"I don't expect to find anything," Emily replied, "or
to notice anything that the police have overlooked. [ can't
explain to you, Mr. Kirkwood, I want--I want to get the
atmosphere of the place. Please let me have th key.
There's no harm in it."
"Certainly there's no harm in it," said Mr. Kir'lwood
with dignity.
"Then, please be kind," said Emily.
So Mr. Kirkwood was kind and handed over the
with an indulgent smile. He did his best to COl with
her which catastrophe was only averted by great tact and
firmness on Emily's part.
That morning Emily had received a letter. It was
couched in the following terms:
"D,AR MISS Tlv.¥usIs,"--wrote Mrs. Belling "You
said as how you would like to hear if anything
at all should happen that was in any way out of the
common even if not important, and, as this is pe-culiar,
though not in any way important, I thought
Agatha Christie
it my duty Miss to let you know at once, hoping
this will catch you by the last post tonight or by the
first post tomorrow. My niece she come round and
said it wasn't of any importance but peculiar which
I agreed with her. The police said, and it was gen-erally
thought that nothing was taken from Captain
Trevelyan's house and nothing was in a manner of
speaking nothing that is of any value, but something
there is missing though not noticed at the time being
unimportant. But it seems Miss that a pair of the
Captain's boots is missing which Evans noticed when
he went over the things with Major Burnaby. Though
I don't suppose it is of any importance Miss I thought
you would like to know. It was a pair of boots Miss
the thick kind you rubs oil into and which the Cap-tain
would have worn if he had gone out in the snow
but as he didn't go out in the snow it doesn't seem
to make sense. But missing they are and who took
them nobody knows and though I well know it's of
no importance I felt it my duty to write and hoping
this finds you as it leaves me at present and hoping
you are not worrying too much about the young
gentleman I remain Miss Yours truly--Mrs. J. Bell-ing."
Emily had read and reread this letter. She had dis-cussed
it with Charles.
"Boots," said Charles thoughtfully. "It doesn't seem
to make sense."
"It must mean something," Emily pointed out. "I
mean--why should a pair of boots be missing?"
"You don't think Evans is inventing?"
"Why should he? And after all if people do invent,
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Murder at Hazelmoor
they invent something sensible. Not a silly pointless thing
like this."
"Boots suggests something to do with footprints," said
Charles thoughtfully.
"I know. But footprints don't seem to enter into this
case at all. Perhaps if it hadn't come on to snow again--"
"Yes, perhaps, but even then."
"Could he have given them to some tramp," suggested
Charles, "and then the tramp did him in."
"I suppose that's possible," said Emily, "but it doesn't
sound very like Captain Trevelyan. He might perhaps
have found a man some work to do or given him a shilling,
but he wouldn't have pressed his best winter boots on
him."
"Well, I give it up," said Charles.
"I'm not going to give it up," said Emily. "By hook or
by crook I'm going to get to the bottom of it"
Accordingly she came to Exhampton and went first to
the Three Crowns where Mrs. Belling received her with
great enthusiasm.
"And your young gentleman still in prison, Miss! Well,
it's a cruel shame and none of us don't believe it was
him at least I would like to hear them say so when I am
about. So you got my letter? You'd like to see Evans?
Well, he lives right round the corner, 85 Fore Street it
is. I wish I could come with you, but I can't leave the
place, but you can't mistake it."
Emily did not mistake it. Evans himself was out, but
Mrs. Evans received her and invited her in. Emily sat
down and induced Mrs. Evans to do so also and plunged
straight into the matter on hand.
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Agatha Christie
"I've come to talk about what your husband told Mrs.
Belling. I mean about a pair of Captain Trevelyan's boots
being missing."
"It's an odd thing, to be sure," said the girl.
"Your husband is quite certain about it?"
"Oh, yes. Wore these boots most of the time in winter,
the Captain did. Big ones they were, and he wore a
couple of pairs of socks inside them."
Emily nodded.
"They can't have gone to be mended or anything like
that?" she suggested.
"Not without Evans knowing, they couldn't," said his
wife boastfully.
"No, I suppose not."
"It's queer like," said Mrs. Evans, "but I don't suppose
it had anything to do with the murder, do you, Miss?" "It doesn't seem likely," agreed Emily.
"Have they found out anything new, Miss?" The girl's
voice was eager.
"Yes, one or two things--nothing very important."
"Seeing as that the Inspector from Exeter was here
again today, I thought as though they might."
"Inspector Narracott?'
"Yes, that's the one, Miss."
"Did he come by my train?"
"No, he came by car. He went to the Three Crowns
first and asked about the young gentleman's luggage."
"What young gentleman's luggage?"
"The gentleman you go about with, Miss."
Emily stared.
"They asked Torn," went on the girl, "I was passing
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Murder at Hazelmoor
by just after and he told me about it. He's a one for
noticing is Torn. He remembered there were two labels
on the young gentleman's luggage, one to Exeter and
one to Exhampton."
A sudden smile illuminated Emily's face as she pictured
the crime being committed by Charles in order to
provide a scoop for himself. One could, she decided,
write a gruesome little story on that theme. But she
admired Inspector Narracott's thoroughness in checking
every detail to do with anyone, however remote their
connection with the crime. He must have left Exeter
almost immediately after his interview with her. A fast
car would easily beat the train and in any case she had
lunched in Exeter.
"Where did the Inspector go afterwards?" she asked. "To Sittaford, Miss. Torn heard him tell the driver."
"To Sittaford House?" '
Brian Pearson was, she knew, still staying at Sittaford
House with the Willetts.
"No, Miss, to Mr. Duke's."
Duke again. Emily felt irritated and baffled. Always
Duke--the unknown factor. She ought, she felt, to be
able to deduce him from the evidence but he seemed to
have produced the same effect on everyone--a normal,
ordinary, pleasant man.
"I'
ve got to see hims" said Enily to herself. "I'll go
straight there as soon as I get back to Sittaford."
Then she had thanked Mrs. Evans, gone on to Mr.
Kirkwood's and obtained the key and was now standing
in the hall of Hazelmoor and wondering how and what
she had expected to feel there.
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Agatha Christie
She mounted the stairs slowly and went into the first
room at the top of the stairs. This was quite clearly Captain
Trevelyan's bedroom. It had, as Mr. Kirkwood had
said, been emptied of personal effects. Blankets were
folded in a neat pile, the drawers were empty, there was
not so much as a hanger left in the cupboard. The boot
cupboard showed a row of bare shelves.
Emily sighed and then turned and went downstairs.
Here was the sitting-room where the dead man had lain,
the snow blowing in from the open window.
She tried to visualize the scene. Whose hand had struck
Captain Trevelyan down, and why? Had he been killed
at five and twenty past five as everyone believed--or
had Jim really lost his nerve and lied? Had he failed to
make anyone hear at the front door and gone round to
the window, looked in and seen his dead uncle's body
and dashed away in an agony of fear? If only she knew.
According to Mr. Dacres, Jim stuck to his story. Yes--but
Jim might have lost his nerve. She couldn't be sure.
Had there been, as Mr. Rycroft had suggested, someone
else in the house--someone who had overheard the
quarrel and seized his chance?
If so--did that throw any light on the boot problem?
Had someone been upstairs--perhaps in Captain Trevelyan's
bedroom? Emily passed through the hall again.
She took a quick look into the dining-room, there were
a couple of trunks there neatly strapped and labeled. The
sideboard was bare. The silver cups were at Major Bur-naby's
bungalow.
She noticed, however, that the prize of three new
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Murder at Hazelmoor
novels, an account of which Charles had had from Evans'
and had reported with amusing embellishments to her,
had been forgotten and lay dejectedly on a chair.
She looked round the room and shook her head. There
was nothing here.
She went up the stairs again and once more entered
the bedroom.
She must know why these boots were missing! Until
she could concoct some theory reasonably satisfactory to
her herself which would account for their disappearance,
she felt powerless to put them out of her mind. They
were soaring to ridiculous proportions, dwarfing every-thing
else to do with the case. Was there nothing to help
her?
She took each drawer out and felt behind it. In de-tective
stories there was always an obliging scrap of pa-per.
But evidently in real life one could not expect such
fortunate accidents, or else Inspector Narracott and his
men had been wonderfully thorough. She felt for loose
boards, she felt round the edge of the carpet with her
fingers. She investigated the spring mattress. What she
expected to find in all these places she hardly knew but
she went on looking with dogged perseverance.
And then, as she straightened her back and stood up-right,
her eye was caught by the one incongruous touch
in this room of apple pie order, a little pile of soot in the
grate.
Emily looked at it with the fascinated gaze of a bird
for a snake. She drew nearer eyeing it. It was no logical
deduction, no reasoning of cause and effect, it was simply
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Agatha Christie
that the sight of soot as such, suggested a certain possibility.
Emily rolled up her sleeves and thrust both arms
up the chimney.
A moment later she was staring with incredulous delight
at a parcel wrapped loosely in newspaper. One
shake detached the newspaper and there, before her,
were The missing pair of boots.
"But why?" said Emily. "Here they are. But why?
Why? Why? Why?"
She stared at them. She turned them over. She examined
them outside and inside and the same question
beat monotonously in her brain. Why?
Granted that someone had removed Captain Trevelyan's
boots and hidden them up the chimney. Why had
they done so?
"Oh!" cried Emily desperately, "I shall go mad!"
She put the boots carefully in the middle of the floor
and drawing up a chair opposite them she sat down. And
then deliberately she set herself to think out things from
the beginning, going over every detail that she knew
herself or had learned by hearsay from other people. She
considered every actor in the drama and outside the
drama.
And suddenly, a queer nebulous idea began to take
shape--an idea suggested by that pair of innocent boots
that stood there dumbly on the floor.
"But if so," said Emily--"if so--"
She picked up the boots in her hand and hurried downstairs.
She pushed open the dining-room door and went
to the cupboard in the corner. Here was Captain Trevelyan's
motley array of sporting trophies and sporting
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Murder at Hazelmoor
outfits, all the things he had not trusted within reach of
the female tenants. The skis, the sculls, the elephant's
foot, the tusks, the fishing rods--everything still waiting
for Messrs. Young and Peabody to pack them expertly
for store.
Emily bent down boots in hand.
In a minute or two she stood upright, flushed, incre-dulous.
"So that was it," said Emily. "So that was it."
She sank into a chair. There was still much that she
did not understand.
After some minutes she rose to her feet. She spoke
aloud.
"I know who killed Captain Trevelyan," she said. "But
I don't know why. I still can't think why. But I mustn't
lose time."
She hurried out of Hazelmoor. To find a car to drive
her to Sittaford was the work of a few minutes. She
ordered it to take her to Mr. Duke's bungalow. Here
she paid the man and then walked up the path as the
car drove away.
She lifted the knocker and gave a loud rat-tat.
After a moment or two's interval the door was opened
by a big burly man with a rather impassive face.
For the first time, Emily met Mr. Duke face to face.
"Mr. Duke?" she asked.
"Yes."
"I am Miss Trefusis. May I come in, please?"
There was a momentary hesftation. Then he stood
aside to let her pass. Emily walked into the living-room.
He closed the front door and followed her.
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Agatha Christie
"I want to see Inspector Narracott," said Emily. "Is
he here?"
Again there was a pause. Mr. Duke seemed uncertain
how to answer. At last he appeared to make up his mind.
He smiled--a rather curious smile.
"Inspe
ctor Narracott is here," he said. "What do you
want to see him about?"
Emily took the parcel she was carrying and unwrapped
it. She took out a pair of boots and placed them on the
table in front of him.
"I want," she said, "to see him about those boots."
a5o
9. The Second S 'ance
"H tJ . x o, hullo, hullo," said Ronnie Garfield.
Mr. Rycroft, slowly ascending the steep slope of the
lane from the post office, paused, till Ronnie overtook
him.
"Been to the local Harrods, eh?" said Ronnie. "Old
Mother Hibbert."
"No," said Mr. Rycroft. "I have been for a short walk
along past the forge. Very delightful weather today."
Ronnie looked up at the blue sky.
"Yes, a bit of a difference from last week. By the way,
you're going to the Willetts, I suppose?"
"I am. You also?"
"Yes. Our bright spot in Sittaford--the Willetts. Mustn't
let yourself get downhearted, that's their motto. Carry
on as usual. My aunt says it is unfeeling of them to ask
people to tea so soon after the funeral and all that, but
that's all bunkum. She just says that because she's feeling
Christie,Agatha - Murder At Hazelmore.doc Page 26
