The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [27]
Her tone was of one who says “I only do plain cooking.”
“Just about people who want other people out of the way and try to be clever about it,” she added.
“They’re usually too clever for me,” said Colonel Despard. He glanced at his watch. “Rhoda, I think—”
“Oh yes, we must go. It’s much later than I thought.”
Thanks and good-byes were said. We did not go back through the house but round to a side gate.
“You keep a lot of poultry,” remarked Colonel Despard, looking into a wired enclosure.
“I hate hens,” said Ginger. “They cluck in such an irritating way.”
“Mostly cockerels they be.” It was Bella who spoke. She had come out from a back door.
“White cockerels,” I said.
“Table birds?” asked Despard.
Bella said, “They’m useful to us.”
Her mouth widened in a long curving line across the pudgy shapelessness of her face. Her eyes had a sly knowing look.
“They’re Bella’s province,” said Thyrza Grey lightly.
We said good-bye and Sybil Stamfordis appeared from the open front door to join in speeding the parting guests.
“I don’t like that woman,” said Mrs. Oliver, as we drove off. “I don’t like her at all.”
“You mustn’t take old Thyrza too seriously,” said Despard indulgently. “She enjoys spouting all that stuff and seeing what effect it has on you.”
“I didn’t mean her. She’s an unscrupulous woman, with a keen eye on the main chance. But she’s not dangerous like the other one.”
“Bella? She is a bit uncanny, I’ll admit.”
“I didn’t mean her either. I meant the Sybil one. She seems just silly. All those beads and draperies and all the stuff about voodoo, and all those fantastic reincarnations she was telling us about. (Why is it that anybody who was a kitchen maid or an ugly old peasant never seems to get reincarnated? It’s always Egyptian Princesses or beautiful Babylonian slaves. Very fishy.) But all the same, though she’s stupid, I have a feeling that she could really do things—make queer things happen. I always put things badly—but I mean she could be used—by something—in a way just because she is so silly. I don’t suppose anyone understands what I mean,” she finished pathetically.
“I do,” said Ginger. “And I shouldn’t wonder if you weren’t right.”
“We really ought to go to one of their séances,” said Rhoda wistfully. “It might be rather fun.”
“No, you don’t,” said Despard firmly. “I’m not having you getting mixed up in anything of that sort.”
They fell into a laughing argument. I roused myself only when I heard Mrs. Oliver asking about trains the next morning.
“You can drive back with me,” I said.
Mrs. Oliver looked doubtful.
“I think I’d better go by train—”
“Oh, come now. You’ve driven with me before. I’m a most reliable driver.”
“It’s not that, Mark. But I’ve got to go to a funeral tomorrow. So I mustn’t be late in getting back to town.” She sighed. “I do hate going to funerals.”
“Must you?”
“I think I must in this case. Mary Delafontaine was a very old friend—and I think she’d want me to go. She was that sort of person.”
“Of course,” I exclaimed. “Delafontaine—of course.”
The others stared at me, surprised.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s only—that—well, I was wondering where I’d heard the name Delafontaine lately. It was you, wasn’t it?” I looked at Mrs. Oliver. “You said something about visiting her—in a nursing home.”
“Did I? Quite likely.”
“What did she die of?”
Mrs. Oliver wrinkled her forehead.
“Toxic polyneuritis—something like that.”
Ginger was looking at me curiously. She had a sharp penetrating glance.
As we got out of the car, I said abruptly:
“I think I’ll go for a bit of a walk. Such a lot of food. That wonderful lunch and tea on top of it. It’s got to be worked off somehow.”
I went off briskly before anyone could offer to accompany me. I wanted badly to get by myself and sort out my ideas.
What was all this business? Let me at least get it clear to myself. It had started, had it not, with that casual but startling remark by Poppy, that if you wanted to “get rid of someone” the Pale Horse was the place to go.
Following on that,