The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie [75]
Jimmy looked thoughtfully at Mr Bateman’s rubber-soled feet.
‘You think of everything, Pongo,’ he said genially. ‘Even a lethal weapon.’
His eye rested on the bulge in the other’s pocket.
‘It’s as well to be armed. One never knows whom one may meet.’
‘I am glad you didn’t shoot,’ said Jimmy. ‘I’m a bit tired of being shot at.’
‘I might easily have done so,’ said Mr Bateman.
‘It would be dead against the law if you did,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’ve got to make quite sure the beggar’s house-breaking, you know, before you pot at him. You mustn’t jump to conclusions. Otherwise you’d have to explain why you shot a guest on a perfectly innocent errand like mine.’
‘By the way what did you come down for?’
‘I was hungry,’ said Jimmy. ‘I rather fancied a dry biscuit.’
‘There are some biscuits in a tin by your bed,’ said Rupert Bateman.
He was staring at Jimmy very intently through his horn-rimmed spectacles.
‘Ah! That’s where the staff work has gone wrong, old boy. There’s a tin there with ‘Biscuits for Starving Visitors’ on it. But when the starving visitor opened it–nothing inside. So I just toddled down to the dining-room.’
And with a sweet, ingenuous smile, Jimmy produced from his dressing-gown pocket a handful of biscuits.
There was a moment’s pause.
‘And now I think I’ll toddle back to bed,’ said Jimmy. ‘Night-night, Pongo.’
With an affectation of nonchalance, he mounted the staircase. Rupert Bateman followed him. At the doorway of his room, Jimmy paused as if to say good-night once more.
‘It’s an extraordinary thing about these biscuits,’ said Mr Bateman. ‘Do you mind if I just–?’
‘Certainly, laddie, look for yourself.’
Mr Bateman strode across the room, opened the biscuit box and stared at its emptiness.
‘Very remiss,’ he murmured. ‘Well, good-night.’
He withdrew. Jimmy sat on the edge of his bed listening for a minute.
‘That was a narrow shave,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Suspicious sort of chap, Pongo. Never seems to sleep. Nasty habit of his, prowling around with a revolver.’
He got up and opened one of the drawers of the dressing-table. Beneath an assortment of ties lay a pile of biscuits.
‘There’s nothing for it,’ said Jimmy. ‘I shall have to eat the damned things. Ten to one, Pongo will come prowling round in the morning.’
With a sigh, he settled down to a meal of biscuits for which he had no inclination whatever.
Chapter 28
Suspicions
It was just on the appointed hour of twelve o’clock that Bundle and Loraine entered the park gates, having left the Hispano at an adjacent garage.
Lady Coote greeted the two girls with surprise, but distinct pleasure, and immediately pressed them to stay to lunch.
O’Rourke, who had been reclining in an immense armchair, began at once to talk with great animation to Loraine, who was listening with half an ear to Bundle’s highly technical explanation of the mechanical trouble which had affected the Hispano.
‘And we said,’ ended Bundle, ‘how marvellous that the brute should have broken down just here! Last time it happened was on a Sunday at a place called Little Speddlington under the Hill. And it lived up to its name, I can tell you.’
‘That would be a grand name on the films,’ remarked O’Rourke.
‘Birth place of the simple country maiden,’ suggested Socks.
‘I wonder now,’ said Lady Coote, ‘where Mr Thesiger is?’
‘He’s in the billiard-room, I think,’ said Socks. ‘I’ll fetch him.’
She went off, but had hardly gone a minute when Rupert Bateman appeared upon the scene, with the harassed and serious air usual to him.
‘Yes, Lady Coote? Thesiger said you were asking for me. How do you do, Lady Eileen–’
He broke off to greet the two girls, and Loraine immediately took the field.
‘Oh, Mr Bateman! I’ve been wanting to see you. Wasn’t it you who was telling me what to do for a dog when he is continually getting sore paws?’
The secretary shook his head.
‘It must have been someone else, Miss Wade. Though, as a matter of fact, I do happen to know–’
‘What a wonderful man you are,’ interrupted Loraine.