At Bertram's Hotel

by Agatha Christie

  “Oh yes. Yes, of course,” said Mr. Humfries. “The matter of Canon Pennyfather, I suppose? Most extraordinary business. I hope nothing’s happened to him, poor old chap.”

  “So do I,” said Miss Gorringe. “Such a dear old man.”

  “One of the old school,” said Mr. Humfries approvingly.

  “You seem to have quite a lot of the old school here,” observed Chief-Inspector Davy.

  “I suppose we do, I suppose we do,” said Mr. Humfries. “Yes, in many ways we are quite a survival.”

  “We have our regulars you know,” said Miss Gorringe. She spoke proudly. “The same people come back year after year. We have a lot of Americans. People from Boston, and Washington. Very quiet, nice people.”

  “They like our English atmosphere,” said Mr. Humfries, showing his very white teeth in a smile.

  Father looked at him thoughtfully. Inspector Campbell said,

  “You’re quite sure that no message came here from the Canon? I mean it might have been taken by someone who forgot to write it down or to pass it on.”

  “Telephone messages are always taken down most carefully,” said Miss Gorringe with ice in her voice. “I cannot conceive it possible that a message would not have been passed on to me or to the appropriate person on duty.”

  She glared at him.

  Inspector Campbell looked momentarily taken aback.

  “We’ve really answered all these questions before, you know,” said Mr. Humfries, also with a touch of ice in his voice. “We gave all the information at our disposal to your sergeant—I can’t remember his name for the moment.”

  Father stirred a little and said, in a kind of homely way,

  “Well you see, things have begun to look rather more serious. It looks like a bit more than absentmindedness. That’s why, I think, it would be a good thing if we could have a word or two with those two people you mentioned—General Radley and Miss Marple.”

  “You want me to—to arrange an interview with them?” Mr. Humfries looked rather unhappy. “General Radley’s very deaf.”

  “I don’t think it will be necessary to make it too formal,” said Chief-Inspector Davy. “We don’t want to worry people. You can leave it quite safely to us. Just point out those two you mentioned. There is just a chance, you know, that Canon Pennyfather might have mentioned some plan of his, or some person he was going to meet at Lucerne or who was going with him to Lucerne. Anyway, it’s worth trying.”

  Mr. Humfries looked somewhat relieved.

  “Nothing more we can do for you?” he asked. “I’m sure you understand that we wish to help you in every way, only you do understand how we feel about any Press publicity.”

  “Quite,” said Inspector Campbell.

  “And I’ll just have a word with the chambermaid,” said Father.

  “Certainly, if you like. I doubt very much whether she can tell you anything.”

  “Probably not. But there might be some detail—some remark the Canon made about a letter or an appointment. One never knows.”

  Mr. Humfries glanced at his watch.

  “She’ll be on duty at six,” he said. “Second floor. Perhaps, in the meantime, you’d care for tea?”

  “Suits me,” said Father promptly.

  They left the office together.

  Miss Gorringe said, “General Radley will be in the smoking room. The first room down that passage on the left. He’ll be in front of the fire there with The Times. I think,” she added discreetly, “he might be asleep. You’re sure you don’t want me to—”

  “No, no, I’ll see to it,” said Father. “And what about the other one—the old lady?”

  “She’s sitting over there, by the fireplace,” said Miss Gorringe.

  “The one with white fluffy hair and the knitting?” said Father, taking a look. “Might almost be on the stage, mightn’t she? Everybody’s universal great-aunt.”

  “Great-aunts aren’t much like that nowadays,” said Miss Gorringe, “nor grandmothers nor great-grandmothers, if it comes to that. We had the Marchioness of Barlowe in yesterday. She’s a great-grandmother. Honestly, I didn’t know her when she came in. Just back from Paris. Her face a mask of pink and white and her hair platinum blonde and I suppose an entirely false figure, but it looked wonderful.”

  “Ah,” said Father, “I prefer the old-fashioned kind myself. Well, thank you, ma’am.” He turned to Campbell. “I’ll look after it, shall I, sir? I know you’ve got an important appointment.”

  “That’s right,” said Campbell, taking his cue. “I don’t suppose anything much will come of it, but it’s worth trying.”

  Mr. Humfries disappeared into his inner sanctum, saying as he did so:

  “Miss Gorringe—just a moment, please.”

  Miss Gorringe followed him in and shut the door behind her.

  Humfries was walking up and down. He demanded sharply:

  “What do they want to see Rose for? Wadell asked all the necessary questions.”

  “I suppose it’s just routine,” said Miss Gorringe, doubtfully.

  “You’d better have a word with her first.”

  Miss Gorringe looked a little startled.

  “But surely Inspector Campbell—”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about Campbell. It’s the other one. Do you know who he is?”

  “I don’t think he gave his name. Sergeant of some kind, I suppose. He looks rather a yokel.”

  “Yokel, my foot,” said Mr. Humfries, abandoning his elegance. “That’s Chief-Inspector Davy, an old fox if there ever was one. They think a lot of him at the Yard. I’d like to know what he’s doing here, nosing about and playing the genial hick. I don’t like it at all.”

  “You can’t think—”

  “I don’t know what to think. But I tell you I don’t like it. Did he ask to see anyone else besides Rose?”

  “I think he’s going to have a word with Henry.”

  Mr. Humfries laughed. Miss Gorringe laughed too.

  “We needn’t worry about Henry.”

  “No, indeed.”

  “And the visitors who knew Canon Pennyfather?”

  Mr. Humfries laughed again.

  “I wish him joy of old Radley. He’ll have to shout the place down and then he won’t get anything worth having. He’s welcome to Radley and that funny old hen, Miss Marple. All the same, I don’t much like his poking his nose in….”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You know,” said Chief-Inspector Davy thoughtfully, “I don’t much like that chap Humfries.”

  “Think there’s something wrong with him?” asked Campbell.

  “Well—” Father sounded apologetic, “you know the sort of feeling one gets. Smarmy sort of chap. I wonder if he’s the owner or only the manager.”

  “I could ask him.” Campbell took a step back towards the desk.

  “No, don’t ask him,” said Father. “Just find out—quietly.”

  Campbell looked at him curiously.

  “What’s on your mind, sir?”

  “Nothing in particular,” said Father. “I just think I’d like to have a good deal more information about this place. I’d like to know who is behind it, what its financial status is. All that sort of thing.”

  Campbell shook his head.

  “I should have said if there was one place in London that was absolutely above suspicion—”

  “I know, I know,” said Father. “And what a useful thing it is to have that reputation!”

  Campbell shook his head and left. Father went down the passage to the smoking room. General Radley was just waking up. The Times had slipped from his knees and disintegrated slightly. Father picked it up and reassembled the sheets and handed it to him.

  “Thank ye, sir. Very kind,” said General Radley gruffly.

  “General Radley?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll excuse me,” said Father, raising his voice, “but I want to speak to you about Canon Pennyfather.”

  “Eh
—what’s that?” The General approached a hand to his ear.

  “Canon Pennyfather,” bellowed Father.

  “My father? Dead years ago.”

  “Canon Pennyfather.”

  “Oh. What about him? Saw him the other day. He was staying here.”

  “There was an address he was going to give me. Said he’d leave it with you.”

  That was rather more difficult to get over but he succeeded in the end.

  “Never gave me any address. Must have mixed me up with somebody else. Muddle-headed old fool. Always was. Scholarly sort of chap, you know. They’re always absentminded.”

  Father persevered for a little longer but soon decided that conversation with General Radley was practically impossible and almost certainly unprofitable. He went and sat down in the lounge at a table adjacent to that of Miss Jane Marple.

  “Tea, sir?”

  Father looked up. He was impressed, as everyone was impressed, by Henry’s personality. Though such a large and portly man he had appeared, as it were, like some vast travesty of Ariel who could materialize and vanish at will. Father ordered tea.

  “Did I see you’ve got muffins here?” he asked.

  Henry smiled benignly.

  “Yes, sir. Very good indeed our muffins are, if I may say so. Everyone enjoys them. Shall I order you muffins, sir? Indian or China tea?”

  “Indian,” said Father. “Or Ceylon if you’ve got it.”

  “Certainly we have Ceylon, sir.”

  Henry made the faintest gesture with a finger and the pale young man who was his minion departed in search of Ceylon tea and muffins. Henry moved graciously elsewhere.

  “You’re Someone, you are,” thought Father. “I wonder where they got hold of you and what they pay you. A packet, I bet, and you’d be worth it.” He watched Henry bending in a fatherly manner over an elderly lady. He wondered what Henry thought, if he thought anything, about Father. Father considered that he fitted into Bertram’s Hotel reasonably well. He might have been a prosperous gentleman farmer or he might have been a peer of the realm with a resemblance to a bookmaker. Father knew two peers who were very like that. On the whole, he thought, he passed muster, but he also thought it possible that he had not deceived Henry. “Yes, you’re Someone you are,” Father thought again.

  Tea came and the muffins. Father bit deeply. Butter ran down his chin. He wiped it off with a large handkerchief. He drank two cups of tea with plenty of sugar. Then he leaned forward and spoke to the lady sitting in the chair next to him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but aren’t you Miss Jane Marple?”

  Miss Marple transferred her gaze from her knitting to Chief Detective-Inspector Davy.

  “Yes,” she said, “I am Miss Marple.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my speaking to you. As a matter of fact I am a police officer.”

  “Indeed? Nothing seriously wrong here, I hope?”

  Father hastened to reassure her in his best paternal fashion.

  “Now, don’t you worry, Miss Marple,” he said. “It’s not the sort of thing you mean at all. No burglary or anything like that. Just a little difficulty about an absentminded clergyman, that’s all. I think he’s a friend of yours. Canon Pennyfather.”

  “Oh, Canon Pennyfather. He was here only the other day. Yes, I’ve known him slightly for many years. As you say, he is very absentminded.” She added, with some interest, “What has he done now?”

  “Well, as you might say in a manner of speaking, he’s lost himself.”

  “Oh dear,” said Miss Marple. “Where ought he to be?”

  “Back at home in his Cathedral Close,” said Father, “but he isn’t.”

  “He told me,” said Miss Marple, “he was going to a conference at Lucerne. Something to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls, I believe. He’s a great Hebrew and Aramaic scholar, you know.”

  “Yes,” said Father. “You’re quite right. That’s where he—well, that’s where he was supposed to be going.”

  “Do you mean he didn’t turn up there?”

  “No,” said Father, “he didn’t turn up.”

  “Oh, well,” said Miss Marple, “I expect he got his dates wrong.”

  “Very likely, very likely.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Miss Marple, “that that’s not the first time that that’s happened. I went to have tea with him in Chadminster once. He was actually absent from home. His housekeeper told me then how very absentminded he was.”

  “He didn’t say anything to you when he was staying here that might give us a clue, I suppose?” asked Father, speaking in an easy and confidential way. “You know the sort of thing I mean, any old friend he’d met or any plans he’d made apart from this Lucerne Conference?”

  “Oh no. He just mentioned the Lucerne Conference. I think he said it was on the 19th. Is that right?”

  “That was the date of the Lucerne Conference, yes.”

  “I didn’t notice the date particularly. I mean—” like most old ladies, Miss Marple here became slightly involved—“I thought he said the 19th and he might have said the 19th, but at the same time he might have meant the 19th and it might really have been the 20th. I mean, he may have thought the 20th was the 19th or he may have thought the 19th was the 20th.”

  “Well—” said Father, slightly dazed.

  “I’m putting it badly,” said Miss Marple, “but I mean people like Canon Pennyfather, if they say they’re going somewhere on a Thursday, one is quite prepared to find that they didn’t mean Thursday, it may be Wednesday or Friday they really mean. Usually they find out in time but sometimes they just don’t. I thought at the time that something like that must have happened.”

  Father looked slightly puzzled.

  “You speak as though you knew already, Miss Marple, that Canon Pennyfather hadn’t gone to Lucerne.”

  “I knew he wasn’t in Lucerne on Thursday,” said Miss Marple. “He was here all day—or most of the day. That’s why I thought, of course, that though he may have said Thursday to me, it was really Friday he meant. He certainly left here on Thursday evening carrying his BEA bag.”

  “Quite so.”

  “I took it he was going off to the airport then,” said Miss Marple. “That’s why I was so surprised to see he was back again.”

  “I beg your pardon, what do you mean by ‘back again’?”

  “Well, that he was back here again, I mean.”

  “Now, let’s get this quite clear,” said Father, careful to speak in an agreeable and reminiscent voice, and not as though it was really important. “You saw the old idio—you saw the Canon, that is to say, leave as you thought for the airport with his overnight bag, fairly early in the evening. Is that right?”

  “Yes. About half past six, I would say, or quarter to seven.”

  “But you say he came back.”

  “Perhaps he missed the plane. That would account for it.”

  “When did he come back?”

  “Well, I don’t really know. I didn’t see him come back.”

  “Oh,” said Father, taken aback. “I thought you said you did see him.”

  “Oh, I did see him later,” said Miss Marple. “I meant I didn’t see him actually come into the hotel.”

  “You saw him later? When?”

  Miss Marple thought.

  “Let me see. It was about 3 a.m. I couldn’t sleep very well. Something woke me. Some sound. There are so many queer noises in London. I looked at my little clock, it was ten minutes past three. For some reason—I’m not quite sure what—I felt uneasy. Footsteps, perhaps, outside my door. Living in the country, if one hears footsteps in the middle of the night it makes one nervous. So I just opened my door and looked out. There was Canon Pennyfather leaving his room—it’s next door to mine—and going off down the stairs wearing his overcoat.”

  “He came out of his room wearing his overcoat and went down the stairs at 3 a.m. in the morning?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Marple and added: “I though
t it odd at the time.”

  Father looked at her for some moments.

  “Miss Marple,” he said, “why haven’t you told anyone this before?”

  “Nobody asked me,” said Miss Marple simply.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Father drew a deep breath.

  “No,” he said. “No, I suppose nobody would ask you. It’s as simple as that.”

  He relapsed into silence again.

  “You think something has happened to him, don’t you?” asked Miss Marple.

  “It’s over a week now,” said Father. “He didn’t have a stroke and fall down in the street. He’s not in a hospital as a result of an accident. So where is he? His disappearance has been reported in the Press, but nobody’s come forward with any information yet.”

  “They may not have seen it. I didn’t.”

  “It looks—it really looks—” Father was following out his own line of thought—“as though he meant to disappear. Leaving this place like that in the middle of the night. You’re quite sure about it, aren’t you?” he demanded sharply. “You didn’t dream it?”

  “I am absolutely sure,” said Miss Marple with finality.

  Father heaved himself to his feet.

  “I’d better go and see that chambermaid,” he said.

  Father found Rose Sheldon on duty and ran an approving eye over her pleasant person.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “I know you’ve seen our sergeant already. But it’s about that missing gentleman, Canon Pennyfather.”

  “Oh yes, sir, a very nice gentleman. He often stays here.”

  “Absentminded,” said Father.

  Rose Sheldon permitted a discreet smile to appear on her respectful mask of a face.

  “Now let me see.” Father pretended to consult some notes. “The last time you saw Canon Pennyfather—was—”

  “On the Thursday morning, sir. Thursday the 19th. He told me that he would not be back that night and possibly not the next either. He was going, I think, to Geneva. Somewhere in Switzerland, anyway. He gave me two shirts he wanted washed and I said they would be ready for him on the morning of the following day.”

  “And that’s the last you saw of him, eh?”