The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie (good beach reads txt) 📖

Scene—Chimneys, 11 A.M. Thursday morning.

Johnson, the police constable, with his coat off, digging.

Something in the nature of a funeral feeling seems to be in the air. The friends and relations stand round the grave that Johnson is digging.

George Lomax has the air of the principal beneficiary under the will of the deceased. Superintendent Battle, with his immovable face, seems pleased that the funeral arrangements have gone so nicely. As the undertaker, it reflects credit upon him. Lord Caterham has that solemn and shocked look which Englishmen assume when a religious ceremony is in progress.

Mr. Fish does not fit into the picture so well. He is not sufficiently grave.

Johnson bends to his task. Suddenly he straightens up. A little stir of excitement passes round.

“That’ll do, sonny,” says Mr. Fish. “We shall do nicely now.”

One perceives at once that he is really the family physician.

Johnson retires. Mr. Fish, with due solemnity, stoops over the excavation. The surgeon is about to operate.

He brings out a small canvas package. With much ceremony he hands it to Superintendent Battle. The latter, in his turn, hands it to George Lomax. The etiquette of the situation has now been fully complied with.

George Lomax unwraps the package, slits up the oil-silk inside it, burrows into further wrapping. For a moment he holds something on the palm of his hand—then quickly shrouds it once more in cotton wool.

He clears his throat.

“At this auspicious minute,” he begins, with the clear delivery of the practised speaker.

Lord Caterham beats a precipitate retreat. On the terrace he finds his daughter.

“Bundle, is that car of yours in order?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Then take me up to town in it immediately. I’m going abroad at once—to-day.”

“But, father——”

“Don’t argue with me, Bundle. George Lomax told me when he arrived this morning that he was anxious to have a few words with me privately on a matter of the utmost delicacy. He added that the King of Timbuctoo was arriving in London shortly. I won’t go through it again, Bundle, do you hear? Not for fifty George Lomaxes! If Chimneys is so valuable to the nation, let the nation buy it. Otherwise I shall sell it to a syndicate and they can turn it into an hotel.”

“Where is Codders now?”

Bundle is rising to the situation.

“At the present minute,” replied Lord Caterham, looking at his watch, “he is good for at least fifteen minutes about the Empire.”

Another picture.

Mr. Bill Eversleigh, not invited to be present at the graveside ceremony, at the telephone.

“No, really, I mean it.... I say, don’t be huffy.... Well, you will have supper to-night anyway?... No, I haven’t. I’ve been kept to it with my nose at the grindstone. You’ve no idea what Codders is like.... I say, Dolly, you know jolly well what I think about you.... You know I’ve never cared for anyone but you.... Yes, I’ll come to the show first. How does the old wheeze go? ‘And the little girl tries, Hooks and Eyes’....”

Unearthly sounds. Mr. Eversleigh trying to hum the refrain in question.

And now George’s peroration draws to a close.

... “the lasting peace and prosperity of the British Empire!”

“I guess,” said Mr. Hiram Fish sotto voce to himself and the world at large, “that this has been a great little old week.”