The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [84]
Inspector Rudge gripped the tough laurel stems in his amazement. The last people in the world he expected at this hour in this place were the Hollands, husband and wife. What were they saying? What were they doing? He could hear the bell jangling, but he could not hear their words: and the porch was so deep in shadow that he could not watch their faces. Should he emerge and cross-question?
While he hesitated they turned in the doorway and Holland’s voice rang clear.
“We may as well wait.”
His wife came out on the gravel.
“What’s the time now?”
Her husband looked at his watch.
“Just past seven.”
Elma hesitated.
“I’m not coming all this way for nothing.”
“Have you considered,” Holland said uneasily, “that it may be a trap?”
“A trap? How could it be?”
“Well—” He hesitated. “How much does Célie know?”
“Oh, don’t fuss so, Arthur. It’s hot and I won’t be harried. Sit down a little.” And, crossing the lawn, she sank into the worn hammock that swung between two boughs of the giant cedar, while her husband flung himself on the grass beside her.
For some ten minutes the two sat there, saying little. Inspector Rudge cursed his luck. Nine out of ten women would have talked a rope about their necks in ten such idle minutes. It was his luck to be suspecting a woman outside his experience, a woman who could sit still and say nothing. Even when she tired of her immobility still she held her tongue, gave neither watcher a reason for her sudden movement. But when she swung her feet to the ground and began to stroll towards the house, her husband instantly rose and joined her. Had she signalled to him? Did she know herself watched? wondered Rudge. But he was sure that he himself had not stirred; nevertheless he remained perfectly still. Elma Holland, Inspector Rudge considered, was quite capable of setting a counter-trap. Meantime the pair had reached the house once more, and Holland’s voice came ringing over the grass.
“I say, the door’s ajar.”
“She must have come in without our seeing,” the woman’s voice answered him. “Come on! Let’s go in! She must be somewhere,” and they disappeared.
Inspector Rudge drew a deep sigh of relief. At last he could move, could yawn, could stretch himself, could lift the weight of his body off one unfortunate foot, which, doubled under him, was almost asleep. It was a very bad attack of pins and needles indeed. He was just beginning gently to massage it when he was nearly startled out of his senses by the sound, faint but unmistakable, of a scream. He stiffened where he sat. Then, pulling himself to his feet, was preparing to grope his way into the open, when nearer, much louder, much more vigorous, came a second scream, a whole series of screams; and there burst out of the dark open entry the figure of Elma Holland.
Once out of the doorway she appeared to have no further power to walk, though she laboured forward a short step or two as if she were thrusting her way through an invisible hedge. Her face was white as the washed walls of the house, and as her husband, who came racing the next moment across the threshold, reached her, she fell back into his arms like a stuffed sack.
The Inspector was not much less swift, but as he broke through the bushes and ran across the lawn to them, his thought ran ahead of him—“What has she seen to break her nerve like that?” Then, as he reached the huddled pair, he noted the condition of Holland’s hands and, first crying: “Here! Out of my way!”—added “and stay where you are!” pushed past them, leaped up the steps, dashed across the hall and flung open the dining-room door. Empty! So was the drawing-room. But the door of the Vicar’s study was open. In went Rudge and cast a hurried glance about him.
Very still was the study, barred with sun and shadow, very cool, very dark. It was a pleasant coolness and a pleasant darkness after the glare of the lawn. “Quiet as a tomb,” thought the