Secret of Chimneys - Agatha Christie [34]
‘Too bad of Lomax,’ he complained. ‘Letting me in for this. What’s the matter, Tredwell?’
The white-haired butler was hovering deferentially at his elbow.
‘I have taken the liberty, my lord, of advancing the breakfast hour as far as you are concerned. Everything is ready in the dining-room.’
‘I don’t suppose for a minute I can eat anything,’ said Lord Caterham gloomily, turning his footsteps in that direction. ‘Not for a moment.’
Bundle slipped her hand through his arm, and they entered the dining-room together. On the sideboard were half a score of heavy silver dishes, ingeniously kept hot by patent arrangements.
‘Omelet,’ said Lord Caterham, lifting each lid in turn. ‘Eggs and bacon, kidneys, devilled bird, haddock, cold ham, cold pheasant. I don’t like any of these things, Tredwell. Ask the cook to poach me an egg, will you?’
‘Very good, my lord.’
Tredwell withdrew. Lord Caterham, in an absentminded fashion, helped himself plentifully to kidneys and bacon, poured himself out a cup of coffee, and sat down at the long table. Bundle was already busy with a plateful of eggs and bacon.
‘I’m damned hungry,’ said Bundle with her mouth full. ‘It must be the excitement.’
‘It’s all very well for you,’ complained her father. ‘You young people like excitement. But I’m in a very delicate state of health. Avoid all worry, that’s what Sir Abner Willis said–avoid all worry. So easy for a man sitting in his consulting-room in Harley Street to say that. How can I avoid worry when that ass Lomax lands me with a thing like this? I ought to have been firm at the time. I ought to have put my foot down.’
With a sad shake of the head, Lord Caterham rose and carved himself a plate of ham.
‘Codders has certainly done it this time,’ observed Bundle cheerfully. ‘He was almost incoherent over the telephone. He’ll be here in a minute or two, spluttering nineteen to the dozen about discretion and hushing it up.’
Lord Caterham groaned at the prospect.
‘Was he up?’ he asked.
‘He told me,’ replied Bundle, ‘that he had been up and dictating letters and memoranda ever since seven o’clock.’
‘Proud of it, too,’ remarked her father. ‘Extraordinarily selfish, these public men. They make their wretched secretaries get up at the most unearthly hours in order to dictate rubbish to them. If a law was passed compelling them to stop in bed until eleven, what a benefit it would be to the nation! I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t talk such balderdash. Lomax is always talking to me of my “position”. As if I had any. Who wants to be a peer nowadays?’
‘Nobody,’ said Bundle. ‘They’d much rather keep a prosperous public-house.’
Tredwell reappeared silently with two poached eggs in a little silver dish which he placed on the table in front of Lord Caterham.
‘What’s that, Tredwell?’ said the latter, looking at them with faint distaste.
‘Poached eggs, my lord.’
‘I hate poached eggs,’ said Lord Caterham peevishly. ‘They’re so insipid. I don’t like to look at them even. Take them away, will you, Tredwell?’
‘Very good, my lord.’
Tredwell and the poached eggs withdrew as silently as they came.
‘Thank God no one gets up early in this house,’ remarked Lord Caterham devoutly. ‘We shall have to break this to them when they do, I suppose.’
He sighed.
‘I wonder who murdered him,’ said Bundle. ‘And why?’
‘That’s not our business, thank goodness,’ said Lord Caterham. ‘That’s for the police to find out. Not that Badgworthy will ever find anything. On the whole I rather hope it was Nosystein.’
‘Meaning–’
‘The all-British syndicate.’
‘Why should Mr Isaacstein murder him when he’d come down here on purpose to meet him?’
‘High finance,’ said Lord Caterham vaguely. ‘And that reminds me, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Isaacstein wasn’t an early riser. He may blow in upon us at any minute. It’s a habit in the city. I believe that, however rich you are, you always catch the 9.17.’
The sound of a motor being driven at great speed was heard through the open window.
‘Codders,’ cried Bundle.
Father and