The Floating Admiral. Агата Кристи

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and asked for Mr. Holland.”

      The Inspector nodded. “So I believe. Now, I’m particularly anxious to know how he was looking then. Did he seem worried, or anxious, or anything like that?”

      “I couldn’t very well say, sir. You see, it was gone eleven, and I was just going to shut up the house. Mrs. Davis is always telling me to be careful of the gas, and there was only one light burning. The Admiral came just inside the door, and stood where you might be standing now, sir. ‘Is Mr. Holland in?’ he asks, sharp like. And almost before I had time to say he was in bed, he said that it didn’t matter and that he couldn’t wait, as he had a train to catch. He wasn’t here no more than a few seconds, sir. He seemed in a hurry, but I couldn’t properly see his face. I wouldn’t have known who it was if he hadn’t told me.”

      Again the Inspector nodded. “You’d recognise him again if you saw him, I suppose?” he asked.

      “Well, sir, I might and I mightn’t. I never got a proper sight of him, as you might say.”

      “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” said the Inspector carelessly. “Was Mr. Holland in when Admiral Penistone called?”

      “I’m pretty sure he was, sir, leastways, his boots was outside his door. I saw them when I went up to bed soon after. And he didn’t come in later, I know that for a fact.”

      “How can you be sure of that?”

      “Why, sir, because I locked the door as I always do round about half-past eleven. If anybody wants to get in after that, they presses the bell, which rings in my room, and I comes down and lets them in. And the bell didn’t ring last night, sir.”

      “I see. And when is the door opened again?”

      “I unbolts it first thing, when I comes down in the morning, sir, round about six, that is.”

      “What do you do after you unlock the door?”

      “Why, sir, I lights the kitchen fire and puts on the kettle for a cup of tea.”

      “Did you happen to see Mr. Holland this morning?”

      “I was in the hall when he went out after breakfast, sir. About nine o’clock that would have been. And he hasn’t come back since, at least not that I know of.”

      The sound of Mrs. Davis’s voice, rapidly growing in intensity as she returned from the back regions, caused Rudge to beat a hasty retreat. He slipped out of the hotel, and began to walk towards the police station, reviewing the scraps of information which he had picked up at the Lord Marshall, and congratulating himself upon having had the idea of interviewing Mrs. Davis. Gossip though she might be, her freely-expressed opinions of people were based upon a certain native shrewdness. The Inspector felt that he had already gained a valuable side-light upon Sir Wilfrid Denny, and that even the revelation of that curious episode in the Vicar’s past might prove instructive. As to Holland, Mrs. Davis’s conviction that he was not the murderer was certainly well-grounded if he had spent the night in the hotel.

      But of course, the most interesting thing he had learnt was the alleged visit of Admiral Penistone shortly after eleven last night. Unfortunately it was impossible to decide whether the caller had been the Admiral or not. The porter’s identification of him was obviously worthless. He did not know the Admiral by sight, he could not even undertake to recognise the caller again. Where, in fact, had been the Admiral? He had last been seen shortly after ten, by the boat-house. That would have given him an hour to get to Whynmouth. Hardly time to have walked the distance, and yet he was hardly likely to have taken the car out. Had he done so, somebody would have been sure to have heard him. Could he have come down in his boat? Possibly, if the tide had been flowing the right way.

      Inspector Rudge frowned. He was no seaman, and he had begun to regard the vagaries of this infernal River Whyn as a personal affront to him. His idea of a self-respecting river was a placid stream which knew its own mind and flowed always in the same direction, like, say, the Thames at Maidenhead. But the Whyn was mad, subject, like a lunatic, to the influence of the moon, and changing the direction of its flow in obedience to some law which was past the Inspector’s comprehension. He decided that he would have to consult some expert on that point. For the present, he imagined that if the tide had been flowing down the river, there was no reason why the Admiral should not have called at the Lord Marshall at the time stated.

      But on the other hand, his behaviour there had been quite contrary to what the Inspector had gathered of his character. He seemed to have been of a peremptory and determined nature. Rudge could not have imagined him walking into the place, with the intention of seeing Holland, and then suddenly changing his mind on the score that he had barely time to catch his train. It would have been more like him to have stamped about the hall till Holland had been dragged from his bed.

      Unless—yes—that was a possibility. Suppose his visit to the hotel had been merely to assure himself that Holland had arrived? From the fact that the porter had offered to go and see if he was in, he would have known that he was staying in the house. Perhaps, having ascertained this, his object had been accomplished, and the excuse about the train had been trumped up on the spur of the moment, to account for his exit. He might not have wanted to see Holland just then.

      On the other hand, if the visitor had not been the Admiral, why had he given his name? To make it appear that the Admiral had been in Whynmouth at that particular time? This opened up a wide field for speculation, in which one central fact was apparent. The visitor must have known something of Admiral Penistone’s movements that evening. And therefore every effort must be made to trace him.

      And what about Holland himself? The Inspector was not at all satisfied on the subject of that impulsive gentleman. Mrs. Davis may have been right in her conjecture that Miss Fitzgerald was not eager to marry him, but he was by no means certain that she was equally right in her opinion that he was not the murderer. There was no means of verifying his statement that he had spent the night in the hotel. He could easily have slipped out during the confusion that appeared to have reigned before eleven, and returned just after six in the morning, when the door was unlocked and the porter was busy with the kitchen fire. Had he done so, and met the Admiral in Whynmouth or elsewhere? The more he considered the matter, the wider the field of speculation seemed to extend before Rudge’s vision.

      His original intention had been to drive out and see Sir Wilfrid Denny at West End, after he had finished with Mrs. Davis. But the possible light which that loquacious lady had thrown upon the Admiral’s movements decided him to defer the visit. He had formed the rudiments of a theory as to the time and place of the murder, but the possibility of this theory depended upon the tides in the River Whyn, and upon this subject he must seek expert advice. Why not have another chat with Neddy Ware? He knew the tides as no one else did, his hobby had rendered a study of them absolutely necessary to him. And besides, there was always the chance that he might have observed some detail which he had not recollected in the first excitement of his discovery.

      Inspector Rudge turned his car towards Lingham once more, and very soon reached Ware’s cottage. The old man was at home, smoking his pipe contemplatively after his midday meal. He greeted the Inspector hospitably, and the two sat down in a room decorated with models of ships and faded photographs of the vessels in which Ware had served.

      “You want to know about the tides in the river?” he replied, in answer to the Inspector’s explanation of the cause of his visit. “Why, they’re simple enough, so long as you remember that it’s high water, Full and Change, at Whynmouth at seven o’clock.”

      Rudge laughed. “I haven’t a doubt it’s simple enough to you,” he said. “Personally, СКАЧАТЬ