The Body in the Library. Агата Кристи

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СКАЧАТЬ Price Ridley was fortunate enough to find the vicar in his study.

      The vicar, a gentle, middle-aged man, was always the last to hear anything.

      ‘Such a terrible thing,’ said Mrs Price Ridley, panting a little, because she had come rather fast. ‘I felt I must have your advice, your counsel about it, dear vicar.’

      Mr Clement looked mildly alarmed. He said:

      ‘Has anything happened?’

      ‘Has anything happened?’ Mrs Price Ridley repeated the question dramatically. ‘The most terrible scandal! None of us had any idea of it. An abandoned woman, completely unclothed, strangled on Colonel Bantry’s hearthrug.’

      The vicar stared. He said:

      ‘You—you are feeling quite well?’

      ‘No wonder you can’t believe it! I couldn’t at first. The hypocrisy of the man! All these years!’

      ‘Please tell me exactly what all this is about.’

      Mrs Price Ridley plunged into a full-swing narrative. When she had finished Mr Clement said mildly:

      ‘But there is nothing, is there, to point to Colonel Bantry’s being involved in this?’

      ‘Oh, dear vicar, you are so unworldly! But I must tell you a little story. Last Thursday—or was it the Thursday before? well, it doesn’t matter—I was going up to London by the cheap day train. Colonel Bantry was in the same carriage. He looked, I thought, very abstracted. And nearly the whole way he buried himself behind The Times. As though, you know, he didn’t want to talk.’

      The vicar nodded with complete comprehension and possible sympathy.

      ‘At Paddington I said good-bye. He had offered to get me a taxi, but I was taking the bus down to Oxford Street—but he got into one, and I distinctly heard him tell the driver to go to—where do you think?’

      Mr Clement looked inquiring.

      ‘An address in St John’s Wood!’

      Mrs Price Ridley paused triumphantly.

      The vicar remained completely unenlightened.

      ‘That, I consider, proves it,’ said Mrs Price Ridley.

      At Gossington, Mrs Bantry and Miss Marple were sitting in the drawing-room.

      ‘You know,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘I can’t help feeling glad they’ve taken the body away. It’s not nice to have a body in one’s house.’

      Miss Marple nodded.

      ‘I know, dear. I know just how you feel.’

      ‘You can’t,’ said Mrs Bantry; ‘not until you’ve had one. I know you had one next door once, but that’s not the same thing. I only hope,’ she went on, ‘that Arthur won’t take a dislike to the library. We sit there so much. What are you doing, Jane?’

      For Miss Marple, with a glance at her watch, was rising to her feet.

      ‘Well, I was thinking I’d go home. If there’s nothing more I can do for you?’

      ‘Don’t go yet,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘The finger-print men and the photographers and most of the police have gone, I know, but I still feel something might happen. You don’t want to miss anything.’

      The telephone rang and she went off to answer. She returned with a beaming face.

      ‘I told you more things would happen. That was Colonel Melchett. He’s bringing the poor girl’s cousin along.’

      ‘I wonder why,’ said Miss Marple.

      ‘Oh, I suppose, to see where it happened and all that.’

      ‘More than that, I expect,’ said Miss Marple.

      ‘What do you mean, Jane?’

      ‘Well, I think—perhaps—he might want her to meet Colonel Bantry.’

      Mrs Bantry said sharply:

      ‘To see if she recognizes him? I suppose—oh, yes, I suppose they’re bound to suspect Arthur.’

      ‘I’m afraid so.’

      ‘As though Arthur could have anything to do with it!’

      Miss Marple was silent. Mrs Bantry turned on her accusingly.

      ‘And don’t quote old General Henderson—or some frightful old man who kept his housemaid—at me. Arthur isn’t like that.’

      ‘No, no, of course not.’

      ‘No, but he really isn’t. He’s just—sometimes—a little silly about pretty girls who come to tennis. You know—rather fatuous and avuncular. There’s no harm in it. And why shouldn’t he? After all,’ finished Mrs Bantry rather obscurely, ‘I’ve got the garden.’

      Miss Marple smiled.

      ‘You must not worry, Dolly,’ she said.

      ‘No, I don’t mean to. But all the same I do a little. So does Arthur. It’s upset him. All these policemen prowling about. He’s gone down to the farm. Looking at pigs and things always soothes him if he’s been upset. Hallo, here they are.’

      The Chief Constable’s car drew up outside.

      Colonel Melchett came in accompanied by a smartly dressed young woman.

      ‘This is Miss Turner, Mrs Bantry. The cousin of the—er—victim.’

      ‘How do you do,’ said Mrs Bantry, advancing with outstretched hand. ‘All this must be rather awful for you.’

      Josephine Turner said frankly: ‘Oh, it is. None of it seems real, somehow. It’s like a bad dream.’

      Mrs Bantry introduced Miss Marple.

      Melchett said casually: ‘Your good man about?’

      ‘He had to go down to one of the farms. He’ll be back soon.’

      ‘Oh—’ Melchett seemed rather at a loss.

      Mrs Bantry said to Josie: ‘Would you like to see where—where it happened? Or would you rather not?’

      Josephine said after a moment’s pause:

      ‘I think I’d like to see.’

      Mrs Bantry led her to her library with Miss Marple and Melchett following behind.

      ‘She was there,’ said Mrs Bantry, pointing dramatically; ‘on the hearthrug.’

      ‘Oh!’ Josie shuddered. But she also looked perplexed. She said, СКАЧАТЬ