Problem at Pollensa Bay - Agatha Christie [45]
‘Well–I’m–’ Evan shook his head, at a loss for words.
‘You say you recognized the gang from my description. Had they worked this trick before?’
‘Not exactly–but it was their kind of business. Naturally my attention was at once directed to the girl Eve.’
‘Why? I didn’t suspect her–nobody did. She seemed such a–such a child.’
‘That is the peculiar genius of Maria Amalfi. She is more like a child than any child could possibly be! And then the plasticine! This bet was supposed to have arisen quite spontaneously–yet the little lady had some plasticine with her all handy. That spoke of premeditation. My suspicions fastened on her at once.’
Llewellyn rose to his feet.
‘Well, Mr Parker Pyne, I’m no end obliged to you.’
‘Classification,’ murmured Mr Parker Pyne. ‘The classification of criminal types–it interests me.’
‘You’ll let me know how much–er–’
‘My fee will be quite moderate,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘It will not make too big a hole in the–er–horse racing profits. All the same, young man, I should, I think, leave the horses alone in future. Very uncertain animal, the horse.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Evan.
He shook Mr Parker Pyne by the hand and strode from the office.
He hailed a taxi and gave the address of Janet Rustington’s flat.
He felt in a mood to carry all before him.
The Love Detectives
I
Little Mr Satterthwaite looked thoughtfully across at his host. The friendship between these two men was an odd one. The colonel was a simple country gentleman whose passion in life was sport. The few weeks that he spent perforce in London, he spent unwillingly. Mr Satterthwaite, on the other hand, was a town bird. He was an authority on French cooking, on ladies’ dress, and on all the latest scandals. His passion was observing human nature, and he was an expert in his own special line–that of an onlooker at life.
It would seem, therefore, that he and Colonel Melrose would have little in common, for the colonel had no interest in his neighbours’ affairs and a horror of any kind of emotion. The two men were friends mainly because their fathers before them had been friends. Also they knew the same people and had reactionary views about nouveaux riches.
It was about half past seven. The two men were sitting in the colonel’s comfortable study, and Melrose was describing a run of the previous winter with a keen hunting man’s enthusiasm. Mr Satterthwaite, whose knowledge of horses consisted chiefly of the time-honoured Sunday morning visit to the stables which still obtains in old-fashioned country houses, listened with his invariable politeness.
The sharp ringing of the telephone interrupted Melrose. He crossed to the table and took up the receiver.
‘Hello, yes–Colonel Melrose speaking. What’s that?’ His whole demeanour altered–became stiff and official. It was the magistrate speaking now, not the sportsman.
He listened for some moments, then said laconically, ‘Right, Curtis. I’ll be over at once.’ He replaced the receiver and turned to his guest. ‘Sir James Dwighton has been found in his library–murdered.’
‘What?’
Mr Satterthwaite was startled–thrilled.
‘I must go over to Alderway at once. Care to come with me?’
Mr Satterthwaite remembered that the colonel was chief constable of the county.
‘If I shan’t be in the way–’ He hesitated.
‘Not at all. That was Inspector Curtis telephoning. Good, honest fellow, but no brains. I’d be glad if you would come with me, Satterthwaite. I’ve got an idea this is going to turn out a nasty business.’
‘Have they got the fellow who did it?’
‘No,’ replied Melrose shortly.
Mr Satterthwaite’s trained ear detected a nuance of reserve behind the curt negative. He began to go over in his mind all that he knew of the Dwightons.
A pompous old fellow, the late Sir James, brusque in his manner. A man that might easily make enemies. Veering on sixty, with grizzled hair and a florid face. Reputed to be tight-fisted in the extreme.
His mind went on to Lady Dwighton. Her image floated before him, young, auburn-haired, slender. He remembered various rumours,