The Moving Finger - Agatha Christie [59]
“Yes,” I said thoughtfully. “That’s what Nash said. I remember he stressed respectability too.”
“Yes,” agreed Miss Marple. “That’s very important.”
Well, we all seemed agreed.
I addressed Mrs. Calthrop. “Nash thinks,” I said, “that there will be more anonymous letters. What do you think?”
She said slowly: “There may be, I suppose.”
“If the police think that, there will have to be, no doubt,” said Miss Marple.
I went on doggedly to Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
“Are you still sorry for the writer?”
She flushed. “Why not?”
“I don’t think I agree with you, dear,” said Miss Marple. “Not in this case.”
I said hotly: “They’ve driven one woman to suicide, and caused untold misery and heartburnings!”
“Have you had one, Miss Burton?” asked Miss Marple of Joanna.
Joanna gurgled, “Oh yes! It said the most frightful things.”
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple, “that the people who are young and pretty are apt to be singled out by the writer.”
“That’s why I certainly think it’s odd that Elsie Holland hasn’t had any,” I said.
“Let me see,” said Miss Marple. “Is that the Symmingtons’ nursery governess—the one you dreamt about, Mr. Burton?”
“Yes.”
“She’s probably had one and won’t say so,” said Joanna.
“No,” I said, “I believe her. So does Nash.”
“Dear me,” said Miss Marple. “Now that’s very interesting. That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard yet.”
II
As we were going home Joanna told me that I ought not to have repeated what Nash said about letters coming.
“Why not?”
“Because Mrs. Dane Calthrop might be It.”
“You don’t really believe that!”
“I’m not sure. She’s a queer woman.”
We began our discussion of probables all over again.
It was two nights later that I was coming back in the car from Exhampton. I had had dinner there and then started back and it was already dark before I got into Lymstock.
Something was wrong with the car lights, and after slowing up and switching on and off, I finally got out to see what I could do. I was some time fiddling, but I managed to fix them up finally.
The road was quite deserted. Nobody in Lymstock is about after dark. The first few houses were just ahead, amongst them the ugly gabled building of the Women’s Institute. It loomed up in the dim starlight and something impelled me to go and have a look at it. I don’t know whether I had caught a faint glimpse of a stealthy figure flitting through the gate—if so, it must have been so indeterminate that it did not register in my conscious mind, but I did suddenly feel a kind of overweening curiosity about the place.
The gate was slightly ajar, and I pushed it open and walked in. A short path and four steps led up to the door.
I stood there a moment hesitating. What was I really doing there? I didn’t know, and then, suddenly, just near at hand, I caught the sound of a rustle. It sounded like a woman’s dress. I took a sharp turn and went round the corner of the building towards where the sound had come from.
I couldn’t see anybody. I went on and again turned a corner. I was at the back of the house now and suddenly I saw, only two feet away from me, an open window.
I crept up to it and listened. I could hear nothing, but somehow or other I felt convinced that there was someone inside.
My back wasn’t too good for acrobatics as yet, but I managed to hoist myself up and drop over the sill inside. I made rather a noise unfortunately.
I stood just inside the window listening. Then I walked forward, my hands outstretched. I heard then the faintest sound ahead of me to my right.
I had a torch in my pocket and I switched it on.
Immediately a low, sharp voice said: “Put that out.”
I obeyed instantly, for in that brief second I had recognized Superintendent Nash.
I felt him take my arm and propel me through a door and into a passage. Here, where there was no window to betray our presence to anyone outside, he switched on a lamp and looked at me more in sorrow than in anger.
“You would have to butt in just that minute, Mr. Burton.”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “But I got a hunch that I was on to something.