The Seven Dials Mystery. Agatha Christie

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      ‘But why did you shoot him?’

      ‘I didn’t shoot him.’

      ‘You shouldn’t shoot people,’ said Lord Caterham in a tone of mild remonstrance. ‘You shouldn’t really. I daresay some of them richly deserve it–but all the same it will lead to trouble.’

      ‘I tell you I didn’t shoot him.’

      ‘Well, who did?’

      ‘Nobody knows,’ said Bundle.

      ‘Nonsense,’ said Lord Caterham. ‘A man can’t be shot and run over without anyone having done it.’

      ‘He wasn’t run over,’ said Bundle.

      ‘I thought you said he was.’

      ‘I said I thought I had.’

      ‘A tyre burst, I suppose,’ said Lord Caterham. ‘That does sound like a shot. It says so in detective stories.’

      ‘You really are perfectly impossible, Father. You don’t seem to have the brains of a rabbit.’

      ‘Not at all,’ said Lord Caterham. ‘You come in with a wildly impossible tale about men being run over and shot and I don’t know what, and then you expect me to know all about it by magic.’

      Bundle sighed wearily.

      ‘Just attend,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it in words of one syllable.’

      ‘There,’ she said when she had concluded. ‘Now have you got it?’

      ‘Of course. I understand perfectly now. I can make allowances for your being a little upset, my dear. I was not far wrong when I remarked to you before starting out that people looking for trouble usually found it. I am thankful,’ finished Lord Caterham with a slight shiver, ‘that I stayed quietly here.’

      He picked up the catalogue again.

      ‘Father, where is Seven Dials?’

      ‘In the East End somewhere, I fancy. I have frequently observed buses going there–or do I mean Seven Sisters? I have never been there myself, I’m thankful to say. Just as well, because I don’t fancy it is the sort of spot I should like. And yet, curiously enough, I seem to have heard of it in some connection just lately.’

      ‘You don’t know a Jimmy Thesiger, do you?’

      Lord Caterham was now engrossed in his catalogue once more. He had made an effort to be intelligent on the subject of Seven Dials. This time he made hardly any effort at all.

      ‘Thesiger,’ he murmured vaguely. ‘Thesiger. One of the Yorkshire Thesigers?’

      ‘That’s what I’m asking you. Do attend, Father. This is important.’

      Lord Caterham made a desperate effort to look intelligent without really having to give his mind to the matter.

      ‘There are some Yorkshire Thesigers,’ he said earnestly. ‘And unless I am mistaken some Devonshire Thesigers also. Your Great Aunt Selina married a Thesiger.’

      ‘What good is that to me?’ cried Bundle.

      Lord Caterham chuckled.

      ‘It was very little good to her, if I remember rightly.’

      ‘You’re impossible,’ said Bundle, rising. ‘I shall have to get hold of Bill.’

      ‘Do, dear,’ said her father absently as he turned a page. ‘Certainly. By all means. Quite so.’

      Bundle rose to her feet with an impatient sigh.

      ‘I wish I could remember what that letter said,’ she murmured, more to herself than aloud. ‘I didn’t read it very carefully. Something about a joke, that the Seven Dials business wasn’t a joke.’

      Lord Caterham emerged suddenly from his catalogue.

      ‘Seven Dials?’ he said. ‘Of course. I’ve got it now.’

      ‘Got what?’

      ‘I know why it sounded so familiar. George Lomax has been over. Tredwell failed for once and let him in. He was on his way up to town. It seems he’s having some political party at the Abbey next week and he got a warning letter.’

      ‘What do you mean by a warning letter?’

      ‘Well, I don’t really know. He didn’t go into details. I gather it said “Beware” and “Trouble is at hand”, and all those sort of things. But anyway it was written from Seven Dials, I distinctly remember his saying so. He was going up to town to consult Scotland Yard about it. You know George?’

      Bundle nodded. She was well acquainted with that public-spirited Cabinet Minister, George Lomax, His Majesty’s permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who was shunned by many because of his inveterate habit of quoting from his public speeches in private. In allusion to his bulging eyeballs, he was known to many–Bill Eversleigh among others–as Codders.

      ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘was Codders interested at all in Gerald Wade’s death?’

      ‘Not that I heard of. He may have been, of course.’

      Bundle said nothing for some minutes. She was busily engaged in trying to remember the exact wording of the letter she had sent on to Loraine Wade, and at the same time she was trying to picture the girl to whom it had been written. What sort of a girl was this to whom, apparently, Gerald Wade was so devoted? The more she thought over it, the more it seemed to her that it was an unusual letter for a brother to write.

      ‘Did you say the Wade girl was Gerry’s half-sister?’ she asked suddenly.

      ‘Well, of course, strictly speaking, I suppose she isn’t–wasn’t, I mean–his sister at all.’

      ‘But her name’s Wade?’

      ‘Not really. She wasn’t old Wade’s child. As I was saying, he ran away with his second wife, who was married to a perfect blackguard. I suppose the Courts gave the rascally husband the custody of the child, but he certainly didn’t avail himself of the privilege. Old Wade got very fond of the child and insisted that she should be called by his name.’

      ‘I see,’ said Bundle. ‘That explains it.’

      ‘Explains what?’

      ‘Something that puzzled me about that letter.’

      ‘She’s rather a pretty girl, I believe,’ said Lord Caterham. ‘Or so I’ve heard.’

      Bundle went upstairs thoughtfully. She had several objects in view. First she must find this Jimmy Thesiger. Bill, perhaps, would be helpful there. Ronny Devereux had been a friend of Bill’s. If Jimmy Thesiger was a friend of Ronny’s, the chances were that Bill would know him too. Then there was the girl, Loraine Wade. It was possible that she could throw some light on the СКАЧАТЬ