Agatha Christie Investigates Omnibus

by Alison Joseph

  He had changed, she realized. The neat vowel sounds had roughened, the smart jacket looked somehow borrowed.

  ‘Why are you so angry?’ she asked him.

  He stopped and turned to her. His gaze was fierce and honest. ‘You may call it anger,’ he began. ‘I call it simply seeing things as they are. Our fellow countrymen are suffering, dying on battlefields, crushed to death in mills, and yet there they are still, the land-owning class, dancing at the Savoy, drinking champagne, still living as if the blood of heroes isn’t lapping at their feet …’ He seemed about to say more, but they were at a gate and he stopped, then pushed it open. ‘The dead,’ he said. ‘They may be silent, but their stories still speak to us.’

  She realized they were at the top of the hill, and below them lay the graveyard where she had seen Bertha, yesterday morning.

  ‘Look –’ He waved towards the long grass and wildflowers. ‘This was once the churchyard, until the vicar acquired that more level field the other side of the church. So now, these just rest here, untended. The unkempt graves of those too poor to pay for upkeep. Bertha’s sister is buried up here somewhere. And here, look …’ He took a few steps away from the path. ‘This – this is my mother’s grave.’ Agatha saw a plain, grey stone, a name, some dates. ‘She worked in the old house, Hainault House, when it was owned by the Taptons. She knew Sir Wyndham well, and his first wife. And look – that first wife, she’s buried here too. Dympna, Lady Tapton.’

  The stone was pale gold, and elegantly inscribed.

  ‘She died in childbirth,’ Clifford said. ‘And then her twins died a few weeks later. A tragedy. Poor Sir Wyndham married again, a year or so later. His second wife stayed up here for years, long after his death. Then she died, and it was empty for some time. She had no children. She had a niece, I think, who inherited but didn’t want it. And now Mr. Sutton has it. I hope he didn’t pay too much, that’s all. It’s going to cost him an arm and a leg getting it habitable again. Getting rid of the ghosts,’ he finished, with an empty smile.

  There was a burst of birdsong from the nearby trees.

  ‘Are you really going to hear that phony Russian countess?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Like you, I believe in ghosts.’

  He shook his head. ‘Just shadows,’ he said. ‘Phantoms.’ He took a few steps back towards his mother’s grave. ‘My brother died in battle,’ he said. ‘Ypres. July. Nearly six years ago.’ He touched the edge of the gravestone. ‘I’m just glad she wasn’t here to see it.’

  He turned away, and she followed him back towards the gate. At the edge of the field he stopped. ‘Those are your ghosts,’ he said. ‘Across the plains of France, of Germany, lie our war-dead in their unmarked graves. “The war to end all wars”, but it won’t. Your officer class in their London clubs, raising their glasses of champagne in the light of the chandeliers, they can’t wait for another war. And meanwhile, Inspector Mothballs is trying to entrap a troubled woman into admitting that she poisoned two people in an English village.’ He set off down the track, and she followed him.

  They walked in silence until they were out on to the lane once more. They could hear voices ahead, behind a shabby fence.

  ‘You want your story?’ he said to her. ‘Here’s your story.’ He pushed at a broken-down gate. She could see a small building behind, a once-pretty wrought-iron structure with broken windows. ‘The summerhouse,’ he said. ‘It belonged to Bertha’s family. Bertha’s sister used to rest here, in those long months of ill health. Bertha loves this place, and of course, now she’s inherited it, but the church is determined to claim it as part of the old graveyard. They say the deeds show it’s part of the church land, rather than an adjunct to the Wilkins field on the other side. All this was going on when the elder Miss Wilkins died. That’s why it’s so neglected.’

  She could see police moving about within the tumbledown structure.

  ‘They’ll have taken the body away by now,’ he said.

  They stood side by side for a moment, then he turned away. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘You could always ask your Russian countess for clues.’

  ‘There’s no need to be insulting,’ she said.

  He stopped. He met her gaze, and his eyes were dark and anguished.

  ‘Mrs. Christie,’ he said. ‘If anything – anything at all – could prevent the injustice that I fear, then I too would grasp at it. I love Bertha Wilkins. I’ve loved her since she first came to the village to take over her sister’s house. She has suffered more than anyone can know. She has believed herself to be in love with Cecil, and to be abandoned by him. She has believed herself to be wronged by Miss Banks. But nothing in that woman’s heart is capable of murder.’ His words ended in a muffled sob. He covered his eyes with his hand, then turned back towards the lane.

  They walked, side by side until they reached the village.

  At the crossroads, he offered her his hand. ‘Mrs. Christie. Thank you for listening to me,’ he said.

  ‘Mr. Fullerton. I am not a detective,’ she said. ‘I write stories, that’s all. Everything you’ve said to me, you should say to the police. Miss Wilkins needs you,’ she said. ‘I am going to go home, and immerse myself once more in the fictional world, which has only a thin connection to this one. In the meantime, there is a real murderer out there. And if it is not Miss Wilkins, then the police need to know.’

  His eyes were locked with hers. He nodded. ‘I shall do as you say. And the séance,’ he said. ‘Is that part of the fictional world too?’ He gave a brief smile. ‘Does that, too, have only a thin connection with our world?’

  She smiled back. ‘I shall no doubt find out,’ she said.

  Chapter Eight

  Agatha poured herself some lukewarm tea and wondered when her husband would be home from the City. The teapot was made of white porcelain, painted with pink roses. The tea tasted stewed. Outside there were darkening clouds, the beginning of a stormy sunset.

  She stood up from her desk and wandered to the fireplace. She stared, unseeing, at the Cornish seascape in oils that hung above it.

  She wondered, vaguely, why her husband was working such long hours.

  She wondered, vaguely, about poison. Belladonna, perhaps. It would work for this story, she thought. The sister’s father, perhaps, could be a doctor. He could easily get hold of it.

  But in real life? It’s not that easy just to poison someone. A woman’s weapon, everyone said.

  Only Miss Wilkins wanted both Phoebe and Cecil dead. She’d said so herself. But everything Clifford had said seemed to have a ring of truth. No doubt Inspector Mallatratt would find out soon.

  A ring at the doorbell made her jump.

  She heard Alice open the door, heard Mary’s voice.

  ‘Agatha – are you ready?’

  The séance. Of course.

  ‘You hadn’t forgotten, you silly? Hurry up, I don’t want to miss the beginning. Apparently she comes out in a full length mink coat and a cloud of white smoke.’

  ‘I’m all set.’ Agatha closed the notebook on her desk. ‘I’ll get my coat. Though I fear my old mackintosh will look rather shabby in comparison.’

  They set off in the clunk-clunking of Mary’s Morris Austin along the quiet lanes.

  ‘Isn’t it terrible, these murders at the vicarage,’ Mary said. ‘The vengeance of a lovelorn woman, apparently.’

  ‘No one’s been found guilty by law,’ Agatha said, more sharply than she meant to.

  ‘Well, no, but it’s only a matter of time, by all accounts,’ Mary replied, her brisk manner failing to take Agatha’s tone into account. ‘Mind you, if I was jilted by a young man for another woman, I might feel like killing them both too.’

  Agatha was aware of two thoughts. One was that she couldn’t imagine Mary either being jilted in the first place, or minding. And the other that Clifford would have his work cut out if he was going to keep Bertha from arrest.

  The entrance to the church hall was thronged with people. Th
ere were publicity placards outside. ‘Madame Litvinoff,’ they said, with glamorous images, white-blonde hair, white coat, black curtains, a curl of cigarette smoke.

  There was an official and rather hostile man on the door.

  ‘We have tickets,’ Mary said, in a loud whisper, and, grabbing Agatha’s arm, ushered her into the hall, nodding vague greetings to similarly fierce and be-hatted women as they passed.

  The hall seemed to have changed beyond recognition.

  Last time Agatha had been here for a local flower festival, and she remembered lacklustre drapes against damp red brick, although the fierce women were all too similar. But now, black velvet swathed every surface of the walls, and there were red curtains across the stage. There was a heavy scent in the air, and the stage glowed with the light from two huge candelabras either side.

  The crowd entered, chattered, settled. And then as the central light faded, an expectant hush fell. The curtains opened, and Mme. Litvinoff stood there.

  She appeared rather small, almost frail, in a long, old-fashioned black evening dress and a fur stole. Agatha felt rather cheated of the grand opening that Mary had promised.

  Mme Litvinoff took a few steps to the front of the stage. ‘Welcome,’ she said, in a heavy accent, opening her arms towards the audience. ‘I am Madame Litvinoff. I am here for you, only for you. You have come to me, because in your hearts there is a thirst. I can quench that thirst. There are people you love for whom you yearn, for a glimpse, a few words. I can speak those words. I am here because I am blessed with a gift. I am here because in my heart I share your yearning, I know your loss, and I can speak with the voice of those you have lost. Welcome.’

  A man in some kind of uniform appeared on the stage with a chair, and she sat neatly into it with a ballerina’s poise. And then she closed her eyes.

  What happened in the next three hours was both remarkable and everyday, it seemed to Agatha. Madame Litvinoff began to speak, and this time her voice was different, lower, rasping even. At times it acquired an odd, level tone. She would utter a name, and her gaze would alight on someone in the audience. ‘I have a Randall,’ she said. ‘I see uniform. You … Madam, in the blue hat …’

  ‘Not Randall,’ came a tremulous voice from behind Agatha. ‘Randolph.’

  ‘Randolph, yes,’ Madame Litvinoff said, with an illuminating smile. ‘He says, he is at peace. And he sends his love to you. And to … your dog … his name begins with M …’

  ‘Yes.’ The voice was breathless. ‘Murdoch.’

  ‘A terrier?’

  The reply was even shakier. ‘Highland Terrier ...’

  She nodded, slowly. ‘He says, he knows your dog is looking after you.’

  The gaze would then shift, scanning the crowd. Another name, or an initial, or an image, then a gasp of recognition from someone in the crowd, followed by words of comfort, sometimes general, occasionally very specific.

  ‘Your great-aunt Hilda says to tell you that the mahogany casket is yours and not your brother’s.’

  ‘I knew it,’ came a rough voice from the second row. ‘My sister-in-law nabbed it before I had sight of it after Aunt Hilda passed away …’

  There were descriptions of graveyards, of battlefields, of rolling hills scarlet with poppies.

  ‘I see yellow flowers,’ she said, suddenly. ‘Daffodils, perhaps. I see a woman, dressed in black.’

  Agatha looked up with a start. Mme Litvinoff was staring straight at her, with an intense but strangely absent gaze.

  ‘I feel terrible anger,’ the medium was saying, her eyes still fixed on Agatha. ‘I see a grave, overgrown with long grass … I see a mother’s betrayal …’ There was a blink, a small shake of the head, and then the gaze moved on. Another name. Another man in uniform, at peace.

  And then it was over. The curtains closed. The applause was muted, either because of politeness, or because the audience was too moved, too tearful, too choked with their own private feelings to do anything more. People crowded the aisles, filed out of the gate. The ladies seemed less fierce, quieter, smaller.

  Mary and Agatha drove home in silence along dark country lanes, thinking their own thoughts. Mary was wondering what to do about Pickle at the stables, he’d gone lame last week and he really wasn’t well enough to work. She was thinking about prep schools, again, and how she and her husband were ever going to choose the right one for Justin, when everyone said he was so very bright, and such an able sportsman too …

  Agatha thought about daffodils, and a woman in black, and an untended grave.

  *

  Agatha woke up on Saturday with a single thought. It had nothing to do with Inspector Jerome, or with his love for Bunty. It was everything to do with a diminutive woman in a black evening dress and fur stole, and a possibly fake Russian accent. Which was why Agatha found herself, after a hurried breakfast and a few games with Rosalind, walking up the hill in the spring sunshine, away from the village, towards the summerhouse and the graveyard beyond.

  The summerhouse had the same uniformed police constable standing guard. ‘Morning, Mrs. Christie,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t they give you any days off?’ she asked.

  ‘A big case, this,’ he said, with a certain pride. ‘Don’t usually get the likes of anything like this round here.’

  ‘I can see that,’ she said. She looked at the ramshackle building behind him, the cracked panes of glass. She thought about two laughing girls enjoying an evening away from their work. And now only one is still alive …

  ‘Don’t let the Inspector tell you what to think, Ma’am,’ the constable was saying. ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘But you see …’ she began. ‘Mine is only a story. Whereas this …’ She waved her hand towards the summerhouse.

  He gave her a smile, uncomprehending.

  She went on her way.

  The sun had clouded over by the time she reached the graveyard. She walked amongst the overgrown tombstones, picking her way through tangles of wild flowers. She wondered why she’d never come up here before. Eighteen months they’d been in the village, she and Archie, and it was only now that she’d begun to think about Sunningdale residing in its own story. She read the names on the stones, often repeated, each allowing the genealogy, the family history to unfold of births and deaths, of people rooted in the very soil of the village.

  ‘Wilkins,’ she saw. ‘Sarah Wilkins,’ followed by her dates. So this was Bertha’s sister. The older Miss Wilkins, who had owned the summerhouse which was now inherited by Bertha.

  She thought of Phoebe, and Cecil.

  Perhaps it was coincidence, that the summerhouse was the scene of the latest crime. Perhaps it is a simple tale of a woman scorned.

  But, if it were Bertha … she would need access to the vicarage, late on Monday evening. Cecil’s poison was administered just before bedtime.

  If Bertha Wilkins had been creeping around the vicarage at that time of night, someone would have seen her.

  Agatha walked on, passing more stones, their elegies half hidden behind thistles and bindweed tendrils.

  ‘Dympna, Lady Tapton,’ she read. ‘Wife of Sir Wyndham Tapton,’ she saw. ‘Much loved, much missed. “Though hast my heart in my hands.”’

  She found herself wondering whether Archie would think to put such a thing on her gravestone, were she to die before him. She shook herself, as if to dismiss such a thought, then studied the next grave.

  ‘Charlotte Tapton,’ she read. ‘Eric Tapton.’ Their dates were exactly the same. They’d lived just over six months.

  The long grass twitched in a quickening breeze. The clouds seemed to herald a gathering storm.

  She looked down at the twins’ grave. It is not a game, she thought. These gravestones, unfolding their stories, their own brief tragedies. And down in the village, two untimely deaths. A grieving family. A young man’s life cut short.

  Again, she saw the image of the painting, the portrait that Arthur was restor
ing. She remembered his words, about finding the truth under the veneer, about revealing the artist’s true intention.

  Whether Inspector Jerome solves the crime or not. Whether Bunty Flowers agrees to marry him. It all felt thin, and false, and trivial, promising false hope, the hope of order in the chaos, of resolution where in real life there’s none.

  The first drops of rain began to fall. She turned back towards the village.

  As she descended the hill, she could hear a commotion. The revving of a motor car, male shouts, a woman’s voice. She came down to the main street to see Bertha, held by two policemen, one on each side, gripping an arm each. She was twisting from side to side, objecting loudly.

  ‘I am not a murderess,’ she was saying.

  A small crowd had gathered. A plump woman in a blue and orange floral hat was standing, arms folded, lips pursed. ‘Oh, you can tell a bad ‘un,’ she said, to no one in particular. ‘The sister was the same. Do you know, she had a bill unpaid at the haberdashers for nearly six months once …’

  ‘I did not wish them dead.’ Bertha’s voice rose above the murmurs of the crowd. The police were dragging her towards a waiting car. Bertha’s gaze scanned the crowd, alighted on Agatha. ‘Mrs. Christie,’ she called out. ‘Tell Clifford, please – go to his house. It’s the Laurel Cottage, next to the old well … please – ’ Agatha heard no more, as Bertha was bundled into the back of the car and driven away.

  The crowd drifted apart. Agatha was aware of Inspector Mallatratt standing at her side.

  ‘There’ll be gossip for weeks to come,’ he said. ‘By the way, Mrs. Christie – Atropine.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘That’s what the poison was. Now we just have to work out where she got it from.’ He gave her a cheery smile. ‘You can have that for your book if you like.’

  Chapter Nine