The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [28]
After that, I had, for some reason which I couldn’t quite identify, gone to beard Poppy in her floral bower. And Poppy had denied vehemently any knowledge of such an institution as the Pale Horse. More significant still, Poppy had been afraid.
Today—there had been Thyrza Grey.
But surely the Pale Horse and its occupants was one thing and that list of names something separate, quite unconnected. Why on earth was I coupling them together in my mind?
Why should I imagine for one moment that there was any connection between them?
Mrs. Delafontaine had presumably lived in London. Thomasina Tuckerton’s home had been somewhere in Surrey. No one on the list had any connection with the little village of Much Deeping. Unless—
I was just coming abreast of the King’s Arms. The King’s Arms was a genuine pub with a superior look about it and a freshlypainted announcement of Lunches, Dinners and Teas.
I pushed its door open and went inside. The bar, not yet open, was on my left, on my right was a minute lounge smelling of stale smoke. By the stairs was a notice: Office. The office consisted of a glass window, firmly closed and a printed card. PRESS BELL. The whole place had the deserted air of a pub at this particular time of day. On a shelf by the office window was a battered registration book for visitors. I opened it and flicked through the pages. It was not much patronised. There were five or six entries, perhaps, in a week, mostly for one night only. I flicked back the pages, noting the names.
It was not long before I shut the book. There was still no one about. There were really no questions I wanted to ask at this stage. I went out again into the soft damp afternoon.
Was it only coincidence that someone called Sandford and someone else called Parkinson had stayed at the King’s Arms during the last year? Both names were on Corrigan’s list. Yes, but they were not particularly uncommon names. But I had noted one other name—the name of Martin Digby. If it was the Martin Digby I knew, he was the great-nephew of the woman I had always called Aunt Min—Lady Hesketh-Dubois.
I strode along, not seeing where I was going. I wanted very badly to talk to someone. To Jim Corrigan. Or to David Ardingly. Or to Hermia with her calm good sense. I was alone with my chaotic thoughts and I didn’t want to be alone. What I wanted, frankly, was someone who would argue me out of the things that I was thinking.
It was after about half an hour of tramping muddy lanes that I finally turned in at the gates of the vicarage, and made my way up a singularly ill-kept drive, to pull a rusty looking bell at the side of the front door.
II
“It doesn’t ring,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, appearing at the door with the unexpectedness of a genie.
I had already suspected that fact.
“They’ve mended it twice,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “But it never lasts. So I have to keep alert. In case it’s something important. It’s important with you, isn’t it?”
“It—well—yes, it is important—to me, I mean.”
“That’s what I meant, too…” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s quite bad, I can see— Who do you want? The vicar?”
“I— I’m not sure—”
It had been the vicar I came to see—but now, unexpectedly, I was doubtful. I didn’t quite know why. But immediately Mrs. Dane Calthrop told me.
“My husband’s a very good man,” she said. “Besides being the vicar, I mean. And that makes things difficult sometimes. Good people, you see, don’t really understand evil.” She paused and then said with a kind of brisk efficiency, “I think it had better be me.”
A faint smile came to my lips. “Is evil your department?” I asked.
“Yes, it is. It’s important in a parish to