Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [37]
‘Are you sure? I thought—’ he paused. ‘As I struck up the hill I saw a man going up your drive—and the funny thing is that I believe I recognized him as a man I’—he hesitated—‘had met.’
‘Of course—I forgot—George said he was expecting someone.’
‘The man I thought I saw was a man called Race—Colonel Race.’
‘Very likely,’ Iris agreed. ‘George does know a Colonel Race. He was coming to dinner on that night when Rosemary—’
She stopped, her voice quivering. Anthony gripped her hand.
‘Don’t go on remembering it, darling. It was beastly, I know.’
She shook her head.
‘I can’t help it. Anthony—’
‘Yes?’
‘Did it ever occur to you—did you ever think—’ she found a difficulty in putting her meaning into words.
‘Did it ever strike you that—that Rosemary might not have committed suicide? That she might have been—killed?’
‘Good God, Iris, what put that idea into your head?’
She did not reply—merely persisted: ‘That idea never occured to you?’
‘Certainly not. Of course Rosemary committed suicide.’
Iris said nothing.
‘Who’s been suggesting these things to you?’
For a moment she was tempted to tell him George’s incredible story, but she refrained. She said slowly:
‘It was just an idea.’
‘Forget it, darling idiot.’ He pulled her to her feet and kissed her cheek lightly. ‘Darling morbid idiot. Forget Rosemary. Only think of me.’
Chapter 4
Puffing at his pipe, Colonel Race looked speculatively at George Barton.
He had known George Barton ever since the latter’s boyhood. Barton’s uncle had been a country neighbour of the Races. There was a difference of over twenty years between the two men. Race was over sixty, a tall, erect, military figure, with sunburnt face, closely cropped iron-grey hair, and shrewd dark eyes.
There had never been any particular intimacy between the two men—but Barton remained to Race ‘young George’—one of the many vague figures associated with earlier days.
He was thinking at this moment that he had really no idea what ‘young George’ was like. On the brief occasions when they had met in later years, they had found little in common. Race was an out-of-door man, essentially of the Empire-builder type—most of his life had been spent abroad. George was emphatically the city gentleman. Their interests were dissimilar and when they met it was to exchange rather lukewarm reminiscences of ‘the old days,’ after which an embarrassed silence was apt to occur. Colonel Race was not good at small talk and might indeed have posed as the model of a strong silent man so beloved by an earlier generation of novelists.
Silent at this moment, he was wondering just why ‘young George’ had been so insistent on this meeting. Thinking, too, that there was some subtle change in the man since he had last seen him a year ago. George Barton had always struck him as the essence of stodginess—cautious, practical, unimaginative.
There was, he thought, something very wrong with the fellow. Jumpy as a cat. He’d already re-lit his cigar three times—and that wasn’t like Barton at all.
He took his pipe out of his mouth.
‘Well, young George, what’s the trouble?’
‘You’re right, Race, it is trouble. I want your advice badly—and your help.’
The colonel nodded and waited.
‘Nearly a year ago you were coming to dine with us in London—at the Luxembourg. You had to go abroad at the last minute.’
Again Race nodded.
‘South Africa.’
‘At that dinner party my wife died.’
Race stirred uncomfortably in his chair.
‘I know. Read about it. Didn’t mention it now or offer you sympathy because I didn’t want to stir up things again. But I’m sorry, old man, you know that.’
‘Oh, yes, yes. That’s not the point. My wife was supposed to have committed suicide.’
Race fastened on the key word. His eyebrows rose.
‘Supposed?’
‘Read these.’
He thrust the two letters into the other’s hand. Race’s eyebrows rose still higher.
‘Anonymous letters?’
‘Yes. And I believe them.’
Race shook his head slowly.
‘That’s a dangerous thing to do. You’d be surprised how many lying spiteful