Sleeping Murder. Agatha Christie

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      The boards creaked faintly under her feet. Already she felt that it was she and not Mrs Hengrave who lived here! Mrs Hengrave was an interloper—a woman who did up rooms in mustard-cum-biscuit colour and liked a frieze of wisteria in her drawing-room. Gwenda glanced down at the typewritten paper in her hand on which the details of the property and the price asked were given.

      In the course of a few days Gwenda had become fairly conversant with house values. The sum asked was not large—of course the house needed a certain amount of modernization—but even then … And she noted the words ‘Open to offer’. Mrs Hengrave must be very anxious to go to Kent and live near ‘her people’ …

      They were starting down the stairs when quite suddenly Gwenda felt a wave of irrational terror sweep over her. It was a sickening sensation, and it passed almost as quickly as it came. Yet it left behind it a new idea.

      ‘The house isn’t—haunted, is it?’ demanded Gwenda.

      Mrs Hengrave, a step below, and having just got to the moment in her narrative when Major Hengrave was sinking fast, looked up in an affronted manner.

      ‘Not that I am aware of, Mrs Reed. Why—has anyone—been saying something of the kind?’

      ‘You’ve never felt or seen anything yourself? Nobody’s died here?’

      Rather an unfortunate question, she thought, a split second of a moment too late, because presumably Major Hengrave—

      ‘My husband died in the St Monica’s Nursing Home,’ said Mrs Hengrave stiffly.

      ‘Oh, of course. You told me so.’

      Mrs Hengrave continued in the same rather glacial manner: ‘In a house which was presumably built about a hundred years ago, there would normally be deaths during that period. Miss Elworthy from whom my dear husband acquired this house seven years ago, was in excellent health, and indeed planning to go abroad and do missionary work, and she did not mention any recent demises in her family.’

      Gwenda hastened to soothe the melancholy Mrs Hengrave down. They were now once more in the drawing-room. It was a peaceful and charming room, with exactly the kind of atmosphere that Gwenda coveted. Her momentary panic just now seemed quite incomprehensible. What had come over her? There was nothing wrong with the house.

      Asking Mrs Hengrave if she could take a look at the garden, she went out through the french windows on to the terrace.

      There should be steps here, thought Gwenda, going down to the lawn.

      But instead there was a vast uprising of forsythia which at this particular place seemed to have got above itself and effectually shut out all view of the sea.

      Gwenda nodded to herself. She would alter all that.

      Following Mrs Hengrave, she went along the terrace and down some steps at the far side on to the lawn. She noted that the rockery was neglected and overgrown, and that most of the flowering shrubs needed pruning.

      Mrs Hengrave murmured apologetically that the garden had been rather neglected. Only able to afford a man twice a week. And quite often he never turned up.

      They inspected the small but adequate kitchen garden and returned to the house. Gwenda explained that she had other houses to see, and that though she liked Hillside (what a commonplace name!) very much, she could not decide immediately.

      Mrs Hengrave parted from her with a somewhat wistful look and a last long lingering sniff.

      Gwenda returned to the agents, made a firm offer subject to surveyor’s report and spent the rest of the morning walking round Dillmouth. It was a charming and old-fashioned little seaside town. At the far, ‘modern’ end, there were a couple of new-looking hotels and some raw-looking bungalows, but the geographical formation of the coast with the hills behind had saved Dillmouth from undue expansion.

      After lunch Gwenda received a telephone call from the agents saying that Mrs Hengrave accepted her offer. With a mischievous smile on her lips Gwenda made her way to the post office and despatched a cable to Giles.

       Have bought a house. Love. Gwenda.

      ‘That’ll tickle him up,’ said Gwenda to herself. ‘Show him that the grass doesn’t grow under my feet!’

       CHAPTER 2

       Wallpaper

      A month had passed and Gwenda had moved into Hillside. Giles’s aunt’s furniture had come out of store and was arranged round the house. It was good quality old-fashioned stuff. One or two over-large wardrobes Gwenda had sold, but the rest fitted in nicely and was in harmony with the house. There were small gay papier-mâché tables in the drawing-room, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and painted with castles and roses. There was a prim little work-table with a gathered sack underneath of puce silk, there was a rosewood bureau and a mahogany sofa table.

      The so-called easy chairs Gwenda had relegated to various bedrooms and had bought two large squashy wells of comfort for herself and Giles to stand each side of the fireplace. The large chesterfield sofa was placed near the windows. For curtains Gwenda had chosen old-fashioned chintz of pale egg-shell blue with prim urns of roses and yellow birds on them. The room, she now considered, was exactly right.

      She was hardly settled yet, since she had workmen in the house still. They should have been out by now, but Gwenda rightly estimated that until she herself came into residence, they would not go.

      The kitchen alterations were finished, the new bathrooms nearly so. For further decorating Gwenda was going to wait a while. She wanted time to savour her new home and decide on the exact colour schemes she wanted for the bedrooms. The house was really in very good order and there was no need to do everything at once.

      In the kitchen a Mrs Cocker was now installed, a lady of condescending graciousness, inclined to repulse Gwenda’s over-democratic friendliness, but who, once Gwenda had been satisfactorily put in her place, was willing to unbend.

      On this particular morning, Mrs Cocker deposited a breakfast tray on Gwenda’s knees, as she sat up in bed.

      ‘When there’s no gentleman in the house,’ Mrs Cocker affirmed, ‘a lady prefers her breakfast in bed.’ And Gwenda had bowed to this supposedly English enactment.

      ‘Scrambled this morning,’ Mrs Cocker observed, referring to the eggs. ‘You said something about finnan haddock, but you wouldn’t like it in the bedroom. It leaves a smell. I’m giving it to you for your supper, creamed on toast.’

      ‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Cocker.’

      Mrs Cocker smiled graciously and prepared to withdraw.

      Gwenda was not occupying the big double bedroom. That could wait until Giles returned. She had chosen instead the end room, the one with the rounded walls and the bow window. She felt thoroughly at home in it and happy.

      Looking round her now, she exclaimed impulsively: ‘I do like this room.’

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