4.50 From Paddington (7 page)
Read 4.50 From Paddington Online
Authors: Agatha Christie
A few minutes later Lucy, rather pale, left the barn, locked the door and put the key back on the nail.
She went rapidly to the stables, got out her car and drove down the back drive. She stopped at the post office at the end of the road. She went into the telephone box, put in the money and dialled.
“I want to speak to Miss Marple.”
“She's resting, miss. It's Miss Eyelesbarrow, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“I'm not going to disturb her and that's flat, miss. She's an old lady and she needs her rest.”
“You must disturb her. It's urgent.”
“I'm not -”
“Please do what I say at once.”
When she chose, Lucy's voice could be as incisive as steel. Florence knew authority when she heard it.
Presently Miss Marple's voice spoke.
“Yes, Lucy?”
Lucy drew a deep breath.
“You were quite right,” she said. “I've found it.”
“A woman's body?”
“Yes. A woman in a fur coat. It's in a stone sarcophagus in a kind of barn-museum near the house. What do you want me to do? I ought to inform the police, I think.”
“Yes. You must inform the police. At once.”
“But what about the rest of it? About you? The first thing they'll want to know is why I was prying up a lid that weighs tons for apparently no reason. Do you want me to invent a reason? I can.”
“No. I think, you know,” said Miss Marple in her gentle serious voice, “that the only thing to do is to tell the exact truth.”
“About you?”
“About everything.”
A sudden grin split the whiteness of Lucy's face.
“That will be quite simple for me,” she said. “But I imagine they'll find it quite hard to believe!”
She rang off, waited a moment, and then rang and got the police station.
“I have just discovered a dead body in a sarcophagus in the Long Barn at Rutherford Hall.”
“What's that?”
Lucy repeated her statement and anticipating the next question gave her name.
She drove back, put the car away and entered the house.
She paused in the hall for a moment, thinking.
Then she gave a brief sharp nod of her head and went to the library where Miss Crackenthorpe was sitting helping her father to do The Times crossword.
“Can I speak to you a moment, Miss Crackenthorpe?”
Emma looked up, a shade of apprehension on her face. The apprehension was, Lucy thought, purely domestic. In such words do useful household staff announce their imminent departure.
“Well, speak up, girl, speak up,” said old Mr. Crackenthorpe irritably.
Lucy said to Emma:
“I'd like to speak to you alone, please.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Crackenthorpe. “You say straight out here what you've got to say.”
“Just a moment. Father.” Emma rose and went towards the door.
“All nonsense. It can wait,” said the old man angrily.
“I'm afraid it can't wait,” said Lucy.
Mr. Crackenthorpe said, “What impertinence!”
Emma came out into the hall, Lucy followed her and shut the door behind them.
“Yes?” said Emma. “What is it? If you think there's too much to do with the boys here, I can help you and -”
“It's not that at all,” said Lucy. “I didn't want to speak before your father because I understand he is an invalid and it might give him a shock. You see, I've just discovered the body of a murdered woman in that big sarcophagus in the Long Barn.”
Emma Crackenthorpe stared at her.
“In the sarcophagus? A murdered woman? It's impossible!”
“I'm afraid it's quite true. I've rung up the police. They will be here at any minute.”
A slight flush came into Emma's cheek.
“You should have told me first - before notifying the police.”
“I'm sorry,” said Lucy.
“I didn't hear you ring up -” Emma's glance went to the telephone on the hall table.
“I rang up from the post office just down the road.”
“But how extraordinary. Why not from here?”
Lucy thought quickly.
“I was afraid the boys might be about - might hear - if I rang up from the hall here.”
“I see... Yes... I see... They are coming - the police, I mean?”
“They're here now,” said Lucy, as with a squeal of brakes a car drew up at the front door and the front-door bell pealed through the house.
“I'm sorry, very sorry - to have asked this of you,” said Inspector Bacon.
His hand under her arm, he led Emma Crackenthorpe out of the barn. Emma's face was very pale, she looked sick, but she walked firmly erect.
“I'm quite sure that I've never seen the woman before in my life.”
“We're very grateful to you, Miss Crackenthorpe. That's all I wanted to know. Perhaps you'd like to lie down?”
“I must go to my father. I telephoned to Dr. Quimper as soon as I heard about this and the doctor is with him now.”
Dr. Quimper came out of the library as they crossed the hall. He was a tall genial man, with a casual off-hand, cynical manner that his patients found very stimulating.
He and the inspector nodded to each other.
“Miss Crackenthorpe has performed an unpleasant task very bravely,” said Bacon.
“Well done, Emma,” said the doctor, patting her on the shoulder. “You can take things. I've always known that. Your father's all right. Just go in and have a word with him, and then go into the dining-room and get yourself a glass of brandy. That's a prescription.”
Emma smiled at him gratefully and went into the library.
“That woman's the salt of the earth,” said the doctor, looking after her. “A thousand pities she's never married. The penalty of being the only female in a family of men. The other sister got clear, married at seventeen, I believe. This one's quite a handsome woman really. She'd have been a success as a wife and mother.”
“Too devoted to her father, I suppose,” said Inspector Bacon.
“She's not really as devoted as all that - but she's got the instinct some women have to make their menfolk happy. She sees that her father likes being an invalid, so she lets him be an invalid. She's the same with her brothers. Cedric feels he's a good painter, what's-his-name - Harold - knows how much she relies on his sound judgement - she lets Alfred shock her with his stories of his clever deals. Oh, yes, she's a clever woman - no fool. Well, do you want me for anything? Want me to have a look at your corpse now Johnstone has done with it” (Johnstone was the police surgeon) “and see if it happens to be one of my medical mistakes?”
“I'd like you to have a look, yes. Doctor. We want to get her identified. I suppose it's impossible for old Mr. Crackenthorpe? Too much of a strain?”
“Strain? Fiddlesticks. He'd never forgive you or me if you didn't let him have a peep. He's all agog. Most exciting thing that's happened to him for fifteen years or so - and it won't cost him anything!”
“There's nothing really much wrong with him then?”
“He's seventy-two,” said the doctor. “That's all, really, that's the matter with him. He has odd rheumatic twinges - who doesn't? So he calls it arthritis. He has palpitations after meals - as well he may - he puts them down to 'heart'. But he can always do anything he wants to do! I've plenty of patients like that. The ones who are really ill usually insist desperately that they're perfectly well. Come on, let's go and see this body of yours. Unpleasant, I suppose?”
“Johnstone estimates she's been dead between a fortnight and three weeks.”
“Quite unpleasant, then.”
The doctor stood by the sarcophagus and looked down with frank curiosity, professionally unmoved by what he had named the “unpleasantness”.
“Never seen her before. No patient of mine. I don't remember ever seeing her about in Brackhampton. She must have been quite good-looking once - hm - somebody had it in for her all right.”
They went out again into the air. Doctor Quimper glanced up at the building.
“Found in the - what do they call it? - the Long Barn - in a sarcophagus! Fantastic! Who found her?”
“Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow.”
“Oh, the latest lady help? What was she doing, poking about in sarcophagi?”
“That,” said Inspector Bacon grimly, “is just what I am going to ask her. Now, about Mr. Crackenthorpe. Will you -?”
“I'll bring him along.”
Mr. Crackenthorpe, muffled in scarves, came walking at a brisk pace, the doctor beside him.
“Disgraceful,” he said. “Absolutely disgraceful! I brought back that sarcophagus from Florence in - let me see - it must have been in 1908 - or was it 1909?”
“Steady now,” the doctor warned him. “This isn't going to be nice, you know.”
“No matter how ill I am, I've got to do my duty, haven't I?”
A very brief visit inside the Long Barn was, however, quite long enough. Mr. Crackenthorpe shuffled out into the air again with remarkable speed.
“Never saw her before in my life!” he said. “What's it mean? Absolutely disgraceful. It wasn't Florence - I remember now - it was Naples. A very fine specimen. And some fool of a woman has to come and get herself killed in it!”
He clutched at the folds of his overcoat on the left side.
“Too much for me... My heart... Where's Emma? Doctor...”
Doctor Quimper took his arm.
“You'll be all right,” he said. “I prescribe a little stimulant. Brandy.”
They went back together towards the house.
“Sir. Please, sir.”
Inspector Bacon turned. Two boys had arrived, breathless, on bicycles. Their faces were full of eager pleading.
“Please, sir, can we see the body?”
“No, you can't,” said Inspector Bacon.
“Oh, sir, please, sir. You never know. We might know who she was. Oh, please, sir, do be a sport. It's not fair. Here's a murder, right in our own barn. It's the sort of chance that might never happen again. Do be a sport, sir.”
“Who are you two?”
“I'm Alexander Eastley, and this is my friend James Stoddart-West.”
“Have you ever seen a blonde woman wearing a light-coloured dyed squirrel coat anywhere about the place?”
“Well, I can't remember exactly,” said Alexander astutely. “If I were to have a look - ”
“Take 'em in, Sanders,” said Inspector Bacon to the constable who was standing by the barn door. “One's only young once!”
“Oh, sir, thank you, sir.” Both boys were vociferous. “It's very kind of you, sir.”
Bacon turned away towards the house.
“And now,” he said to himself grimly, “for Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow!”
After leading the police to the Long Barn, and giving a brief account of her actions, Lucy had retired into the background, but she was under no illusion that the police had finished with her.
She had just finished preparing potatoes for chips that evening when word was brought to her that Inspector Bacon required her presence. Putting aside the large bowl of cold water and salt in which the chips were reposing, Lucy followed the policeman to where the Inspector awaited her. She sat down and awaited his questions composedly.
She gave her name - and her address in London, and added of her own accord:
“I will give you some names and addresses of references if you want to know all about me.”
The names were very good ones. An Admiral of the Fleet, the Provost of an Oxford College, and a Dame of the British Empire. In spite of himself Inspector Bacon was impressed.
“Now, Miss Eyelesbarrow, you went into the Long Barn to find some paint. Is that right? And after having found the paint you got a crowbar, forced up the lid of this sarcophagus and found the body. What were you looking for in the sarcophagus?”
“I was looking for a body,” said Lucy.
“You were looking for a body - and you found one! Doesn't that seem to you a very extraordinary story?”
“Oh, yes, it is an extraordinary story. Perhaps you will let me explain it to you.”
“I certainly think you had better do so.”
Lucy gave him a precise recital of the events which had led up to her sensational discovery.
The inspector summed it up in an outraged voice.
“You were engaged by an elderly lady to obtain a post here and to search the house and grounds for a dead body? Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Who is this elderly lady?”
“Miss Jane Marple. She is at present living at 4 Madison Road.”
The Inspector wrote it down.
“You expect me to believe this story?”
Lucy said gently: “Not, perhaps, until after you have interviewed Miss Marple and got her confirmation of it.”
“I shall interview her all right. She must be cracked.”
Lucy forbore to point out that to be proved right is not really a proof of mental incapacity. Instead she said:
“What are you proposing to tell Miss Crackenthorpe? About me, I mean?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, as far as Miss Marple is concerned I've done my job, I've found the body she wanted found. But I'm still engaged by Miss Crackenthorpe, and there are two hungry boys in the house and probably some more of the family will soon be coming down after all this upset. She needs domestic help. If you go and tell her that I only took this post in order to hunt for dead bodies she'll probably throw me out. Otherwise I can get on with my job and be useful.”
The Inspector looked hard at her.
“I'm not saying anything to anyone at present,” he said. “I haven't verified your statement yet. For all I know you may be making the whole thing up.”
Lucy rose.
“Thank you. Then I'll go back to the kitchen and get on with things.”
“We'd better have the Yard in on it, is that what you think, Bacon?”
The Chief Constable looked inquiringly at Inspector Bacon. The inspector was a big solid man - his expression was that of one utterly disgusted with humanity.
“The woman wasn't a local, sir,” he said.
“There's some reason to believe - from her underclothing - that she might have been a foreigner. Of course,” added Inspector Bacon hastily, “I'm not letting on about that yet awhile. We're keeping it up our sleeves until after the inquest.”
