The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie (good beach reads txt) 📖
- Author: Agatha Christie
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“Bill, darling,” said Virginia, “isn’t the Foreign Office missing you? I thought they couldn’t get on without you.”
“I’ve brought a message for you from Codders.”
Thus irreverently did Bill allude to his chief.
“And by the way, Virginia, in case he asks, remember that your telephone was out of order this morning.”
“But it hasn’t been.”
“I know that. But I said it was.”
“Why? Enlighten me as to this Foreign Office touch.”
Bill threw her a reproachful glance.
“So that I could get here and see you, of course.”
“Oh, darling Bill, how dense of me! And how perfectly sweet of you!”
“Chilvers said you were going out.”
“So I was—to Sloane Street. There’s a place there where they’ve got a perfectly wonderful new hip band.”
“A hip band?”
“Yes, Bill, H.I.P. hip, B.A.N.D. band. A band to confine the hips. You wear it next the skin.”
“I blush for you, Virginia. You shouldn’t describe your underwear to a young man to whom you are not related. It isn’t delicate.”
“But, Bill dear, there’s nothing indelicate about hips. We’ve all got hips—although we poor women are trying awfully hard to pretend we haven’t. This hip band is made of red rubber and comes just to above the knee, and it’s simply impossible to walk in it.”
“How awful!” said Bill. “Why do you do it?”
“Oh, because it gives one such a noble feeling to suffer for one’s silhouette. But don’t let’s talk about my hip band. Give me George’s message.”
“He wants to know whether you’ll be in at four o’clock this afternoon.”
“I shan’t. I shall be at Ranelagh. Why this sort of formal call? Is he going to propose to me, do you think?”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Because, if so, you can tell him that I much prefer men who propose on impulse.”
“Like me?”
“It’s not an impulse with you, Bill. It’s habit.”
“Virginia, won’t you ever——”
“No, no, no, Bill. I won’t have it in the morning before lunch. Do try and think of me as a nice motherly person approaching middle age who has your interests thoroughly at heart.”
“Virginia, I do love you so.”
“I know, Bill, I know. And I simply love being loved. Isn’t it wicked and dreadful of me? I should like every nice man in the world to be in love with me.”
“Most of them are, I expect,” said Bill gloomily.
“But I hope George isn’t in love with me. I don’t think he can be. He’s so wedded to his career. What else did he say?”
“Just that it was very important.”
“Bill, I’m getting intrigued. The things that George thinks important are so awfully limited. I think I must chuck Ranelagh. After all, I can go to Ranelagh any day. Tell George that I shall be awaiting him meekly at four o’clock.”
Bill looked at his wrist watch.
“It seems hardly worth while to go back before lunch. Come out and chew something, Virginia.”
“I’m going out to lunch somewhere or other.”
“That doesn’t matter. Make a day of it, and chuck everything all round.”
“It would be rather nice,” said Virginia, smiling at him.
“Virginia, you’re a darling. Tell me, you do like me rather, don’t you? Better than other people.”
“Bill, I adore you. If I had to marry some one—simply had to—I mean if it was in a book and a wicked mandarin said to me ‘Marry some one or die by slow torture,’ I should choose you at once—I should indeed. I should say, ‘Give me little Bill.’”
“Well, then——”
“Yes, but I haven’t got to marry any one. I love being a wicked widow.”
“You could do all the same things still. Go about, and all that. You’d hardly notice me about the house.”
“Bill, you don’t understand. I’m the kind of person who marries enthusiastically if they marry at all.”
Bill gave a hollow groan.
“I shall shoot myself one of these days, I expect,” he murmured gloomily.
“No, you won’t, Bill darling. You’ll take a pretty girl out to supper—like you did the night before last.”
Mr. Eversleigh was momentarily confused.
“If you mean Dorothy Kirkpatrick, the girl who’s in Hooks and Eyes, I—well, dash it all, she’s a thoroughly nice girl, straight as they make ’em. There was no harm in it.”
“Bill, darling, of course there wasn’t. I love you to enjoy yourself. But don’t pretend to be dying of a broken heart, that’s all.”
Mr. Eversleigh recovered his dignity.
“You don’t understand at all, Virginia,” he said severely. “Men——”
“Are polygamous! I know they are. Sometimes I have a shrewd suspicion that I am polyandrous. If you really love me, Bill, take me out to lunch quickly.”
First Night in London
There is often a flaw in the best-laid plans. George Lomax had made one mistake—there was a weak spot in his preparations. The weak spot was Bill.
Bill Eversleigh was an extremely nice lad. He was a good cricketer and a scratch golfer, he had pleasant manners, and an amiable disposition, but his position in the Foreign Office had been gained, not by brains, but by good connections. For the work he had to do he was quite suitable. He was more or less George’s dog. He did no responsible or brainy work. His part was to be constantly at George’s elbow, to interview unimportant people whom George didn’t want to see, to run errands, and generally to make himself useful. All this Bill carried out faithfully enough. When George was absent, Bill stretched himself out in the biggest chair and read the sporting news, and in so doing he was merely carrying out a time-honoured tradition.
Being accustomed to send Bill on errands, George had dispatched him to the Union Castle offices to find out when the Granarth Castle was due in. Now, in common with most well-educated young Englishmen, Bill had a pleasant, but quite inaudible voice. Any elocution master would have found fault with his pronunciation of the word Granarth. It might have been anything. The Clerk took it to be Carnfrae. The Carnfrae Castle was due in on the following Thursday. He said so. Bill thanked him and went out. George Lomax accepted the information and laid his plans accordingly. He knew nothing about Union Castle liners, and took it for granted that James McGrath would duly arrive on Thursday.
Therefore, at the moment he was buttonholing Lord Caterham on the steps of the club on Wednesday morning, he would have been greatly surprised to learn that the Granarth Castle had docked at Southampton the preceding afternoon.
At two o’clock that afternoon Anthony Cade, travelling under the name of Jimmy McGrath, stepped out of the boat train at Waterloo, hailed a taxi, and after a moment’s hesitation ordered the driver to proceed to the Blitz Hotel.
“One might as well be comfortable,” said Anthony to himself, as he looked with some interest out of the taxi windows.
It was exactly fourteen years since he had been in London.
He arrived at the hotel, booked a room, and then went for a short stroll along the Embankment. It was rather pleasant to be back in London again. Everything was changed of course. There had been a little restaurant there—just past Blackfriars Bridge—where he had dined fairly often, in company with other earnest lads. He had been a Socialist then, and worn a flowing red tie. Young—very young.
He retraced his steps back to the Blitz. Just as he was crossing the road, a man jostled against him, nearly making him lose his balance. They both recovered themselves, and the man muttered an apology, his eyes scanning Anthony’s face narrowly. He was a short, thickset man of the working classes, with something foreign in his appearance.
Anthony went on into the hotel, wondering, as he did so, what had inspired that searching glance. Nothing in it probably. The deep tan of his face was somewhat unusual looking amongst these pallid Londoners and it had attracted the fellow’s attention. He went up to his room and, led by a sudden impulse, crossed to the looking-glass and stood studying his face in it. Of the few friends of the old days—just a chosen few—was it likely that any of them would recognize him now if they were to meet him face to face? He shook his head slowly.
When he had left London he had been just eighteen—a fair, slightly chubby boy, with a misleading seraphic expression. Small chance that the boy would be recognized in the lean, brown-faced man with the quizzical expression.
The telephone beside the bed rang, and Anthony crossed to the receiver.
“Hullo!”
The voice of the desk clerk answered him.
“Mr. James McGrath?”
“Speaking.”
“A gentleman has called to see you.”
Anthony was rather astonished.
“To see me?”
“Yes, sir, a foreign gentleman.”
“What’s his name?”
There was a slight pause, and then the clerk said:
“I will send up a page boy with his card.”
Anthony replaced the receiver and waited. In a few minutes there was a knock on the door and a small page appeared bearing a card upon a salver.
Anthony took it. The following was the name engraved upon it:
Baron Lolopretjzyl.
He now fully appreciated the desk clerk’s pause.
For a moment or two he stood studying the card, and then made up his mind.
“Show the gentleman up.”
“Very good, sir.”
In a few minutes the Baron Lolopretjzyl was ushered into the room, a big man with an immense fan-like black beard and a high, bald forehead.
He brought his heels together with a click, and bowed.
“Mr. McGrath,” he said.
Anthony imitated his movements as nearly as possible.
“Baron,” he said. Then, drawing forward a chair. “Pray sit down. I have not, I think, had the pleasure of meeting you before?”
“That is so,” agreed the Baron, seating himself. “It is my misfortune,” he added politely.
“And mine also,” responded Anthony, on the same note.
“Let us now to business come,” said the Baron. “I represent in London the Loyalist party of Herzoslovakia.”
“And represent it admirably, I am sure,” murmured Anthony.
The Baron bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment.
“You are too kind,” he said stiffly. “Mr. McGrath, I will not from you conceal anything. The moment has come for the Restoration of the Monarchy, in abeyance since the martyrdom of His Most Gracious Majesty King Nicolas IV of blessed memory.”
“Amen,” murmured Anthony. “I mean Hear, Hear.”
“On the throne will be placed His Highness Prince Michael who the support of the British Government has.”
“Splendid,” said Anthony. “It’s very kind of you to tell me all this.”
“Everything arranged is—when you come here to trouble make.”
The Baron fixed him with a stern eye.
“My dear Baron,” protested Anthony.
“Yes, yes, I know what I am talking about. You have with you the Memoirs of the late Count Stylptitch.”
He fixed Anthony with an accusing eye.
“And if I have? What have the Memoirs of Count Stylptitch to do with Prince Michael?”
“They will cause scandals.”
“Most memoirs do that,” said Anthony soothingly.
“Of many secrets he the knowledge had. Should he reveal but the quarter of them, Europe into war plunged may be.”
“Come, come,” said Anthony. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”
“An unfavourable opinion of the Obolovitch will abroad be spread. So democratic is the English spirit.”
“I can quite believe,” said Anthony, “that the Obolovitch may have been a trifle high-handed now and again. It runs in the blood. But people in England expect that sort of thing from the Balkans. I don’t know why they should, but they do.”
“You do not understand,” said the Baron. “You do not understand at all. And my lips sealed are.” He sighed.
“What exactly are you afraid of?” asked Anthony.
“Until I have read the Memoirs I do not know,” explained the Baron simply. “But there is sure to be something. These great diplomats are always indiscreet. The apple cart upset will be, as the saying goes.”
“Look here,” said Anthony kindly. “I’m sure you’re taking altogether too pessimistic a view of the thing. I know all about publishers—they sit on manuscripts and hatch ’em like eggs. It will be at least a year before the
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