The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie [60]
‘We can only hope,’ said Mrs Gardner, ‘that they will find the real murderer quickly. Just press the bell, will you, Emily? I’ll send nurse’s tea up to her. I don’t want her chattering down here. How I hate hospital nurses.’
‘Is she a good one?’
‘I suppose she is. Robert says she is anyway. I dislike her intensely and always have. But Robert says she’s far and away the best nurse we’ve had.’
‘She’s rather good-looking,’ said Emily.
‘Nonsense. With her ugly beefy hands?’
Emily watched her aunt’s long white fingers as they touched the milk jug and the sugar tongs.
Beatrice came, took the cup of tea and a plate of eatables and left the room.
‘Robert has been very upset over all this,’ said Mrs Gardner. ‘He works himself into such curious states. I suppose it’s all part of his illness really.’
‘He didn’t know Captain Trevelyan well, did he?’
Jennifer Gardner shook her head.
‘He neither knew him nor cared about him. To be honest, I myself can’t pretend any great sorrow over his death. He was a cruel grasping man, Emily. He knew the struggle we have had. The poverty! He knew that a loan of money at the right time might have given Robert special treatment that would have made all the difference. Well, retribution has overtaken him.’
She spoke in a deep brooding voice.
‘What a strange woman she is,’ thought Emily. ‘Beautiful and terrible, like something out of a Greek play.’
‘It may still not be too late,’ said Mrs Gardner. ‘I wrote to the lawyers at Exhampton today, to ask them if I could have a certain sum of money in advance. The treatment I am speaking of is in some respects what they would call a quack remedy, but it has been successful in a large number of cases. Emily—how wonderful it will be if Robert is able to walk again.’
Her face was glowing, lit up as though by a lamp.
Emily was tired. She had had a long day, little or nothing to eat, and she was worn out by suppressed emotion. The room kept going away and coming back again.
‘Aren’t you feeling well, dear?’
‘It’s all right,’ gasped Emily, and to her own surprise, annoyance and humiliation burst into tears.
Mrs Gardner did not attempt to rise and console her, for which Emily was grateful. She just sat silently until Emily’s tears should subside. She murmured in a thoughtful voice:
‘Poor child. It’s very unlucky that Jim Pearson should have been arrested—very unlucky. I wish—something could be done about it.’
Chapter 21
Conversations
Left to his own devices Charles Enderby did not relax his efforts. To familiarize himself with life as lived in Sittaford village he had only to turn on Mrs Curtis much as you would turn on the tap of a hydrant. Listening slightly dazed to a stream of anecdote, reminiscence, rumours, surmise and meticulous detail he endeavoured valiantly to sift the grain from the chaff. He then mentioned another name and immediately the force of the water was directed in that direction. He heard all about Captain Wyatt, his tropical temper, his rudeness, his quarrels with his neighbours, his occasional amazing graciousness, usually to personable young women. The life he led his Indian servant, the peculiar times he had his meals and the exact diet that composed them. He heard about Mr Rycroft’s library, his hair tonics, his insistence on strict tidiness and punctuality, his inordinate curiosity over other people’s doings, his recent selling of a few old prized personal possessions, his inexplicable fondness for birds, and the prevalent idea that Mrs Willett was setting her cap at him. He heard about Miss Percehouse and her tongue and the way she bullied her nephew, and of the rumours of the gay life that same nephew led in London. He heard all over again of Major Burnaby’s friendship with Captain Trevelyan, their reminiscences of the past and their fondness for chess. He heard everything that was known about the Willetts, including the belief that Miss Violet Willett was leading on Mr Ronnie Garfield and that she didn’t really mean to have him. It was hinted that she made mysterious excursions to the moor