The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie [48]
‘Right oh, Aunt Caroline.’
The obedient nephew disappeared.
‘Sit down,’ said Miss Percehouse.
Emily sat on the chair indicated. Strange to say she had immediately felt conscious of a distinct liking and sympathy for this rather sharp-tongued middle-aged invalid. She felt indeed a kind of kinship with her.
‘Here is someone,’ thought Emily, ‘who goes straight to the point and means to have her own way and bosses everybody she can. Just like me, only I happen to be rather good-looking, and she has to do it all by force of character.’
‘I understand you are the girl who is engaged to Trevelyan’s nephew,’ said Miss Percehouse. ‘I’ve heard all about you and now I have seen you I understand exactly what you are up to. And I wish you good luck.’
‘Thank you,’ said Emily.
‘I hate a slobbering female,’ said Miss Percehouse. ‘I like one who gets up and does things.’
She looked at Emily sharply.
‘I suppose you pity me—lying here never able to get up and walk about?’
‘No,’ said Emily thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know that I do. I suppose that one can, if one has the determination, always get something out of life. If you can’t get it in one way you get it in another.’
‘Quite right,’ said Miss Percehouse. ‘You’ve got to take life from a different angle, that’s all.’
‘Angle of attack,’ murmured Emily.
‘What’s that you say?’
As clearly as she was able, Emily outlined the theory that she had evolved that morning and the application of it she had made to the matter in hand.
‘Not bad,’ said Miss Percehouse nodding her head. ‘Now, my dear—we will get down to business. Not being a born fool, I suppose you’ve come up to this village to find out what you can about the people here, and to see if what you find out has any bearing on the murder. Well, if there’s anything you want to know about the people here, I can tell it to you.’
Emily wasted no time. Concise and business-like she came to the point.
‘Major Burnaby?’ she asked.
‘Typical retired army officer, narrow-minded and limited in outlook, jealous disposition. Credulous in money matters. Kind of man who invests in a South Sea Bubble because he can’t see a yard in front of his own nose. Likes to pay his debts promptly and dislikes people who don’t wipe their feet on the mat.’
‘Mr Rycroft?’ said Emily.
‘Queer little man, enormous egotist. Cranky. Likes to think himself a wonderful fellow. I suppose he has offered to help you solve the case aright owing to his wonderful knowledge of criminology.’
Emily admitted that that was the case.
‘Mr Duke?’ she asked.
‘Don’t know a thing about the man—and yet I ought to. Most ordinary type. I ought to know—and yet I don’t. It’s queer. It’s like a name on the tip of your tongue and yet for the life of you, you can’t remember it.’
‘The Willetts?’ asked Emily.
‘Ah! the Willetts!’ Miss Percehouse hoisted herself up on an elbow again in some excitement. ‘What about the Willetts indeed? Now, I’ll tell you something about them, my dear. It may be useful to you, or it may not. Go over to my writing table there and pull out the little top drawer—the one to the left—that’s right. Bring me the blank envelope that’s there.’
Emily brought the envelope as directed.
‘I don’t say it’s important—it probably isn’t,’ said Miss Percehouse. ‘Everybody tells lies one way or another, and Mrs Willett is perfectly entitled to do the same as everybody else.’
She took the envelope and slipped her hand inside.
‘I will tell you all about it. When the Willetts arrived here, with their smart clothes and their maids and their innovation trunks, she and Violet came up in Forder’s car and the maids and the innovation trunks came by the station