The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [24]
“You needn’t tell me what you’ve come about. It’s Admiral Penistone. Got the news half an hour ago, I did. And ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’re here to-day and gone to-morrow.’ But not gone this way, most of us—or so I devoutly hope. Stabbed to the heart with a narrow instrument, that’s right, isn’t it? And depend upon it, that’s a stiletto, that’s what I said! One of those nasty, murdering Eyetalian stilettos. Wops they call them in New York—the Eyetalians, I mean, not the stilettos. And you mark my words, you’ll find out that whoever murdered the Admiral had been in Italy. Naturally it couldn’t have been an Eyetalian—he’d have been noticed. Used to sell ice cream, they did, in my young day. But now they have Walls and those others and much more wholesome stuff, I dare say. No—we don’t have many foreigners in Whynmouth—except of course Americans—and they’re not really what you’d call foreigners—just a kind of queer English, that’s how I look upon them! And the stories those boatmen tell them—why you’d think they’d be afraid of a judgment—and the poor innocents lapping it up—but there, I’m getting away from the subject. And a sad subject it is.” She shook her head, but with no overdone air of melancholy. “Not that you can say the Admiral was one of us yet. Why, he’d only passed through Whynmouth half a dozen times. Barely knew him by sight, we did. And his niece! A most peculiar young lady, if you ask me, Mr. Rudge! Very odd things I’ve heard about her. Her young gentleman’s actually stopping in the house now. Came down last evening by the 8.30. And if you ask me, I say ‘No.’”
“Eh!” said Rudge, completely bewildered by this sudden dramatic stop interrupting the flow of speech.
“I say ‘No,’” repeated Mrs. Davis, nodding her head very violently.
“No to what?” asked the Inspector, still puzzled.
“I say, if you ask me if he’s the murderer, I say ‘No!’”
“Oh! I see, but I never suggested anything of the kind.”
“Not in words, but it’s what it comes to. Cut the cackle and come to the horses, as Mr. Davis used to say. I’m never one for beating about the bush.”
“What I was going to ask you was—”
Mrs. Davis interrupted serenely.
“I know, I know, Mr. Rudge. Whether Mr. Holland went out or not last night, I cannot tell you. Bit of a rush we had with the charabancs, and you can’t notice everything. What I mean to say is, you can’t be in two places at once. And what with the gas being poor and one thing and another, I’m putting in the electricity this year. Old-world is old-world, but some things people won’t stand. Hot water system last year and electricity this. But there, I’m wandering off the point again. I was just going to say—what was I going to say?”
The Inspector assured her that he had no idea.
“Admiral Penistone was a friend of Sir Wilfrid Denny, was he not?” he asked.
“Now there’s a nice gentleman for you—Sir Wilfrid Denny. Always a cheery word and a joke. A shame he should be so hard up, poor gentleman. Oh! yes, he and the Admiral were acquainted. They do say that’s why the Admiral came down here to live. But I don’t know about that. There’s those who say that Sir Wilfrid was none too pleased when he heard his friend was coming down here to live. But there, people will say anything, won’t they? I’m never one to say a word myself. Too much harm done by gossiping. Keep a still tongue in your head and you can’t go far wrong. That’s my motto. And one thing I will say is a wicked shame. To take the Vicar’s boat to do their dirty work in. Trying to drag him into it, poor gentleman. As if he hadn’t had trouble enough in his life.”
“Had a bit of trouble, has he?”
“Well, it’s a long time ago now. Six and four the little boys were, and how she could do it! Depend upon it, a woman who leaves her husband and her children—well, there’s not much to be said for her—not when it’s a good Christian husband like the Vicar. (There’s some I could name as deserve to be left.) Leaving her little children, that’s what I can’t get over. And a pretty gentle lady too, by all accounts. I never saw her myself. It happened before