Secret of Chimneys - Agatha Christie [48]
‘Something I’m getting at in my own blundering fashion. I take it that you didn’t meet the murdered man?’
‘No. To put it like a book he “retired to his own apartments immediately on arrival”.’
‘And of course you haven’t seen the body?’
Virginia, eyeing him with a good deal of interest, shook her head.
‘Could you get to see it, do you think?’
‘By means of influence in high places–meaning Lord Caterham–I dare say I could. Why? Is it an order?’
‘Good Lord, no,’ said Anthony, horrified. ‘Have I been as dictatorial as all that? No, it’s simply this. Count Stanislaus was the incognito of Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.’
Virginia’s eyes opened very wide.
‘I see.’ Suddenly her face broke into its fascinating one-sided smile. ‘I hope you don’t suggest that Michael went to his rooms simply to avoid seeing me?’
‘Something of the kind,’ admitted Anthony. ‘You see, if I’m right in my mind that someone wanted to prevent your coming to Chimneys, the reason seems to lie in your knowing Herzoslovakia. Do you realize that you’re the only person here who knew Prince Michael by sight?’
‘Do you mean that this man who was murdered was an imposter?’ asked Virginia abruptly.
‘That is the possibility that crossed my mind. If you can get Lord Caterham to show you the body, we can clear up that point at once.’
‘He was shot at 11.45,’ said Virginia thoughtfully. ‘The time mentioned on that scrap of paper. The whole thing’s horribly mysterious.’
‘That reminds me. Is that your window up there? The second from the end over the Council Chamber?’
‘No, my room is in the Elizabethan wing, the other side. Why?’
‘Simply because as I walked away last night, after thinking I heard a shot, the light went up in that room.’
‘How curious! I don’t know who has that room, but I can find out by asking Bundle. Perhaps they heard the shot?’
‘If so, they haven’t come forward to say so. I understood from Battle that nobody in the house heard the shot fired. It’s the only clue of any kind that I’ve got, and I dare say it’s a pretty rotten one, but I mean to follow it up for what it’s worth.’
‘It’s curious, certainly,’ said Virginia thoughtfully.
They had arrived at the boathouse by the lake, and had been leaning against it as they talked.
‘And now for the whole story,’ said Anthony. ‘We’ll paddle gently about on the lake, secure from the prying ears of Scotland Yard, American visitors, and curious housemaids.’
‘I’ve heard something from Lord Caterham,’ said Virginia. ‘But not nearly enough. To begin with, which are you really, Anthony Cade or Jimmy McGrath?’
For the second time that morning, Anthony unfolded the history of the last six weeks of his life–with this difference that the account given to Virginia needed no editing. He finished up with his own astonished recognition of ‘Mr Holmes’.
‘By the way, Mrs Revel,’ he ended, ‘I’ve never thanked you for imperilling your mortal soul by saying that I was an old friend of yours.’
‘Of course you’re an old friend,’ cried Virginia. ‘You don’t suppose I’d lumber you with a corpse, and then pretend you were a mere acquaintance next time I met you? No, indeed!’
She paused.
‘Do you know one thing that strikes me about all this?’ she went on. ‘That there’s some extra mystery about those memoirs that we haven’t fathomed yet.’
‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Anthony. ‘There’s one thing I’d like you to tell me,’ he continued.
‘What’s that?’
‘Why did you seem so surprised when I mentioned the name of Jimmy McGrath to you yesterday at Pont Street? Had you heard it before?’
‘I had, Sherlock Holmes. George–my cousin, George Lomax, you know–came to see me the other day, and suggested a lot of frightfully silly things. His idea was that I should come down here and make myself agreeable to this man, McGrath, and Delilah the memoirs out of him somehow. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He talked a lot of nonsense about English gentlewomen, and things like that, but his real meaning was never obscure for a moment. It was just the