
“A very ostentatious house,” said Mrs. MacKenzie.
“Yes. Yes, you might call it that. He had been connected with your husband, I believe, over a certain mine in Africa. The Blackbird Mine, I believe it was called.”
“I have to read my book,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “There’s not much time and I have to read my book.”
“Yes, madam. Yes, I quite see that.” There was a pause, then Inspector Neele went on, “Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Fortescue went out together to Africa to survey the mine.”
“It was my husband’s mine,