The Clocks - Agatha Christie [65]
“No, I wasn’t,” she said vehemently. “I never went near it. I’m beginning to feel that it’s a horrible place. I wish I’d never gone there in the first place, I wish I’d never got mixed up in all this. Why did they send for me, ask for me specially, that day? Why did Edna have to get killed near there? You must find out, Inspector, you must, you must!”
“We mean to find out, Miss Webb,” the inspector said. There was a faint menace in his voice as he went on: “I can assure you of that.”
“You’re trembling, my dear,” said Professor Purdy. “I think, I really do think that you ought to have a glass of sherry.”
Twenty
COLIN LAMB’S NARRATIVE
I reported to Beck as soon as I got to London.
He waved his cigar at me.
“There might have been something in that idiotic crescent idea of yours after all,” he allowed.
“I’ve turned up something at last, have I?”
“I won’t go as far as that, but I’ll just say that you may have. Our construction engineer, Mr. Ramsay of 62, Wilbraham Crescent, is not all he seems. Some very curious assignments he’s taken on lately. Genuine firms, but firms without much back history, and what history they have, rather a peculiar one. Ramsay went off at a minute’s notice about five weeks ago. He went to Rumania.”
“That’s not what he told his wife.”
“Possibly not, but that’s where he went. And that’s where he is now. We’d like to know a bit more about him. So you can stir your stumps, my lad, and get going. I’ve got all the visas ready for you, and a nice new passport. Nigel Trench it will be this time. Rub up your knowledge of rare plants in the Balkans. You’re a botanist.”
“Any special instructions?”
“No. We’ll give you your contact when you pick up your papers. Find out all you can about our Mr. Ramsay.” He looked at me keenly. “You don’t sound as pleased as you might be.” He peered through the cigar smoke.
“It’s always pleasant when a hunch pays off,” I said evasively.
“Right Crescent, wrong number. 61 is occupied by a perfectly blameless builder. Blameless in our sense, that is. Poor old Hanbury got the number wrong, but he wasn’t far off.”
“Have you vetted the others? Or only Ramsay?”
“Diana Lodge seems to be as pure as Diana. A long history of cats. McNaughton was vaguely interesting. He’s a retired professor, as you know. Mathematics. Quite brilliant, it seems. Resigned his Chair quite suddenly on the grounds of ill-health. I suppose that may be true—but he seems quite hale and hearty. He seems to have cut himself off from all his old friends, which is rather odd.”
“The trouble is,” I said, “that we get to thinking that everything that everybody does is highly suspicious.”
“You may have got something there,” said Colonel Beck. “There are times when I suspect you, Colin, of having changed over to the other side. There are times when I suspect myself of having changed over to the other side, and then having changed back again to this one! All a jolly mix-up.”
My plane left at ten p.m. I went to see Hercule Poirot first. This time he was drinking a sirop de cassis (Black currant to you and me). He offered me some. I refused. George brought me whisky. Everything as usual.
“You look depressed,” said Poirot.
“Not at all. I’m just off abroad.”
He looked at me. I nodded.
“So it is like that?”
“Yes, it is like that.”
“I wish you all success.”
“Thank you. And what about you, Poirot, how are you getting along with your homework?”
“Pardon?”
“What about the Crowdean Clocks Murder—Have you leaned back, closed your eyes and come up with all the answers?”
“I have read what you left here with great interest,” said Poirot.
“Not much there, was there? I told you these particular neighbours were a wash-out—”
“On the contrary. In the case of at least two of these people very illuminating remarks were made—”
“Which of them? And what were the remarks?”
Poirot told me in an irritating fashion that I must read my notes carefully.
“You will see for yourself then—It leaps to the eye. The thing to do now is to talk to more neighbours.”
“There aren’t any more.