Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [63]
No, that wasn’t right. That didn’t ring true. That spelt panic—and Ruth Lessing was not the kind of woman who panicked. She had better brains than George and could have avoided any trap that he was likely to set with the greatest of ease.
It looked as though Ruth didn’t add up after all.
Chapter 6
Lucilla Drake was delighted to see Colonel Race.
The blinds were all down and Lucilla came into the room draped in black and with a handkerchief to her eyes and explained, as she advanced a tremulous hand to meet his, how of course she couldn’t have seen anyone—anyone at all—except such an old friend of dear, dear George’s—and it was so dreadful to have no man in the house! Really without a man in the house one didn’t know how to tackle anything. Just herself, a poor lonely widow, and Iris, just a helpless young girl, and George had always looked after everything. So kind of dear Colonel Race and really she was so grateful—no idea what they ought to do. Of course Miss Lessing would attend to all business matters—and the funeral to arrange for—but how about the inquest? and so dreadful having the police—actually in the house—plain clothes, of course, and really very considerate. But she was so bewildered and the whole thing was such an absolute tragedy and didn’t Colonel Race think it must be all due to suggestion—that was what the psychoanalyst said, wasn’t it, that everything is suggestion? And poor George at that horrid place, the Luxembourg, and practically the same party and remembering how poor Rosemary had died there—and it must have come over him quite suddenly, only if he’d listened to what she, Lucilla, had said, and taken that excellent tonic of dear Dr Gaskell’s—run down, all the summer—yes, thoroughly run down.
Whereupon Lucilla herself ran down temporarily, and Race had a chance to speak.
He said how deeply he sympathized and how Mrs Drake must count upon him in every way.
Whereupon Lucilla started off again and said it was indeed kind of him, and it was the shock that had been so terrible—here today, and gone tomorrow, as it said in the Bible, cometh up like grass and cut down in the evening—only that wasn’t quite right, but Colonel Race would know what she meant, and it was so nice to feel there was someone on whom they could rely. Miss Lessing meant well, of course, and was very efficient, but rather an unsympathetic manner and sometimes took things upon herself a little too much, and in her, Lucilla’s, opinion, George had always relied upon her far too much, and at one time she had been really afraid that he might do something foolish which would have been a great pity and probably she would have bullied him unmercifully once they were married. Of course she, Lucilla, had seen what was in the wind. Dear Iris was so unworldly, and it was nice, didn’t Colonel Race think, for young girls to be unspoilt and simple? Iris had really always been very young for her age and very quiet—one didn’t know half the time what she was thinking about. Rosemary being so pretty and so gay had been out a great deal, and Iris had mooned about the house which wasn’t really right for a young girl—they should go to classes—cooking and perhaps dressmaking. It occupied their minds and one never knew when it might come in useful. It had really been a mercy that she, Lucilla, had been free to come and live here after poor Rosemary’s death—that horrid ’flu, quite an unusual kind of ’flu, Dr Gaskell had said. Such a clever man and such a nice, breezy manner.
She had wanted Iris to see him this summer. The girl had looked so white and pulled down. ‘But really, Colonel Race, I think it was the situation of the house. Low, you know, and damp, with quite a miasma in the evenings.’ Poor George had gone off and bought it all by himself without asking anyone’s advice—such a pity. He had said he wanted it to be a surprise, but really it would have been better if he had taken some older woman’s advice. Men knew nothing about houses. George might have realized that she, Lucilla, would have been willing to take any amount