Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie [39]
The stairs …
Then she said suddenly, “I remember Lily. She put a bow on the cat.”
“There now, fancy you remembering that! On your birthday it was, and Lily she was all for it, Thomas must have a bow on. Took one off the chocolate box, and Thomas was mad about it. Ran off into the garden and rubbed through the bushes until he got it off. Cats don’t like tricks being played on them.”
“A black and white cat.”
“That’s right. Poor old Tommy. Caught mice something beautiful. A real proper mouser.” Edith Pagett paused and coughed primly. “Excuse me running on like this, m’am. But talking brings the old days back. You wanted to ask me something?”
“I like hearing you talk about the old days,” said Gwenda. “That’s just what I want to hear about. You see, I was brought up by relations in New Zealand and of course they could never tell me anything about—about my father, and my stepmother. She—she was nice, wasn’t she?”
“Very fond of you, she was. Oh yes, she used to take you down to the beach and play with you in the garden. She was quite young herself, you understand. Nothing but a girl, really. I often used to think she enjoyed the games as much as you did. You see she’d been an only child, in a manner of speaking. Dr. Kennedy, her brother, was years and years older and always shut up with his books. When she wasn’t away at school, she had to play by herself….”
Miss Marple, sitting back against the wall, asked gently, “You’ve lived in Dillmouth all your life, haven’t you?”
“Oh yes, madam. Father had the farm up behind the hill—Rylands it was always called. He’d no sons, and Mother couldn’t carry on after he died, so she sold it and bought the little fancy shop at the end of the High Street. Yes, I’ve lived here all my life.”
“And I suppose you know all about everyone in Dillmouth?”
“Well, of course it used to be a small place, then. Though there used always to be a lot of summer visitors as long as I can remember. But nice quiet people who came here every year, not these trippers and charabancs we have nowadays. Good families they were, who’d come back to the same rooms year after year.”
“I suppose,” said Giles, “that you knew Helen Kennedy before she was Mrs. Halliday?”
“Well, I knew of her, so to speak, and I may have seen her about. But I didn’t know her proper until I went into service there.”
“And you liked her,” said Miss Marple.
Edith Pagett turned towards her.
“Yes, madam, I did,” she said. There was a trace of defiance in her manner. “No matter what anybody says. She was as nice as could be to me always. I’d never have believed she’d do what she did do. Took my breath away, it did. Although, mind you, there had been talk—”
She stopped rather abruptly and gave a quick apologetic glance at Gwenda.
Gwenda spoke impulsively.
“I want to know,” she said. “Please don’t think I shall mind anything you say. She wasn’t my own mother—”
“That’s true enough, m’am.”
“And you see, we are very anxious to—to find her. She went away from here—and she seems to have been quite lost sight of. We don’t know where she is living now, or even if she is alive. And there are reasons—”
She hesitated and Giles said quickly, “Legal reasons. We don’t know whether to presume death or—or what.”
“Oh, I quite understand, sir. My cousin’s husband was missing—after Ypres it was—and there was a lot of trouble about presuming death and that. Real vexing it was for her. Naturally, sir, if there is anything I can tell you that will help in any way—it isn’t as if you were strangers. Miss Gwenda and her ‘winnies.’ So funny you used to say it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Giles. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just fire away. Mrs. Halliday left home quite suddenly, I understand?”
“Yes, sir, it was a great shock to all of us—and especially to the Major, poor man. He collapsed completely.”
“I’m going to ask you right out—have you any idea who the man was she went away with?”
Edith Pagett shook her head.
“That’s what Dr. Kennedy asked me—and I couldn’t tell him. Lily couldn’t either. And of course that Layonee, being a foreigner, didn