Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [58]
“Yes,” said Lance, in a low voice. “I’m afraid so.” Then breaking out sharply, he said: “For God’s sake, Pat, do go away from here. Go back to London. Go down to Devonshire or up to the Lakes. Go to Stratford-on-Avon or go and look at the Norfolk Broads. The police wouldn’t mind your going—you had nothing to do with all this. You were in Paris when the old man was killed and in London when the other two died. I tell you it worries me to death to have you here.”
Pat paused a moment before saying quietly:
“You know who it is, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“But you think you know . . . That’s why you’re frightened for me . . . I wish you’d tell me.”
“I can’t tell you. I don’t know anything. But I wish to God you’d go away from here.”
“Darling,” said Pat. “I’m not going. I’m staying here. For better, for worse. That’s how I feel about it.” She added, with a sudden catch in her voice: “Only with me it’s always for worse.”
“What on earth do you mean, Pat?”
“I bring bad luck. That’s what I mean. I bring bad luck to anybody I come in contact with.”
“My dear adorable nitwit, you haven’t brought bad luck to me. Look how after I married you the old man sent for me to come home and make friends with him.”
“Yes, and what happened when you did come home? I tell you, I’m unlucky to people.”
“Look here, my sweet, you’ve got a thing about all this. It’s superstition, pure and simple.”
“I can’t help it. Some people do bring bad luck. I’m one of them.”
Lance took her by the shoulders and shook her violently. “You’re my Pat and to be married to you is the greatest luck in the world. So get that into your silly head.” Then, calming down, he said in a more sober voice: “But, seriously, Pat, do be very careful. If there is someone unhinged round here, I don’t want you to be the one who stops the bullet or drinks the henbane.”
“Or drinks the henbane as you say.”
“When I’m not around, stick to that old lady. What’s-her-name Marple. Why do you think Aunt Effie asked her to stay here?”
“Goodness knows why Aunt Effie does anything. Lance, how long are we going to stay here?”
Lance shrugged his shoulders.
“Difficult to say.”
“I don’t think,” said Pat, “that we’re really awfully welcome.” She hesitated as she spoke the words. “The house belongs to your brother now, I suppose? He doesn’t really want us here, does he?”
Lance chuckled suddenly.
“Not he, but he’s got to stick us for the present at any rate.”
“And afterwards? What are we going to do, Lance? Are we going back to East Africa or what?”
“Is that what you’d like to do, Pat?”
She nodded vigorously.
“That’s lucky,” said Lance, “because it’s what I’d like to do, too. I don’t take much to this country nowadays.”
Pat’s face brightened.
“How lovely. From what you said the other day, I was afraid you might want to stop here.”
A devilish glint appeared in Lance’s eyes.
“You’re to hold your tongue about our plans, Pat,” he said. “I have it in my mind to twist dear brother Percival’s tail a bit.”
“Oh, Lance, do be careful.”
“I’ll be careful, my sweet, but I don’t see why old Percy should get away with everything.”
II
With her head a little on one side looking like an amiable cockatoo, Miss Marple sat in the large drawing room listening to Mrs. Percival Fortescue. Miss Marple looked particularly incongruous in the drawing room. Her light spare figure was alien to the vast brocaded sofa in which she sat with its many-hued cushions strewn around her. Miss Marple sat very upright because she had been taught to use a backboard as a girl, and not to loll. In a large armchair beside her, dressed in elaborate black, was Mrs. Percival, talking away volubly at nineteen to the dozen. “Exactly,” thought Miss Marple, “like poor Mrs. Emmett, the bank manager’s wife.” She remembered how one day Mrs. Emmett had come to call and talk about the selling arrangements for Poppy Day, and how after the preliminary business had been settled, Mrs. Emmett had suddenly begun to talk and talk and talk. Mrs. Emmett