The Floating Admiral. Агата Кристи

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СКАЧАТЬ think he was in hiding, sir?”

      “Not exactly in hiding. He came here openly, under his own name. It’s not an unusual thing for a retired naval man to do. But the loaded revolver in the desk tells a tale. That’s not so usual. I could do with knowing a little more about Admiral Penistone’s career. Ah! here comes the sergeant back again.”

      The sergeant, however, did not return alone. With him were the two boys from the Vicarage. Their eager, boyish faces were alight with curiosity.

      “I say, Inspector,” cried Peter, “can’t we help in any way? Haven’t you got a job for us of any kind? Fancy old Penistone, of all people, to get murdered!”

      “Why do you say ‘of all people,’ young gentleman?” enquired the Inspector.

      “Oh! I don’t know.” The boy flushed. “He was so very—well, correct and nautical. All present and shipshape! Sort of old fellow who’d look at you if you forgot to call him ‘sir’ even once.”

      “A martinet and a disciplinarian, eh?”

      “I suppose that’s what I mean. Years behind the times.”

      “I don’t think he was a bad old geezer,” said Alec tolerantly.

      The Inspector turned to Appleton.

      “What about the coat?”

      “The Admiral, sir, was not wearing a coat when he came to dinner last night.”

      “Rather not,” said Peter. “Just nip across the river and there you are. Why should he wear a coat? The Fitzgerald hadn’t got one either.”

      “Wasn’t she sweet?” minced Alec. “All in white like a blushing bride. And old as the hills really.”

      “Well,” said Rudge. “I must be getting along.”

      “Oh, but, Inspector, what about us?”

      Rudge smiled indulgently.

      “Suppose you two young gentlemen have a look for the weapon,” he suggested. “It wasn’t in the wound. Somewhere along the river bank maybe. …”

      He retreated, smiling to himself.

      “That’ll keep ’em busy,” he said to himself. “And do no harm either. They might even come across it—stranger things have happened.”

      As he got into his car and drove in the direction of Whynmouth, his brain worked busily. The evening paper was now accounted for. The Admiral must have returned to the house some time between ten o’clock and midnight, donned an overcoat and slipped the evening paper into his overcoat pocket. Then he had gone out again—where?

      Had he taken the boat? Had he gone either up-stream or down-stream to keep some appointment? Had he walked to some house near by?

      As yet, the whole thing was a mystery.

      On arrival at Whynmouth, Rudge pulled up opposite the Lord Marshall Hotel.

      The Lord Marshall prided itself on its old-world air. The hall was dark and narrow and an intending visitor was bewildered by finding no one to whom to apply. Usually, deceived by the general dimness, application was made to a guest who repulsed the new-comer frostily. On the walls were sporting prints of a humorous nature and several glass cases containing fish.

      Rudge knew his way about the Lord Marshall well enough. He crossed the passage and tapped at a door marked “Private.” The high-pitched voice of Mrs. Davis bid him enter.

      At sight of him the lady took a deep breath and began without wasting a minute:

      “Inspector Rudge, isn’t it? And it’s well I know you by sight, as indeed for the matter of that I know everybody in these parts. And not only by sight, too, for we’ve passed a remark now and again though I dare say you don’t remember. But there, as I always say, to be well known to the police isn’t what you might call a compliment and I’m just as well pleased that we haven’t, as you might say, really met before. And I can tell you this, Inspector Rudge, you couldn’t have done a wiser thing than come straight to me this morning! Seeing that you’re a new-comer in the place—only been here two years, haven’t you, or is it three?—I declare time does run away. That’s what I’m always saying. No sooner is one meal over than it’s time for another. And dinner I will have served to time. These newfangled people arriving in cars, eight o’clock, nine o’clock, even, and wanting dinner. Cold supper, I can manage, I says, but dinner is served at seven o’clock, and then everyone’s free to walk about and very pleasant it is around the harbour on a summer evening, and so the young people think—and even the older ones!”

      Feeling the need of refilling her lungs, Mrs. Davis paused for an infinitesimal moment. She was a jolly, good-humoured-looking woman of fifty, dressed in black silk. She wore a gold locket and several rings.

      Without allowing Rudge a chance to speak, she swept straight on:

      “You needn’t tell me what you’ve come about. It’s Admiral Penistone. Got the news half an hour ago, I did. And ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’re here to-day and gone to-morrow.’ But not gone this way, most of us—or so I devoutly hope. Stabbed to the heart with a narrow instrument, that’s right, isn’t it? And depend upon it, that’s a stiletto, that’s what I said! One of those nasty, murdering Eyetalian stilettos. Wops they call them in New York—the Eyetalians, I mean, not the stilettos. And you mark my words, you’ll find out that whoever murdered the Admiral had been in Italy. Naturally it couldn’t have been an Eyetalian—he’d have been noticed. Used to sell ice cream, they did, in my young day. But now they have Walls and those others and much more wholesome stuff, I dare say. No—we don’t have many foreigners in Whynmouth—except of course Americans—and they’re not really what you’d call foreigners—just a kind of queer English, that’s how I look upon them! And the stories those boatmen tell them—why you’d think they’d be afraid of a judgment—and the poor innocents lapping it up—but there, I’m getting away from the subject. And a sad subject it is.” She shook her head, but with no overdone air of melancholy. “Not that you can say the Admiral was one of us yet. Why, he’d only passed through Whynmouth half a dozen times. Barely knew him by sight, we did. And his niece! A most peculiar young lady, if you ask me, Mr. Rudge! Very odd things I’ve heard about her. Her young gentleman’s actually stopping in the house now. Came down last evening by the 8.30. And if you ask me, I say ‘No.’”

      “Eh!” said Rudge, completely bewildered by this sudden dramatic stop interrupting the flow of speech.

      “I say ‘No,’” repeated Mrs. Davis, nodding her head very violently.

      “No to what?” asked the Inspector, still puzzled.

      “I say, if you ask me if he’s the murderer, I say ‘No!’”

      “Oh! I see, but I never suggested anything of the kind.”

      “Not in words, but it’s what it comes to. Cut the cackle and come to the horses, as Mr. Davis used to say. I’m never one for beating about the bush.”

      “What I was going to ask you was—”

      Mrs. Davis interrupted serenely.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ