The Clocks - Agatha Christie [37]
He paused for a moment, looking back after her. She was walking quite fast now. The trouble was, he thought, she had one of those indeterminate faces that are very hard to recognize unless there is some special reason for doing so. Blue eyes, fair complexion, slightly open mouth. Mouth. That recalled something also. Something that she’d been doing with her mouth? Talking? Putting on lipstick? No. He felt slightly annoyed with himself. Hardcastle prided himself on his recognition of faces. He never forgot, he’d been apt to say, a face he had seen in the dock or in the witness-box, but there were after all other places of contact. He would not be likely to remember, for instance, every waitress who had ever served him. He would not remember every bus conductress. He dismissed the matter from his mind.
He had arrived now at No. 14. The door stood ajar and there were four bells with names underneath. Mrs. Lawton, he saw, had a flat on the ground floor. He went in and pressed the bell on the door on the left of the hall. It was a few moments before it was answered. Finally he heard steps inside and the door was opened by a tall, thin woman with straggling dark hair who had on an overall and seemed a little short of breath. The smell of onions wafted along from the direction of what was obviously the kitchen.
“Mrs. Lawton?”
“Yes?” She looked at him doubtfully, with slight annoyance.
She was, he thought, about forty-five. Something faintly gypsyish about her appearance.
“What is it?”
“I should be glad if you could spare me a moment or two.”
“Well, what about? I’m really rather busy just now.” She added sharply, “You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“Of course,” said Hardcastle, adopting a sympathetic tone, “I expect you’ve been a good deal worried by reporters.”
“Indeed we have. Knocking at the door and ringing the bell and asking all sorts of foolish questions.”
“Very annoying I know,” said the inspector. “I wish we could spare you all that, Mrs. Lawton. I am Detective Inspector Hardcastle, by the way, in charge of the case about which the reporters have been annoying you. We’d put a stop to a good deal of that if we could, but we’re powerless in the matter, you know. The Press has its rights.”
“It’s a shame to worry private people as they do,” said Mrs. Lawton, “saying they have to have news for the public. The only thing I’ve ever noticed about the news that they print is that it’s a tissue of lies from beginning to end. They’ll cook up anything so far as I can see. But come in.”
She stepped back and the inspector passed over the doorstep and she shut the door. There were a couple of letters which had fallen on the mat. Mrs. Lawton bent forward to pick them up, but the inspector politely forestalled her. His eyes swept over them for half a second as he handed them to her, addresses uppermost.
“Thank you.”
She laid them down on the hall table.
“Come into the sitting room, won’t you? At least—if you go in this door and give me just a moment. I think something’s boiling over.”
She beat a speedy retreat to the kitchen. Inspector Hardcastle took a last deliberate look at the letters on the hall table. One was addressed to Mrs. Lawton and the two others to Miss R. S. Webb. He went into the room indicated. It was a small room, rather untidy, shabbily furnished but here and there it displayed some bright spot of colour or some unusual object. An