The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [75]
Except that it was rather late to pay a call, this seemed reasonable to Rudge. He knew the trains from town. The last train having a connection to Whynmouth left Waterloo at 5.30. The 7.0 from town did not stop at Passfield Junction, and the only way in which a passenger by that train could reach Whynmouth was by driving the twelve miles from Drychester.
“I follow you,” Rudge said. “Go ahead.”
The man had driven his passenger to Lingham and she had directed him to the house he had mentioned, near the church. She had asked him to wait on the road, so as, she said, not to rouse the children with the sound of the engine. She had said she would not be long. Then she had disappeared in the direction of the house. That must have been a few minutes before eleven.
The taxi-man settled down to wait, and wait he certainly did. The few minutes passed three or four times over, and still there was no sign of her. He began to get impatient, and getting out of the taxi, he walked up the short drive till he got in sight of the house, which had been hidden behind a small plantation. The house was dark and silent and no one seemed to be about. The taxi-man grew anxious about his fare, and he went forward and knocked at the first door he came to. Rudge recognised it as the side-door. For a time no one answered, and the taxi-man knocked louder and louder. At last a window opened upstairs and this parson put his head out. What was it: a sick call? The taxi-man gave him clearly to understand it was not a sick call, and the parson said he’d come down. He came down and asked what was wrong. The taxi-man asked would his passenger soon be out, as he had an early job in the morning and he didn’t want to spend the night waiting at the gate. The parson evidently didn’t know anything about the lady, but he asked for a description of her. Then suddenly he seemed to recognise her. He appeared upset for a moment, then he said it was all right, that he thought the lady was a friend of the housekeeper’s, and if the taxi-man would wait a moment longer he would find out when she was leaving. He disappeared for three or four minutes, then he returned to say that the lady had been taken with a fainting fit, and in the excitement the taxi had been forgotten. The lady was not well enough to go back to Drychester that night, but would stay with his housekeeper, and he would pay the taxi. He had done so. The taxi-man had returned to Drychester, and that was all he knew about it.
Here was a fresh complication! Rudge swore. Instead of things straightening themselves out, the tangle was getting worse.
“Tell me,” said Rudge, “you drove through Lingham, didn’t you?”
“Correct, guv’nor.”
“Did you stop there?”
“Not above a minute or two. I stopped and the lady directed me which way to go.”
Here was at least something. This must have been the car Constable Hempstead had seen. So far as it went, Hempstead’s report was corroboration of the story.
Rudge postponed consideration of the affair, and walked to the Anglers’ Arms, which was near the station. And there he got some news which, he thought, entirely justified his suspicions.
It seemed that about seven o’clock on the evening in question, a telegram had been received from Waterloo, to the effect that the sender, Mrs. Marsh, was going to Drychester by the next train and required a room to be reserved for the night. Also, she wished the hotel to be left open, as owing to having to pay a call on arrival, she could not reach it till midnight or later. The room had been duly prepared and the porter had waited up till nearly two, but the lady had not turned up, nor had anything been since heard of her.
This certainly did back up the tale that the lady had intended to return from Lingham Vicarage to Drychester. So far the thing looked bona fide enough. It