The Moving Finger - Agatha Christie [12]
Joanna had described him once as a plump pink cherub. He was still plump, but he was not looking like a cherub now. His face was a dark congested purple, contorted with rage and surprise.
And at that moment I realized that there had been something familiar about the look of that envelope. I had not realized it at the time—indeed it had been one of those things that you note unconsciously without knowing that you do note them.
“Goodness,” said Joanna. “What’s bitten the poor pet?”
“I rather fancy,” I said, “that it’s the Hidden Hand again.”
She turned an astonished face towards me and the car swerved.
“Careful, wench,” I said.
Joanna refixed her attention on the road. She was frowning.
“You mean a letter like the one you got?”
“That’s my guess.”
“What is this place?” asked Joanna. “It looks the most innocent sleepy harmless little bit of England you can imagine—”
“Where to quote Mr. Pye, nothing ever happens,” I cut in. “He chose the wrong minute to say that. Something has happened.”
“But who writes these things, Jerry?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“My dear girl, how should I know? Some local nitwit with a screw loose, I suppose.”
“But why? It seems so idiotic.”
“You must read Freud and Jung and that lot to find out. Or ask our Dr. Owen.”
Joanna tossed her head.
“Dr. Owen doesn’t like me.”
“He’s hardly seen you.”
“He’s seen quite enough, apparently, to make him cross over if he sees me coming along the High Street.”
“A most unusual reaction,” I said sympathetically. “And one you’re not used to.”
Joanna was frowning again.
“No, but seriously, Jerry, why do people write anonymous letters?”
“As I say, they’ve got a screw loose. It satisfies some urge, I suppose. If you’ve been snubbed, or ignored, or frustrated, and your life’s pretty drab and empty, I suppose you get a sense of power from stabbing in the dark at people who are happy and enjoying themselves.”
Joanna shivered. “Not nice.”
“No, not nice. I should imagine the people in these country places tend to be inbred—and so you would get a fair amount of queers.”
“Somebody, I suppose, quite uneducated and inarticulate? With better education—”
Joanna did not finish her sentence, and I said nothing. I have never been able to accept the easy belief that education is a panacea for every ill.
As we drove through the town before climbing up the hill road, I looked curiously at the few figures abroad in the High Street. Was one of those sturdy countrywomen going about with a load of spite and malice behind her placid brow, planning perhaps even now a further outpouring of vindictive spleen?
But I still did not take the thing seriously.
II
Two days later we went to a bridge party at the Symmingtons.
It was a Saturday afternoon—the Symmingtons always had their bridge parties on a Saturday, because the office was shut then.
There were two tables. The players were the Symmingtons, ourselves, Miss Griffith, Mr. Pye, Miss Barton and a Colonel Appleton whom we had not yet met and who lived at Combeacre, a village some seven miles distant. He was a perfect specimen of the Blimp type, about sixty years of age, liked playing what he called a “plucky game” (which usually resulted in immense sums above the line being scored by his opponents) and was so intrigued by Joanna that he practically never took his eyes off her the whole afternoon.
I was forced to admit that my sister was probably the most attractive thing that had been seen in Lymstock for many a long day.
When we arrived, Elsie Holland, the children’s governess, was hunting for some extra bridge scorers in an ornate writing desk. She glided across the floor with them in the same celestial way I had first noticed, but the spell could not be cast a second time. Exasperating that it should be so—a waste of a perfectly lovely form and face. But I noticed now only too clearly the exceptionally large white teeth like tombstones, and the way she showed her gums when she laughed. She was, unfortunately, one of your prattling girls.
“Are these the ones, Mrs. Symmington? It’s ever so stupid of me not