The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie (good beach reads txt) đź“–
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“His Highness’s own idea it was. And for anyone but him to carry it out he would not permit.”
“He did it jolly well,” said Anthony, with approval. “I never took him for anything but an Englishman.”
“The education of an English gentleman did the Prince receive,” explained the Baron. “The custom of Herzoslovakia it is.”
“No professional could have pinched those papers better,” said Anthony. “May I ask, without indiscretion, what has become of them?”
“Between gentlemen,” began the Baron.
“You are too kind, Baron,” murmured Anthony. “I’ve never been called a gentleman so often as I have in the last forty-eight hours.”
“I to you say this—I believe them to be burnt.”
“You believe, but you don’t know, eh? Is that it?”
“His Highness in his own keeping retained them. His purpose it was to read them and then by the fire to destroy them.”
“I see,” said Anthony. “All the same, they are not the kind of light literature you’d skim through in half an hour.”
“Among the effects of my martyred master they have not discovered been. It is clear, therefore, that burnt they are.”
“H’m!” said Anthony. “I wonder?”
He was silent for a minute or two and then went on.
“I have asked you these questions, Baron, because, as you may have heard, I myself have been implicated in the crime. I must clear myself absolutely, so that no suspicion attaches to me.”
“Undoubtedly,” said the Baron. “Your honor demands it.”
“Exactly,” said Anthony. “You put these things so well. I haven’t got the knack of it. To continue, I can only clear myself by discovering the real murderer, and to do that I must have all the facts. This question of the Memoirs is very important. It seems to me possible that to gain possession of them might be the motive of the crime. Tell me, Baron, is that a very far-fetched idea?”
The Baron hesitated for a moment or two.
“You yourself the Memoirs have read?” he asked cautiously at length.
“I think I am answered,” said Anthony, smiling. “Now Baron, there’s just one thing more. I should like to give you fair warning that it is still my intention to deliver that manuscript to the publishers on Wednesday next, the 13th of October.”
The Baron stared at him.
“But you have no longer got it?”
“On Wednesday next, I said. To-day is Friday. That gives me five days to get hold of it again.”
“But if it is burnt?”
“I don’t think it is burnt. I have good reasons for not believing so.”
As he spoke they turned the corner of the terrace. A massive figure was advancing towards them. Anthony, who had not yet seen the great Mr. Herman Isaacstein, looked at him with considerable interest.
“Ah, Baron,” said Isaacstein, waving the big black cigar he was smoking, “this is a bad business—a very bad business.”
“My good friend, Mr. Isaacstein, it is indeed,” cried the Baron. “All our noble edifice in ruins is.”
Anthony tactfully left the two gentlemen to their lamentations, and retraced his steps along the terrace.
Suddenly he came to a halt. A thin spiral of smoke was rising into the air apparently from the very centre of the yew hedge.
“It must be hollow in the middle,” reflected Anthony. “I’ve heard of such things before.”
He looked swiftly to right and left of him. Lord Caterham was at the farther end of the terrace with Captain Andrassy. Their backs were towards him. Anthony bent down and wriggled his way through the massive yew.
He had been quite right in his supposition. The yew hedge was really not one, but two, a narrow passage divided them. The entrance to this was about half-way up, on the side of the house. There was no mystery about it, but no one seeing the yew hedge from the front would have guessed at the probability.
Anthony looked down the narrow vista. About half-way down, a man was reclining in a basket chair. A half-smoked cigar rested on the arm of the chair, and the gentleman himself appeared to be asleep.
“H’m!” said Anthony to himself. “Evidently Mr. Hiram Fish prefers sitting in the shade.”
Tea in the Schoolroom
Anthony regained the terrace with the feeling uppermost in his mind that the only safe place for private conversations was the middle of the lake.
The resonant boom of a gong sounded from the house, and Tredwell appeared in a stately fashion from a side door.
“Luncheon is served, my lord.”
“Ah!” said Lord Caterham, brisking up a little. “Lunch.”
At that moment two children burst out of the house. They were high-spirited young women of twelve and ten, and though their names might be Dulcie and Daisy, as Bundle had affirmed, they appeared to be more generally known as Guggle and Winkle. They executed a kind of war dance, interspersed with shrill whoops till Bundle emerged and quelled them.
“Where’s Mademoiselle?” she demanded.
“She’s got the migraine, the migraine, the migraine!” chanted Winkle.
“Hurrah!” said Guggle, joining in.
Lord Caterham had succeeded in shepherding most of his guests into the house. Now he laid a restraining hand on Anthony’s arm.
“Come to my study,” he breathed. “I’ve got something rather special there.”
Slinking down the hall, far more like a thief than like the master of the house, Lord Caterham gained the shelter of his sanctum. Here he unlocked a cupboard and produced various bottles.
“Talking to foreigners always makes me so thirsty,” he explained apologetically. “I don’t know why it is.”
There was a knock on the door, and Virginia popped her head round the corner of it.
“Got a special cocktail for me?” she demanded.
“Of course,” said Lord Caterham hospitably. “Come in.”
The next few minutes were taken up with serious rites.
“I needed that,” said Lord Caterham with a sigh, as he replaced his glass on the table. “As I said just now, I find talking to foreigners particularly fatiguing. I think it’s because they’re so polite. Come along. Let’s have some lunch.”
He led the way to the dining-room. Virginia put her hand on Anthony’s arm, and drew him back a little.
“I’ve done my good deed for the day,” she whispered. “I got Lord Caterham to take me to see the body.”
“Well?” demanded Anthony eagerly.
One theory of his was to be proved or disproved.
Virginia was shaking her head.
“You were wrong,” she whispered. “It’s Prince Michael all right.”
“Oh!” Anthony was deeply chagrined.
“And Mademoiselle has the migraine,” he added aloud, in a dissatisfied tone.
“What has that got to do with it?”
“Probably nothing, but I wanted to see her. You see, I’ve found out that Mademoiselle has the second room from the end—the one where I saw the light last night.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Probably there’s nothing in it. All the same, I mean to see Mademoiselle before the day is out.”
Lunch was somewhat of an ordeal. Even the cheerful impartiality of Bundle failed to reconcile the heterogeneous assembly. The Baron and Andrassy were correct, formal, full of etiquette, and had the air of attending a meal in a mausoleum. Lord Caterham was lethargic and depressed. Bill Eversleigh stared longingly at Virginia. George, very mindful of the trying position in which he found himself, conversed weightily with the Baron and Mr. Isaacstein. Guggle and Winkle, completely beside themselves with joy of having a murder in the house, had to be continually checked and kept under, whilst Mr. Hiram Fish slowly masticated his food, and drawled out dry remarks in his own peculiar idiom. Superintendent Battle had considerately vanished, and nobody knew what had become of him.
“Thank God that’s over,” murmured Bundle to Anthony, as they left the table. “And George is taking the foreign contingent over to the Abbey this afternoon to discuss State secrets.”
“That will possibly relieve the atmosphere,” agreed Anthony.
“I don’t mind the American so much,” continued Bundle. “He and Father can talk first editions together quite happily in some secluded spot. Mr. Fish”—as the object of their conversation drew near—“I’m planning a peaceful afternoon for you.”
The American bowed.
“That’s too kind of you, Lady Eileen.”
“Mr. Fish,” said Anthony, “had quite a peaceful morning.”
Mr. Fish shot a quick glance at him.
“Ah, sir, you observed me, then, in my seclooded retreat? There are moments, sir, when far from the madding crowd is the only motto for a man of quiet tastes.”
Bundle had drifted on, and the American and Anthony were left together. The former dropped his voice a little.
“I opine,” he said, “that there is considerable mystery about this little dust up?”
“Any amount of it,” said Anthony.
“That guy with the bald head was perhaps a family connection?”
“Something of the kind.”
“These Central European nations beat the band,” declared Mr. Fish. “It’s kind of being rumoured around that the deceased gentleman was a Royal Highness. Is that so, do you know?”
“He was staying here as Count Stanislaus,” replied Anthony evasively.
To this Mr. Fish offered no further rejoinder than the somewhat cryptic:
“Oh! boy.”
After which he relapsed into silence for some moments.
“This police captain of yours,” he observed at last, “Battle, or whatever his name is, is he the goods all right?”
“Scotland Yard thinks so,” replied Anthony dryly.
“He seems kind of hide-bound to me,” remarked Mr. Fish. “No hustle to him. This big idea of his, letting no one leave the house, what is there to it?”
He darted a very sharp look at Anthony as he spoke.
“Everyone’s got to attend the inquest to-morrow morning, you see.”
“That’s the idea, is it? No more to it than that? No question of Lord Caterham’s guests being suspected?”
“My dear Mr. Fish!”
“I was getting a mite uneasy—being a stranger in this country. But of course it was an outside job—I remember now. Window found unfastened, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” said Anthony, looking straight in front of him.
Mr. Fish sighed. After a minute or two he said in a plaintive tone:
“Young man, do you know how they get the water out of a mine?”
“How?”
“By pumping—but its almighty hard work! I observe the figure of my genial host detaching itself from the group over yonder. I must join him.”
Mr. Fish walked gently away, and Bundle drifted back again.
“Funny Fish, isn’t he?” she remarked.
“He is.”
“It’s no good looking at Virginia,” said Bundle sharply.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were. I don’t know how she does it. It isn’t what she says, I don’t even believe it’s what she looks. But, oh, boy! she gets there every time. Anyway, she’s on duty elsewhere for the time. She told me to be nice to you, and I’m going to be nice to you—by force if necessary.”
“No force required,” Anthony assured her. “But, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you were nice to me on the water, in a boat.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” said Bundle meditatively.
They strolled down to the lake together.
“There’s just one question I’d like to ask you,” said Anthony as he paddled gently out from the shore, “before we turn to really interesting topics. Business before pleasure.”
“Whose bedroom do you want to know about now?” asked Bundle with weary patience.
“Nobody’s bedroom for the moment. But I would like to know where you got your French governess from.”
“The man’s bewitched,” said Bundle. “I got her from an Agency, and I pay her a hundred pounds a year, and her Christian name is Genevieve. Anything more you want to know?”
“We’ll assume the Agency,” said Anthony. “What about her references?”
“Oh, glowing! She’d lived for ten years with the Countess
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