Unexpected Guest - Agatha Christie [29]
There was a pause. For a few moments Laura said nothing. Then she smiled and calmly walked over to the table by the armchair to pick up her cigarette. Turning back to Starkwedder, she said, ‘Oh yes, you are! You’ll have to! You can’t back out now! You’ve told your story to the police. You can’t change it.’
‘What?’ Starkwedder gasped, taken aback.
Laura sat in the armchair. ‘Whatever you know, or think you know,’ she pointed out to him, ‘you’ve got to stick to your story. You’re an accessory after the fact–you said so yourself.’ She drew on her cigarette.
Starkwedder rose and faced her. Dumbfounded, he exclaimed, ‘Well, I’m damned! You little bitch!’ He glared at her for a few moments without saying anything further, then suddenly turned on his heel, went swiftly to the french windows, and left. Laura watched him striding across the garden. She made a movement as though to follow and call him back, but then apparently thought better of it. With a troubled look on her face, she slowly turned away from the windows.
Chapter 12
Later that day, towards the end of the afternoon, Julian Farrar paced nervously up and down in the study. The french windows to the terrace were open, and the sun was about to set, throwing a golden light onto the lawn outside. Farrar had been summoned by Laura Warwick, who apparently needed to see him urgently. He kept glancing at his watch as he awaited her.
Farrar seemed very upset and distraught. He looked out onto the terrace, turned back into the room again, and glanced at his watch. Then, noticing a newspaper on the table by the armchair, he picked it up. It was a local paper, The Western Echo, with a news story on the front page reporting Richard Warwick’s death. ‘PROMINENT LOCAL RESIDENT MURDERED BY MYSTERIOUS ASSAILANT,’ the headline announced. Farrar sat in the armchair and began nervously to read the report. After a moment, he flung the paper aside, and strode over to the french windows. With a final glance back into the room, he set off across the lawn. He was halfway across the garden, when he heard a sound behind him. Turning, he called, ‘Laura, I’m sorry I–’ and then stopped, disappointed, as he saw that the person coming towards him was not Laura Warwick, but Angell, the late Richard Warwick’s valet and attendant.
‘Mrs Warwick asked me to say she will be down in a moment, sir,’ said Angell as he approached Farrar. ‘But I wondered if I might have a brief word with you?’
‘Yes, yes. What is it?’
Angell came up to Julian Farrar, and walked on for a pace or two further away from the house, as if anxious that their talk should not be overheard. ‘Well?’ said Farrar, following him.
‘I am rather worried, sir,’ Angell began, ‘about my own position in the house, and I felt I would like to consult you on the matter.’
His mind full of his own affairs, Julian Farrar was not really interested. ‘Well, what’s the trouble?’ he asked.
Angell thought for a moment before replying. Then, ‘Mr Warwick’s death, sir,’ he said, ‘it puts me out of a job.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it does,’ Farrar responded. ‘But I imagine you will easily get another, won’t you?’
‘I hope so, sir,’ Angell replied.
‘You’re a qualified man, aren’t you?’ Farrar asked him.
‘Oh, yes, sir. I’m qualified,’ Angell replied, ‘and there is always either hospital work or private work to be obtained. I know that.’
‘Then what’s troubling you?’
‘Well, sir,’ Angell told him, ‘the circumstances in which this job came to an end are very distasteful to me.’
‘In plain English,’ Farrar remarked, ‘you don’t like having been mixed up with murder. Is that it?’
‘You could put it that way, sir,’ the valet confirmed.
‘Well,’ said Farrar, ‘I’m afraid there is nothing anyone can do about that. Presumably you’ll get a satisfactory reference from Mrs Warwick.’ He took out his cigarette-case and opened it.
‘I don’t think there will be any difficulty about that, sir,’ Angell responded. ‘Mrs Warwick is a very nice lady–a very charming lady, if I may say so.’ There was a faint insinuation in his tone.
Julian Farrar,