The Moving Finger - Agatha Christie [53]
He fairly skipped off down the street.
IV
As I stood staring after him the church door opened and the Rev. Caleb Dane Calthrop came out.
He smiled vaguely at me.
“Good—good morning, Mr—er—er—”
I helped him. “Burton.”
“Of course, of course, you mustn’t think I don’t remember you. Your name had just slipped my memory for the moment. A beautiful day.”
“Yes,” I said rather shortly.
He peered at me.
“But something—something—ah, yes, that poor unfortunate child who was in service at the Symmingtons.’ I find it hard to believe, I must confess, that we have a murderer in our midst, Mr—er—Burton.”
“It does seem a bit fantastic,” I said.
“Something else has just reached my ears.” He leaned towards me. “I learn that there have been anonymous letters going about. Have you heard any rumour of such things?”
“I have heard,” I said.
“Cowardly and dastardly things.” He paused and quoted an enormous stream of Latin. “Those words of Horace are very applicable, don’t you think?” he said.
“Absolutely,” I said.
V
There didn’t seem anyone more I could profitably talk to, so I went home, dropping in for some tobacco and for a bottle of sherry, so as to get some of the humbler opinions on the crime.
“A narsty tramp,” seemed to be the verdict.
“Come to the door, they do, and whine and ask for money, and then if it’s a girl alone in the house, they turn narsty. My sister Dora, over to Combeacre, she had a narsty experience one day—Drunk, he was, and selling those little printed poems….”
The story went on, ending with the intrepid Dora courageously banging the door in the man’s face and taking refuge and barricading herself in some vague retreat, which I gathered from the delicacy in mentioning it must be the lavatory. “And there she stayed till her lady came home!”
I reached Little Furze just a few minutes before lunchtime. Joanna was standing in the drawing room window doing nothing at all and looking as though her thoughts were miles away.
“What have you been doing with yourself?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing particular.”
I went out on the veranda. Two chairs were drawn up to an iron table and there were two empty sherry glasses. On another chair was an object at which I looked with bewilderment for some time.
“What on earth is this?”
“Oh,” said Joanna, “I think it’s a photograph of a diseased spleen or something. Dr. Griffith seemed to think I’d be interested to see it.”
I looked at the photograph with some interest. Every man has his own ways of courting the female sex. I should not, myself, choose to do it with photographs of spleens, diseased or otherwise. Still no doubt Joanna had asked for it!
“It looks most unpleasant,” I said.
Joanna said it did, rather.
“How was Griffith?” I asked.
“He looked tired and very unhappy. I think he’s got something on his mind.”
“A spleen that won’t yield to treatment?”
“Don’t be silly. I mean something real.”
“I should say the man’s got you on his mind. I wish you’d lay off him, Joanna.”
“Oh, do shut up. I haven’t done anything.”
“Women always say that.”
Joanna whirled angrily out of the room.
The diseased spleen was beginning to curl up in the sun. I took it by one corner and brought it into the drawing room. I had no affection for it myself, but I presumed it was one of Griffith’s treasures.
I stooped down and pulled out a heavy book from the bottom shelf of the bookcase in order to press the photograph flat again between its leaves. It was a ponderous volume of somebody’s sermons.
The book came open in my hand in rather a surprising way. In another minute I saw why. From the middle of it a number of pages had been neatly cut out.
VI
I stood staring at it. I looked at the title page. It had been published in 1840.
There could be no doubt at all. I was looking at the book from the pages of which the anonymous letters had been put together. Who had cut them out?
Well, to begin with, it could be Emily Barton herself. She was, perhaps, the obvious person to think of. Or it could have been Partridge.
But there