Agatha Christie - Why Didn't They Ask Evans Read online

  Nicholson devoted himself to Sylvia and at half-past ten he caught his wife's eye and they rose to go.

  'Well,' said Roger after they had gone, 'what do you think of our Dr Nicholson? A very forceful personality, hasn't he?' I'm like Sylvia,' said Frankie. 'I don't think I like him very much. I like her better.' 'Good-looking, but rather a little idiot,' said Roger. 'She either worships him or is scared to death of him -I don't know which.' 'That's just what I wondered,' agreed Frankie.

  'I don't like him,' said Sylvia, 'but I must admit that he's got a lot of - of. force. I believe he's cured drug takers in the most marvellous way. People whose relations despaired utterly.

  They've gone there as a last hope and come out absolutely cured.' 'Yes,' cried Henry Bassington-ffrench suddenly. 'And do you know what goes on there? Do you know the awful suffering and mental torment? A man's used to a drug and they cut him off it - cut him off it - till he goes raving mad for the lack of it and beats his head against the wall. That's what he does - your "forceful" doctor tortures people - tortures them - sends them to Hell - drives them mad...' He was shaking violently. Suddenly he turned and left the room.

  Sylvia Bassington-ffrench looked startled.

  'What is the matter with Henry?' she said wonderingly. 'He seems very upset.' Frankie and Roger dared not look at each other.

  'He's not looked well all evening,' ventured Frankie.

  'No. I noticed that. He's very moody lately. I wish he hadn't given up riding. Oh, by the way, Dr Nicholson invited Tommy over tomorrow, but I don't like him going there very much not with all those queer nerve cases and dope-takers.' 'I don't suppose the doctor would allow him to come into contact with them,' said Roger. 'He seems very fond of children.' 'Yes, I think it's a disappointment he hasn't got any of his own. Probably to her, too. She looks very sad - and terribly delicate.' 'She's like a sad Madonna,' said Frankie.

  'Yes, that describes her very well.' 'If Dr Nicholson is so fond of children I suppose he came to your children's party?' said Frankie carelessly.

  'Unfortunately he was away for a day or two just then. I think he had to go to London for some conference.' 'I see.' They went up to bed. Before she went to sleep, Frankie wrote to Bobby.

  CHAPTER 15 A Discovery

  Bobby had had an irksome time. His forced inaction was exceedingly trying. He hated staying quietly in London and doing nothing.

  He had been rung up on the telephone by George Arbuthnot who, in a few laconic words, told him that all had gone well. A couple of days later, he had a letter from Frankie, delivered to him by her maid, the letter having gone under cover to her at Lord Marchington's town house.

  Since then he had heard nothing.

  'Letter for you,' called out Badger.

  Bobby came forward excitedly but the letter was one addressed in his father's handwriting, and postmarked Marchbolt.

  At that moment, however, he caught sight of the neat blackgowned figure of Frankie's maid approaching down the Mews.

  Five minutes later he was tearing open Frankie's second letter.

  Dear Bobby (wrote Frankie,), / think it's about time you came down. I've given them instructions at home that you're to have the Bentley whenever you ask for it. Get a chauffeur's livery - darkgreen ours always are. Put it down to father at Harrods. It's best to be correct in details. Concentrate on making a good job of the moustache. It makes a frightful difference to anyone's face.

  Come down here and ask for me. You might bring me an ostensible note from Father. Report that the car is now in working order again. The garage here only holds two cars and as it's got the family Daimler and Roger Bassington-ffrench 's two-seater in it, it is fortunately full up, so you will go to Staverley and put up there.

  Get what local information you can when there - particularly about a Dr Nicholson who runs a place for dope patients. Several suspicious circumstances about him - he has a dark-blue Talbot saloon, he was away from home on the 16th when your beer was doctored, and he takes altogether too detailed an interest in the circumstances of my accident.

  I think I've identified the corpse!

  Au revoir, my fellow sleuth.

  Love from your successfully concussed, Frankie.

  P.S. I shall post this myself.

  Bobby's spirits rose with a bound.

  Discarding his overalls and breaking the news of his immediate departure to Badger, he was about to hurry off when he remembered that he had not yet opened his father's letter. He did so with a rather qualified enthusiasm since the Vicar's letters were actuated by a spirit of duty rather than pleasure and breathed an atmosphere of Christian forbearance which was highly depressing.

  The Vicar gave conscientious news of doings in Marchbolt, describing his own troubles with the organist and commenting on the unchristian spirit of one of his churchwardens. The rebinding of the hymn books was also touched upon. And the Vicar hoped that Bobby was sticking manfully to his job and trying to make good, and remained his ever affectionate father.

  There was a postscript: By the way, someone called who asked for your address in London.

  I was out at the time and he did not leave his name. Mrs Roberts describes him as a tall, stooping gentleman with pince-nez. He seemed very sorry to miss you and very anxious to see you again.

  A tall, stooping man with pince-nez. Bobby ran over in his mind anyone of his acquaintance likely to fit that description but could think of nobody.

  Suddenly a quick suspicion darted into his mind. Was this the forerunner of a new attempt upon his life? Were these mysterious enemies, or enemy, trying to track him down?

  He sat still and did some serious thinking. They, whoever they were, had only just discovered that he had left the neighbourhood. All unsuspecting, Mrs Roberts had given his new address.

  So that already they, whoever they were, might be keeping a watch upon the place. If he went out he would be followed and just as things were at the moment that would never do.

  'Badger,' said Bobby.

  'Yes, old lad.' 'Come here.' The next five minutes were spent in genuine hard work. At the end often minutes Badger could repeat his instructions by heart.

  When he was word perfect, Bobby got into a two-seater Flat dating from 1902 and drove dashingly down the Mews. He parked the Flat in St James's Square and walked straight from there to his club. There he did some telephoning and a couple of hours later certain parcels were delivered to him. Finally, about half-past three, a chauffeur in dark green livery walked to St James's Square and went rapidly up to a large Bentley which had been parked there about half an hour previously.

  The parking attendant nodded to him - the gentleman who had left the car had remarked, stammering slightly as he did so, that his chauffeur would be fetching it shortly.

  Bobby let in the clutch and drew neatly out. The abandoned Flat still stood demurely awaiting its owner. Bobby, despite the intense discomfort of his upper lip, began to enjoy himself. He headed north, not south, and, before long, the powerful engine was forging ahead on the Great North Road.

  It was only an extra precaution that he was taking. He was pretty sure that he was not being followed. Presently he turned off to the left and made his way by circuitous roads to Hampshire.

  It was just after tea that the Bentley purred up the drive of Merroway Court, a stiff and correct chauffeur at the wheel.

  'Hullo,' said Frankie lightly. There's the car.' She went out to the front door. Sylvia and Roger came with her.

  'Is everything all right, Hawkins?' The chauffeur touched his cap.

  'Yes, m'lady. She's been thoroughly overhauled.' 'That's all right, then.' The chauffeur produced a note.

  'From his lordship, m'lady.' Frankie took it.

  'You'll put up at the - what is it - Anglers' Arms in Staverley, Hawkins. I'll telephone in the morning if I want the car.' 'Very good, your ladyship.' Bobby backed, turned and sped down the drive.

  'I'm so sorry we haven't room here,' said Sylvia. 'It's a lovely car.' 'You get some
pace out of that,' said Roger.

  'I do,' admitted Frankie.

  She was satisfied that no faintest quiver of recognition had shown on Roger's face. She would have been surprised if it had. She would not have recognized Bobby herself had she met him casually. The small moustache had a perfectly natural appearance, and that, with the stiff demeanour so uncharacteristic of the natural Bobby, completed the disguise enhanced by the chauffeur's livery.

  The voice, too, had been excellent, and quite unlike Bobby's own. Frankie began to think that Bobby was far more talented than she had given him credit for being.

  Meanwhile Bobby had successfully taken up his quarters at the Anglers' Arms.

  It was up to him to create the part of Edward Hawkins, chauffeur to Lady Frances Derwent.

  As to the behaviour of chauffeurs in private life, Bobby was singularly ill-informed, but he imagined that a certain haughtiness would not come amiss. He tried to feel himself a superior being and to act accordingly. The admiring attitude of various young women employed in the Anglers' Arms had a distinctly encouraging effect and he soon found that Frankie and her accident had provided the principal topic of conversation in Staverley ever since it had happened. Bobby unbent towards the landlord, a stout, genial person of the name of Thomas Askew, and permitted information to leak from him.

  'Young Reeves, he was there and saw it happen,' declared Mr Askew.

  Bobby blessed the natural mendacity of the young. The famous accident was now vouched for by an eye witness.

  'Thought his last moment had come, he did,' went on Mr Askew. 'Straight for him down the hill it come - and then took the wall instead. A wonder the young lady wasn't killed.' 'Her ladyship takes some killing,' said Bobby.

  'Had many accidents, has she?' 'She's been lucky,' said Bobby. 'But I assure you, Mr Askew, that when her ladyship's taken over the wheel from me as she sometimes does - well, I've made sure my last hour has come.' Several persons present shook their heads wisely and said they didn't wonder and it's just what they would have thought.

  'Very nice little place you have here, Mr Askew,' said Bobby kindly and condescendingly. 'Very nice and snug.' Mr Askew expressed gratification.

  'Merroway Court the only big place in the neighbourhood?' 'Well, there's the Grange, Mr Hawkins. Not that you'd call that a place exactly. There's no family living there. No, it had been empty for years until this American doctor took it.' 'An American doctor?' 'That's it - Nicholson his name is. And if you ask me, Mr Hawkins, there are some very queer goings on there.' The barmaid at this point remarked that Dr Nicholson gave her the shivers, he did.

  'Goings on, Mr Askew?' said Bobby. 'Now, what do you mean by goings on?' Mr Askew shook his head darkly.

  'There's those there that don't want to be there. Put away by their relations. I assure you, Mr Hawkins, the meanings and the shrieks and the groans that go on there you wouldn't believe.' 'Why don't the police interfere?' 'Oh, well, you see, it's supposed to be all right. Nerve cases, and such like. Loonies that aren't so very bad. The gentleman's a doctor and it's all right, so to speak -' Here the landlord buried his face in a pint pot and emerged again to shake his head in a very doubtful fashion.

  'Ah!' said Bobby in a dark and meaning way. 'If we knew everything that went on in these places...' And he, too, applied himself to a pewter pot.

  The barmaid chimed in eagerly.

  'That's what I say, Mr Hawkins. What goes on there? Why, one night a poor young creature escaped - in her nightgown she was - and the doctor and a couple of nurses out looking for her.

  "Oh! don't let them take me back!" That's what she was crying out. Pitiful it was. And about her being rich really and her relations having her put away. But they took her back, they did, and the doctor he explained that she'd got a persecution mania - that's what he called it. Kind of thinking everyone was against her. But I've often wondered - yes, I have. I've often wondered...' 'Ah!' said Mr Askew. 'It's easy enough to say ' Somebody present said that there was no knowing what went on in places. And somebody else said that.was right.

  Finally the meeting broke up and Bobby announced his intention of going for a stroll before turning in.

  The Grange was, he knew, on the other side of the village from Merroway Court, so he turned his footsteps in that direction. What he had heard that evening seemed to him worthy of attention. A lot of it could, of course, be discounted.

  Villages are usually prejudiced against newcomers, and still more so if the newcomer is of a different nationality. If Nicholson ran a place for curing drug takers, in all probability there would be strange sounds issuing from it - groans and even shrieks might be heard without any sinister reason for them, but all the same, the story of the escaping girl struck Bobby unpleasantly.

  Supposing the Grange were really a place where people were kept against their will? A certain amount of genuine cases might be taken as camouflage.

  At this point in his meditations Bobby arrived at a high wall with an entrance of wrought-iron gates. He stepped up to the gates and tried one gently. It was locked. Well, after all, why not?

  And yet somehow, the touch of that locked gate gave him a faintly sinister feeling. The place was like a prison.

  He moved a little farther along the road measuring the wall with his eye. Would it be possible to climb over? The wall was smooth and high and presented no accommodating crannies.

  He shook his head. Suddenly he came upon a little door.

  Without much real hope he tried it. To his surprise it yielded.

  It was not locked.

  'Bit of an oversight here,' thought Bobby with a grin.

  He slipped through, closing the door softly behind him.

  He found himself on a path leading through a shrubbery. He followed the path which twisted a good deal - in fact, it reminded Bobby of the one in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

  Suddenly, without any warning, the path gave a sharp turn and emerged into an open space close to the house. It was a moonlit night and the space was clearly lit. Bobby had stepped full into the moonlight before he could stop himself.

  At the same moment a woman's figure came round the corner of the house. She was treading very softly, glancing from side to side with - or so it seemed to the watching Bobby - the nervous alertness of a hunted animal. Suddenly she stopped dead and stood, swaying as though she would fall.

  Bobby rushed forward and caught her. Her lips were white and it seemed to him that never had he seen such an awful fear on any human countenance.

  'It's all right,' he said reassuringly in a very low voice. 'It's quite all right.' The girl, for she was little more, moaned faintly, her eyelids half closed.

  'I'm so frightened,' she murmured. 'I'm so terribly frightened.' 'What's the matter?' said Bobby.

  The girl only shook her head and repeated faintly: 'I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly frightened.' Suddenly some sound seemed to come to her ears. She sprang upright, away from Bobby. Then she turned to him.

  'Go away,' she said. 'Go away at once.' 'I want to help you,' said Bobby.

  'Do you?' She looked at him for a minute or two, a strange searching and moving glance. It was as though she explored his soul.

  Then she shook her head.

  'No one can help me.' 'I can,' said Bobby. 'I'd do anything. Tell me what it is that frightens you so.' She shook her head.

  'Not now. Oh! quick - they're coming! You can't help me unless you go now. At once - at once.' Bobby yielded to her urgency.

  With a whispered: 'I'm at the Anglers' Arms,' he plunged back along the path. The last he saw of her was an urgent gesture bidding him hurry.

  Suddenly he heard footsteps on the path in front of him.

  Someone was coming along the path from the little door.

  Bobby plunged abruptly into the bushes at the side of the path.

  He had not been mistaken. A man was coming along the path. He passed close to Bobby but it was too dark for the young man to see his face.

  When
he had passed, Bobby resumed his retreat. He felt that he could do nothing more that night.

  Anyway, his head was in a whirl.

  For he had recognized the girl - recognized her beyond any possible doubt.

  She was the original of the photograph which had so mysteriously disappeared.

  CHAPTER 16 Bobby Becomes a Solicitor

  'Mr Hawkins?' 'Yes,' said Bobby, his voice slightly muffled owing to a large mouthful of bacon and eggs.

  'You're wanted on the telephone.' Bobby took a hasty gulp of coffee, wiped his mouth and rose.

  The telephone was in a small dark passage. He took up the receiver..