The Secret of Chimneys

by Agatha Christie

  “Yes,” said Anthony. “Virginia Revel.”

  “My dear fellow,” cried Lord Caterham, “I mean—sir, I congratulate you. I do indeed. A delightful creature.”

  “Thank you, Lord Caterham,” said Anthony. “She’s all you say and more.”

  But Mr. Isaacstein was regarding him curiously.

  “You’ll excuse my asking your Highness, but when did this marriage take place?”

  Anthony smiled back at him.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I married her this morning.”

  Thirty

  ANTHONY SIGNS ON FOR A NEW JOB

  “If you will go on, gentlemen, I will follow you in a minute,” said Anthony.

  He waited while the others filed out, and then turned to where Superintendent Battle was standing apparently absorbed in examining the panelling.

  “Well, Battle? Want to ask me something, don’t you?”

  “Well, I do, sir, though I don’t know how you knew I did. But I always marked you out as being specially quick in the uptake. I take it that the lady who is dead was the late Queen Varaga?”

  “Quite right, Battle. It’ll be hushed up, I hope. You can understand what I feel about family skeletons.”

  “Trust Mr. Lomax for that, sir. No one will ever know. That is, a lot of people will know, but it won’t get about.”

  “Was that what you wanted to ask me about?”

  “No, sir—that was only in passing. I was curious to know just what made you drop your own name—if I’m not taking too much of a liberty?”

  “Not a bit of it. I’ll tell you. I killed myself for the purest motives, Battle. My mother was English, I’d been educated in England, and I was far more interested in England than in Herzoslovakia. And I felt an absolute fool knocking about the world with a comic-opera title tacked on to me. You see, when I was very young, I had democratic ideas. Believed in the purity of ideals, and the equality of all men. I especially disbelieved in kings and princes.”

  “And since then?” asked Battle shrewdly.

  “Oh, since then, I’ve travelled and seen the world. There’s damned little equality going about. Mind you, I still believe in democracy. But you’ve got to force it on people with a strong hand—ram it down their throats. Men don’t want to be brothers—they may some day, but they don’t now. My belief in the brotherhood of man died the day I arrived in London last week, when I observed people standing in a Tube train resolutely refuse to move up and make room for those who entered. You won’t turn people into angels by appealing to their better natures just yet awhile—but by judicious force you can coerce them into behaving more or less decently to one another to go on with. I still believe in the brotherhood of man, but it’s not coming yet awhile. Say another ten thousand years or so. It’s no good being impatient. Evolution is a slow process.”

  “I’m very interested in these views of yours, sir,” said Battle with a twinkle. “And if you’ll allow me to say so, I’m sure you’ll make a very fine king out there.”

  “Thank you, Battle,” said Anthony with a sigh.

  “You don’t seem very happy about it, sir?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I daresay it will be rather fun. But it’s tying oneself down to regular work. I’ve always avoided that before.”

  “But you consider it your duty, I suppose, sir?”

  “Good Lord, no! What an idea. It’s a woman—it’s always a woman, Battle. I’d do more than be a king for her sake.”

  “Quite so, sir.”

  “I’ve arranged it so that the Baron and Isaacstein can’t kick. The one wants a king, and the other wants oil. They’ll both get what they want, and I’ve got—oh, Lord, Battle, have you ever been in love?”

  “I am much attached to Mrs. Battle, sir.”

  “Much attached to Mrs.—oh, you don’t know what I’m talking about! It’s entirely different!”

  “Excuse me, sir, that man of yours is waiting outside the window.”

  “Boris? So he is. He’s a wonderful fellow. It’s a mercy that pistol went off in the struggle and killed the lady. Otherwise Boris would have wrung her neck as sure as Fate, and then you would have wanted to hang him. His attachment to the Obolovitch dynasty is remarkable. The queer thing was that as soon as Michael was dead he attached himself to me—and yet he couldn’t possibly have known who I really was.”

  “Instinct,” said Battle. “Like a dog.”

  “Very awkward instinct I thought it at the time. I was afraid it might give the show away to you. I suppose I’d better see what he wants.”

  He went out through the window. Superintendent Battle, left alone, looked after him for a minute, then apparently addressed the panelling.

  “He’ll do,” said Superintendent Battle.

  Outside Boris explained himself.

  “Master,” he said, and led the way along the terrace.

  Anthony followed him, wondering what was forward.

  Presently Boris stopped and pointed with his forefinger. It was moonlight, and in front of them was a stone seat on which sat two figures.

  “He is a dog,” said Anthony to himself. “And what’s more a pointer!”

  He strode forward. Boris melted into the shadows.

  The two figures rose to meet him. One of them was Virginia—the other—

  “Hullo, Joe,” said a well-remembered voice. “This is a great girl of yours.”

  “Jimmy McGrath, by all that’s wonderful,” cried Anthony. “How in the name of fortune did you get here?”

  “That trip of mine into the interior went phut. Then some dagos came monkeying around. Wanted to buy that manuscript off me. Next thing I as near as nothing got a knife in the back one night. That made me think that I’d handed you out a bigger job than I knew. I thought you might need help, and I came along after you by the very next boat.”

  “Wasn’t it splendid of him?” said Virginia. She squeezed Jimmy’s arm. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how frightfully nice he was? You are, Jimmy, you’re a perfect dear.”

  “You two seem to be getting along all right,” said Anthony.

  “Sure thing,” said Jimmy. “I was snooping round for news of you, when I connected with this dame. She wasn’t at all what I thought she’d be—some swell haughty society lady that’d scare the life out of me.”

  “He told me all about the letters,” said Virginia. “And I feel almost ashamed not to have been in real trouble over them when he was such a knight-errant.”

  “If I’d known what you were like,” said Jimmy gallantly, “I’d not have given him the letters. I’d have brought them to you myself. Say, young man, is the fun really over? Is there nothing for me to do?”

  “By Jove,” said Anthony, “there is! Wait a minute.”

  He disappeared into the house. In a minute or two he returned with a paper package which he cast into Jimmy’s arms.

  “Go round to the garage and help yourself to a likely looking car. Beat it to London and deliver that parcel at 17 Everdean Square. That’s Mr. Balderson’s private address. In exchange he’ll hand you a thousand pounds.”

  “What? It’s not the memoirs? I understood that they’d been burnt.”

  “What do you take me for?” demanded Anthony.

  “You don’t think I’d fall for a story like that, do you? I rang up the publishers at once, found out that the other was a fake call, and arranged accordingly. I made up a dummy package as I’d been directed to do. But I put the real package in the manager’s safe and handed over the dummy. The memoirs have never been out of my possession.”

  “Bully for you, my son,” said Jimmy.

  “Oh, Anthony,” cried Virginia. “You’re not going to let them be published?”

  “I can’t help myself. I can’t let a pal like Jimmy down. But you needn’t worry. I’ve had time to wade through them, and I see now why people always hint that bigwigs don’t write their own reminiscences but hire someone to do it for them. As a writer, Stylptitch is an insuffer
able bore. He proses on about statecraft, and doesn’t go in for any racy and indiscreet anecdotes. His ruling passion of secrecy held strong to the end. There’s not a word in the memoirs from beginning to end to flutter the susceptibilities of the most difficult politician. I rang up Balderson today, and arranged with him that I’d deliver the manuscript tonight before midnight. But Jimmy can do his own dirty work now that he’s here.”

  “I’m off,” said Jimmy. “I like the idea of that thousand pounds—especially when I’d made up my mind it was down and out.”

  “Half a second,” said Anthony. “I’ve got a confession to make to you, Virginia. Something that everyone else knows, but that I haven’t yet told you.”

  “I don’t mind how many strange women you’ve loved so long as you don’t tell me about them.”

  “Women!” said Anthony, with a virtuous air. “Women indeed? You ask James here what kind of women I was going about with the last time he saw me.”

  “Frumps,” said Jimmy solemnly. “Utter frumps. Not one a day under forty-five.”

  “Thank you, Jimmy,” said Anthony, “you’re a true friend. No, it’s much worse than that. I’ve deceived you as to my real name.”

  “Is it very dreadful?” said Virginia, with interest. “It isn’t something silly like Pobbles, is it? Fancy being called Mrs. Pobbles.”

  “You are always thinking the worst of me.”

  “I admit that I did once think you were King Victor, but only for about a minute and a half.”

  “By the way, Jimmy, I’ve got a job for you—gold prospecting in the rocky fastnesses of Herzoslovakia?”

  “Is there gold there?” asked Jimmy eagerly.

  “Sure to be,” said Anthony. “It’s a wonderful country.”

  “So you’re taking my advice and going there?”

  “Yes,” said Anthony. “Your advice was worth more than you knew. Now for the confession. I wasn’t changed at nurse, or anything romantic like that, but nevertheless I am really Prince Nicholas Obolovitch of Herzoslovakia.”

  “Oh, Anthony,” cried Virginia. “How perfectly screaming! And I have married you! What are we going to do about it?”

  “We’ll go to Herzoslovakia and pretend to be kings and queens. Jimmy McGrath once said that the average life of a king or queen out there is under four years. I hope you don’t mind?”

  “Mind?” cried Virginia. “I shall love it!”

  “Isn’t she great?” murmured Jimmy.

  Then, discreetly, he faded into the night. A few minutes later the sound of a car was heard.

  “Nothing like letting a man do his own dirty work,” said Anthony with satisfaction. “Besides, I didn’t know how else to get rid of him. Since we were married I’ve not had one minute alone with you.”

  “We’ll have a lot of fun,” said Virginia. “Teaching the brigands not to be brigands, and the assassins not to assassinate, and generally improving the moral tone of the country.”

  “I like to hear these pure ideals,” said Anthony. “It makes me feel my sacrifice has not been in vain.”

  “Rot,” said Virginia calmly, “you’ll enjoy being a king. It’s in your blood, you know. You were brought up to the trade of royalty, and you’ve got a natural aptitude for it, just like plumbers have a natural bent for plumbing.”

  “I never think they have,” said Anthony. “But, damn it all, don’t let’s waste time talking about plumbers. Do you know that at this very minute I’m supposed to be deep in conference with Isaacstein and old Lollipop? They want to talk about oil. Oil, my God! They can just await my kingly pleasure. Virginia, do you remember my telling you once that I’d have a damned good try to make you care for me?”

  “I remember,” said Virginia softly. “But Superintendent Battle was looking out of the window.”

  “Well, he isn’t now,” said Anthony.

  He caught her suddenly to him, kissing her eyelids, her lips, the green gold of her hair. . . .

  “I do love you so, Virginia,” he whispered. “I do love you so. Do you love me?”

  He looked down at her—sure of the answer.

  Her head rested against his shoulder, and very low, in a sweet shaken voice, she answered:

  “Not a bit!”

  “You little devil,” cried Anthony, kissing her again. “Now I know for certain that I shall love you until I die. . . .”

  Thirty-one

  SUNDRY DETAILS

  Scene—Chimneys, 11 a.m. Thursday morning.

  Johnson, the police constable, with his coat off, digging.

  Something in the nature of a funeral feeling seems to be in the air. The friends and relations stand round the grave that Johnson is digging.

  George Lomax has the air of the principal beneficiary under the will of the deceased. Superintendent Battle, with his immovable face, seems pleased that the funeral arrangements have gone so nicely. As the undertaker, it reflects credit upon him. Lord Caterham has that solemn and shocked look which Englishmen assume when a religious ceremony is in progress.

  Mr. Fish does not fit into the picture so well. He is not sufficiently grave.

  Johnson bends to his task. Suddenly he straightens up. A little stir of excitement passes round.

  “That’ll do, sonny,” said Mr. Fish. “We shall do nicely now.”

  One perceives at once that he is really the family physician.

  Johnson retires. Mr. Fish, with due solemnity, stoops over the excavation. The surgeon is about to operate.

  He brings out a small canvas package. With much ceremony he hands it to Superintendent Battle. The latter, in his turn, hands it to George Lomax. The etiquette of the situation has now been carefully complied with.

  George Lomax unwraps the package, slits up the oilsilk inside it, burrows into further wrapping. For a moment he holds something on the palm of his hand—then quickly shrounds it once more in cottonwool.

  He clears his throat.

  “At this auspicious moment,” he begins, with the clear delivery of the practised speaker.

  Lord Caterham beats a precipitate retreat. On the terrace he finds his daughter.

  “Bundle, is that car of yours in order?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Then take me up to town in it immediately. I’m going abroad at once—today.”

  “But, Father—”

  “Don’t argue with me, Bundle. George Lomax told me when he arrived this morning that he was anxious to have a few words with me privately on a matter of the utmost delicacy. He added that the King of Timbuctoo was arriving in London shortly. I won’t go through it again, Bundle, do you hear? Not for fifty George Lomaxes! If Chimneys is so valuable to the nation, let the nation buy it. Otherwise I shall sell it to a syndicate and they can turn it into an hotel.”

  “Where is Codders now?”

  Bundle is rising to the situation.

  “At the present minute,” replied Lord Caterham, looking at his watch, “he is good for at least fifteen minutes about the Empire.”

  Another picture.

  Mr. Bill Eversleigh, not invited to be present at the graveside ceremony, at the telephone.

  “No, really, I mean it . . . I say, don’t be huffy . . . Well, you will have supper tonight, anyway? . . . No, I haven’t. I’ve been kept to it with my nose at the grindstone. You’ve no idea what Codders is like . . . I say, Dolly, you know jolly well what I think about you . . . You know I’ve never cared for anyone but you . . . Yes, I’ll come to the show first. How does the old wheeze go? ‘And the little girl tries, Hooks and Eyes’. . . .”

  Unearthly sounds. Mr. Eversleigh trying to hum the refrain in question.

  And now George’s peroration draws to a close.

  “. . . the lasting peace and prosperity of the British Empire!”

  “I guess,” said Mr. Hiram Fish sotto voce to himself and the world at large, “that this has been a great little old week.”

  About the Author

  Agatha Christie is the most widely publi
shed author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

  She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

  Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

  Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  www.AgathaChristie.com

  THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION

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  The Secret of Chimneys

  The Seven Dials Mystery