The Clocks - Agatha Christie [78]
Cornflakes, my foot! I let my spy’s instincts take over. Under a camouflage of sheet gelatine were three bottles of whisky.
I understood why Mrs. McNaughton was sometimes so bright and garrulous and why she was occasionally a little unsteady on her feet. And possibly why McNaughton had resigned his Chair.
It was a morning for neighbours. I met Mr. Bland as I was going along the crescent towards Albany Road. Mr. Bland seemed in very good form. He recognized me at once.
“How are you? How’s crime? Got your dead body identified, I see. Seems to have treated that wife of his rather badly. By the way, excuse me, you’re not one of the locals, are you?”
I said evasively I had come down from London.
“So the Yard was interested, was it?”
“Well—” I drew the word out in a noncommittal way.
“I understand. Mustn’t tell tales out of school. You weren’t at the inquest, though.”
I said I had been abroad.
“So have I, my boy. So have I!” He winked at me.
“Gay Paree?” I asked, winking back.
“Wish it had been. No, only a day trip to Boulogne.”
He dug me in the side with his elbow (quite like Mrs. McNaughton!).
“Didn’t take the wife. Teamed up with a very nice little bit. Blonde. Quite a hot number.”
“Business trip?” I said. We both laughed like men of the world.
He went on towards No. 61 and I walked on towards Albany Road.
I was dissatisfied with myself. As Poirot had said, there should have been more to be got out of the neighbours. It was positively unnatural that nobody should have seen anything! Perhaps Hardcastle had asked the wrong questions. But could I think of any better ones? As I turned into Albany Road I made a mental list of questions. It went something like this:
Mr. Curry (Castleton) had been doped—When? ditto had been killed—Where?
Mr. Curry (Castleton) had been taken to No. 19—How?
Somebody must have seen something!—Who? ditto—What?
I turned to the left again. Now I was walking along Wilbraham Crescent just as I had walked on September 9th. Should I call on Miss Pebmarsh? Ring the bell and say—well, what should I say?
Call on Miss Waterhouse? But what on earth could I say to her?
Mrs. Hemming perhaps? It wouldn’t much matter what one said to Mrs. Hemming. She wouldn’t be listening, and what she said, however haphazard and irrelevant, might lead to something.
I walked along, mentally noting the numbers as I had before. Had the late Mr. Curry come along here, also noting numbers, until he came to the number he meant to visit?
Wilbraham Crescent had never looked primmer. I almost found myself exclaiming in Victorian fashion, “Oh! if these stones could speak!” It was a favourite quotation in those days, so it seemed. But stones don’t speak, no more do bricks and mortar, nor even plaster nor stucco. Wilbraham Crescent remained silently itself. Old-fashioned, aloof, rather shabby, and not given to conversation. Disapproving, I was sure, of itinerant prowlers who didn’t even know what they were looking for.
There were few people about, a couple of boys on bicycles passed me, two women with shopping bags. The houses themselves might have been embalmed like mummies for all the signs of life there were in them. I knew why that was. It was already, or close upon, the sacred hour of one, an hour sanctified by English traditions to the consuming of a midday meal. In one or two houses I could see through the uncurtained windows a group of one or two people round a dining table, but even that was exceedingly rare. Either the windows were discreetly screened with nylon netting, as opposed to the once popular Nottingham lace, or—which was far more probable—anyone who was at home was eating in the “modern” kitchen, according to the custom of the 1960’s.
It was, I reflected, a perfect hour of day for a murder. Had the murderer thought of that, I wondered? Was it part of the murderer’s plan? I came at last to No. 19.
Like so many other moronic members of the populace I stood and stared. There was, by now, no other human being in sight. “No neighbours,” I said sadly, “no intelligent