Detectives and Young Adventurers: The Complete Short Stories. Agatha Christie

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ not?’ demanded Mr Reilly belligerently.

      ‘Oh! nothing,’ said Tuppence hastily.

      ‘I’m for peace all the time,’ said Mr Reilly fiercely. ‘To Hell with war. And women! Women! Did you see that creature who was trailing around here just now? Gilda Glen, she calls herself. Gilda Glen! God! how I’ve worshipped that woman. And I’ll tell you this – if she’s got a heart at all, it’s on my side. She cared once for me, and I could make her care again. And if she sells herself to that muck heap, Leconbury – well, God help her. I’d as soon kill her with my own hands.’

      And on this, suddenly, he rose and rushed from the room.

      Tommy raised his eyebrows.

      ‘A somewhat excitable gentleman,’ he murmured. ‘Well, Tuppence, shall we start?’

      A fine mist was coming up as they emerged from the hotel into the cool outer air. Obeying Estcourt’s directions, they turned sharp to the left, and in a few minutes they came to a turning labelled Morgan’s Avenue.

      The mist had increased. It was soft and white, and hurried past them in little eddying drifts. To their left was the high wall of the cemetery, on their right a row of small houses. Presently these ceased, and a high hedge took their place.

      ‘Tommy,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’m beginning to feel jumpy. The mist – and the silence. As though we were miles from anywhere.’

      ‘One does feel like that,’ agreed Tommy. ‘All alone in the world. It’s the effect of the mist, and not being able to see ahead of one.’

      Tuppence nodded.

      ‘Just our footsteps echoing on the pavement. What’s that?’

      ‘What’s what?’

      ‘I thought I heard other footsteps behind us.’

      ‘You’ll be seeing the ghost in a minute if you work yourself up like this,’ said Tommy kindly. ‘Don’t be so nervy. Are you afraid the spook policeman will lay his hands on your shoulder?’

      Tuppence emitted a shrill squeal.

      ‘Don’t, Tommy. Now you’ve put it into my head.’

      She craned her head back over her shoulder, trying to peer into the white veil that was wrapped all round them.

      ‘There they are again,’ she whispered. ‘No, they’re in front now. Oh! Tommy, don’t say you can’t hear them?’

      ‘I do hear something. Yes, it’s footsteps behind us. Somebody else walking this way to catch the train. I wonder –’

      He stopped suddenly, and stood still, and Tuppence gave a gasp.

      For the curtain of mist in front of them suddenly parted in the most artificial manner, and there, not twenty feet away, a gigantic policeman suddenly appeared, as though materialised out of the fog. One minute he was not there, the next minute he was – so at least it seemed to the rather superheated imaginations of the two watchers. Then as the mist rolled back still more, a little scene appeared, as though set on a stage.

      The big blue policeman, a scarlet pillar box, and on the right of the road the outlines of a white house.

      ‘Red, white, and blue,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s damned pictorial. Come on, Tuppence, there’s nothing to be afraid of.’

      For, as he had already seen, the policeman was a real policeman. And, moreover, he was not nearly so gigantic as he had at first seemed looming up out of the mist.

      But as they started forward, footsteps came from behind them. A man passed them, hurrying along. He turned in at the gate of the white house, ascended the steps, and beat a deafening tattoo upon the knocker. He was admitted just as they reached the spot where the policeman was standing staring after him.

      ‘There’s a gentleman seems to be in a hurry,’ commented the policeman.

      He spoke in a slow reflective voice, as one whose thoughts took some time to mature.

      ‘He’s the sort of gentleman always would be in a hurry,’ remarked Tommy.

      The policeman’s stare, slow and rather suspicious, came round to rest on his face.

      ‘Friend of yours?’ he demanded, and there was distinct suspicion now in his voice.

      ‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘He’s not a friend of mine, but I happen to know who he is. Name of Reilly.’

      ‘Ah!’ said the policeman. ‘Well, I’d better be getting along.’

      ‘Can you tell me where the White House is?’ asked Tommy.

      The constable jerked his head sideways.

      ‘This is it. Mrs Honeycott’s.’ He paused, and added, evidently with the idea of giving them valuable information, ‘Nervous party. Always suspecting burglars is around. Always asking me to have a look around the place. Middle-aged women get like that.’

      ‘Middle-aged, eh?’ said Tommy. ‘Do you happen to know if there’s a young lady staying there?’

      ‘A young lady,’ said the policeman, ruminating. ‘A young lady. No, I can’t say I know anything about that.’

      ‘She mayn’t be staying here, Tommy,’ said Tuppence. ‘And anyway, she mayn’t be here yet. She could only have started just before we did.’

      ‘Ah!’ said the policeman suddenly. ‘Now that I call it to mind, a young lady did go in at this gate. I saw her as I was coming up the road. About three or four minutes ago it might be.’

      ‘With ermine furs on?’ asked Tuppence eagerly.

      ‘She had some kind of white rabbit round her throat,’ admitted the policeman.

      Tuppence smiled. The policeman went on in the direction from which they had just come, and they prepared to enter the gate of the White House.

      Suddenly, a faint, muffled cry sounded from inside the house, and almost immediately afterwards the front door opened and James Reilly came rushing down the steps. His face was white and twisted, and his eyes glared in front of him unseeingly. He staggered like a drunken man.

      He passed Tommy and Tuppence as though he did not see them, muttering to himself with a kind of dreadful repetition.

      ‘My God! My God! Oh, my God!’

      He clutched at the gatepost, as though to steady himself, and then, as though animated by sudden panic, he raced off down the road as hard as he could go in the opposite direction from that taken by the policeman.

      Tommy and Tuppence stared at each other in bewilderment.

      ‘Well,’ said Tommy, ‘something’s happened in that house to scare our friend Reilly pretty badly.’

      Tuppence drew her finger absently across the gatepost.

      ‘He must have put his hand СКАЧАТЬ