Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  Molly announced the necessity of walking to the village to make some last purchases.

  The only thing that was wrong was the weather. For the last two days it had been bitterly cold, and now the snow was beginning to fall.

  Molly hurried up the drive, thick, feathery flakes falling on her waterproofed shoulders and bright curly hair. The weather forecasts had been lugubrious in the extreme. Heavy snowfall was to be expected.

  She hoped anxiously that all the pipes wouldn't freeze. It would be too bad if everything went wrong just as they started.

  She glanced at her watch. Past teatime. Would Giles have got back yet? Would he be wondering where she was?

  "I had to go to the village again for something I had forgotten," she would say. And he would laugh and say, "More tins?"

  Tins were a joke between them. They were always on the lookout for tins of food. The larder was really quite nicely stocked now in case of emergencies.

  And, Molly thought with a grimace as she looked up at the sky, it looked as though emergencies were going to present themselves very soon.

  The house was empty. Giles was not back yet.

  Molly went first into the kitchen, then upstairs, going round the newly prepared bedrooms. Mrs Boyle in the south room with the mahogany and the four-poster. Major Metcalf in the blue room with the oak. Mr Wren in the east room with the bay window. All the rooms looked very nice - and what a blessing that Aunt Katherine had had such a splendid stock of linen. Molly patted a counterpane into place and went downstairs again.

  It was nearly dark. The house felt suddenly very quiet and empty. It was a lonely house, two miles from a village, two miles, as Molly put it, from anywhere.

  She had often been alone in the house before - but she had never before been so conscious of being alone in it.

  The snow beat in a soft flurry against the windowpanes. It made a whispery, uneasy sound.

  Supposing Giles couldn't get back - supposing the snow was so thick that the car couldn't get through? Supposing she had to stay alone here - stay alone for days, perhaps.

  She looked round the kitchen - a big, comfortable kitchen that seemed to call for a big, comfortable cook presiding at the kitchen table, her jaws moving rhythmically as she at e rock cakes and drank black tea she should be flanked by a tall, elderly parlour-maid on one side and a round, rosy housemaid on the other, with a kitchen-maid at the other end of the table observing her betters with frightened eyes. And instead there was just herself, Molly Davis, playing a role that did not yet seem a very natural role to play.

  Her whole life, at the moment, seemed unreal - Giles seemed unreal.

  She was playing a part - just playing a part.

  A shadow passed the window, and she jumped - a strange man was coming through the snow. She heard the rattle of the side door. The stranger stood there in the open doorway, shaking off snow, a strange man, walking into the empty house. And then, suddenly, illusion fled.

  "Oh Giles," she cried, "I'm so glad you've come!"

  "Hullo, sweetheart! What filthy weather! Lord, I'm frozen."

  He stamped his feet and blew through his hands.

  Automatically Molly picked up the coat that he had thrown in a Gileslike manner onto the oak chest. She put it on a hanger, taking out of the stuffed pockets a muffler, a newspaper, a ball of string, and the morning's correspondence which he had shoved in pell mell. Moving into the kitchen, she laid down the articles on the dresser and put the kettle on the gas.

  "Did you get the netting?" she asked. "What ages you've been."

  "It wasn't the right kind. Wouldn't have been any good for us. I went on to another dump, but that wasn't any good either. What have you been doing with yourself? Nobody turned up yet, I suppose?"

  "Mrs Boyle isn't coming till tomorrow, anyway."

  "Major Metcalf and Mr Wren ought to be here today."

  "Major Metcalf sent a card to say he wouldn't be here till tomorrow."

  "Then that leaves us and Mr Wren for dinner. What do you think he's like? Correct sort of retired civil servant is my idea."

  "No, I think he's an artist."

  "In that case," said Giles, "we'd better get a week's rent in advance."

  "Oh, no, Giles, they bring luggage. If they don't pay we hang on to their luggage."

  "And suppose their luggage is stones wrapped up in newspaper? The truth is, Molly, we don't in the least know what we're up against in this business. I hope they don't spot what beginners we are."

  "Mrs Boyle is sure to," said Molly. "She's that kind of woman." "How do you know? You haven't seen her?"

  Molly turned away. She spread a newspaper on the table, fetched some cheese, and set to work to grate it.

  "What's this?" inquired her husband.

  "It's going to be Welsh rarebit," Molly informed him.

  "Bread crumbs and mashed potatoes and just a teeny-weeny bit of cheese to justify its name."

  "Aren't you a clever cook?" said her admiring husband.

  "I wonder. I can do one thing at a time. It's assembling them that needs so much practice. Breakfast is the worst."

  "Why?"

  "Because it all happens at once - eggs and bacon and hot milk and coffee and toast. The milk boils over, or the toast burns, or the bacon frizzles, or the eggs go hard. You have to be as active as a scalded cat watching everything at once."

  "I shall have to creep down unobserved tomorrow morning and watch this scalded-cat impersonation."

  "The kettle's boiling," said Molly. "Shall we take the tray into the library and hear the wireless? It's almost time for the news."

  "As we seem to be going to spend almost the whole of our time in the kitchen, we ought to have a wireless there, too."

  "Yes. How nice kitchens are. I love this kitchen. I think it's far and away the nicest room in the house. I like the dresser and the plates, and I simply love the lavish feeling that an absolutely enormous kitchen range gives you - though, of course, I'm thankful I haven't got to cook on it."

  "I suppose a whole year's fuel ration would go in one day."

  "Almost certainly, I should say. But think of the great joints that were roasted in it - sirloins of beef and saddles of mutton. Colossal copper preserving-pans full of homemade strawberry jam with pounds and pounds of sugar going into it. What a lovely, comfortable age the Victorian age was. Look at the furniture upstairs, large and solid and rather ornate - but, oh! - the heavenly comfort of it, with lots of room for the clothes one used to have, and every drawer sliding in and out so easily. Do you remember that smart modern flat we were lent?

  Everything built in and sliding - only nothing slid - it always stuck. And the doors pushed shut - only they never stayed shut, or if they did shut they wouldn't open."

  "Yes, that's the worst of gadgets. If they don't go right, you're sunk."

  "Well, come on, let's hear the news."

  The news consisted mainly of grim warnings about the weather, the usual deadlock in foreign affairs, spirited bickerings in Parliament, and a murder in Culver Street, Paddington.

  "Ugh," said Molly, switching it off. "Nothing but misery. I'm not going to hear appeals for fuel economy all over again. What do they expect you to do, sit and freeze? I don't think we ought to have tried to start a guest house in the winter. We ought to have waited until the spring."

  She added in a different tone of voice, "I wonder what the woman was like who was murdered."

  "Mrs Lyon?"

  "Was that her name? I wonder who wanted to murder her and why."

  "Perhaps she had a fortune under the floor boards."

  "When it says the police are anxious to interview a man 'seen in the vicinity' does that mean he's the murderer?"

  "I think it's usually that. Just a polite way of putting it."

  The shrill note of a bell made them both jump.

  "That's the front door," said Giles. "Enter - a murderer," he added facetiously.

  "It would be, of course, in a play. Hurry up. It mus
t be Mr Wren. Now we shall see who's right about him, you or me."

  Mr Wren and a flurry of snow came in together with a rush. All that Molly, standing in the library door, could see of the newcomer was his silhouette against the white world outside.

  How alike, thought Molly, were all men in their livery of civilization.

  Dark overcoat, gray hat, muffler round the neck.

  In another moment Giles had shut the front door against the elements, Mr Wren was unwinding his muffler and casting down his suitcase and flinging off his hat - all, it seemed, at the same time, and also talking.

  He had a high-pitched, almost querulous voice and stood revealed in the light of the hall as a young man with a shock of light, sunburned hair and pale, restless eyes.

  "Too, too frightful," he was saying. "The English winter at its worst - a reversion to Dickens - Scrooge and Tiny Tim and all that. One had to be so terribly hearty to stand up to it all. Don't you think so? And I've had a terrible cross-country journey from Wales. Are you Mrs Davis? But how delightful!"

  Molly's hand was seized in a quick, bony clasp.

  "Not at all as I'd imagined you. I'd pictured you, you know, as an Indian army general's widow. Terrifically grim and memsahibish - and Benares whatnot - a real Victorian whatnot. Heavenly, simply heavenly - Have you got any wax flowers? Or birds of paradise? Oh, but I'm simply going to love this place. I was afraid, you know, it would be very Olde Worlde - very, very Manor House - failing the Benares brass, I mean. Instead, it's marvellous - real Victorian bedrock respectability.

  Tell me, have you got one of those beautiful sideboards - mahogany purple-plummy-mahogany with great carved fruits?"

  "As a matter of fact," said Molly, rather breathless under this torrent of words, "we have." "No! Can I see it? At once. In here?"

  His quickness was almost disconcerting. He had turned the handle of the dining-room door, and clicked on the light. Molly followed him in, conscious of Giles's disapproving profile on her left.

  Mr Wren passed his long bony fingers over the rich carving of the massive sideboard with little cries of appreciation. Then he turned a reproachful glance upon his hostess.

  "No big mahogany dining-table? All these little tables dotted about instead?" "We thought people would prefer it that way," said Molly.

  "Darling, of course you're quite right. I was being carried away by my feeling for period. Of course, if you had the table, you'd have to have the right family round it. Stern, handsome father with a beard - prolific, faded mother, eleven children, a grim governess, and somebody called 'poor Harriet' - the poor relation who acts as general helper and is very, very grateful for being given a good home. Look at that grate think of the flames leaping up the chimney and blistering poor Harriet's back."

  "I'll take your suitcase upstairs," said Giles. "East room?"

  "Yes," said Molly.

  Mr Wren skipped out into the hall again as Giles went upstairs.

  "Has it got a four-poster with little chintz roses?" he asked.

  "No, it hasn't," said Giles and disappeared round the bend of the staircase.

  "I don't believe your husband is going to like me," said Mr Wren.

  "What's he been in? The navy?"

  "Yes"

  "Yes.

  "I thought so. They're much less tolerant than the army and the air force. How long have you been marr ied? Are you very much in love with him?"

  "Perhaps you'd like to come up and see your room."

  "Yes, of course that was impertinent. But I did really want to know. I mean, it's interesting, don't you think, to know all about people? What they feel and think, I mean, not just who they are and what they do."

  "I suppose," said Molly in a demure voice, "you are Mr Wren?"

  The young man stopped short, clutched his hair in both hands and tugged at it.

  "But how frightful -1 never put first things first. Yes, I'm Christopher Wren - now, don't laugh. My parents were a romantic couple. They hoped I'd be an architect. So they thought it a splendid idea to christen me Christopher - halfway home, as it were."

  "And are you an architect?" asked Molly, unable to help smiling.

  "Yes, I am," said Mr Wren triumphantly. "At least I'm nearly one. I'm not fully qualified yet. But it's really a remarkable example of wishful thinking coming off for once. Mind you, actually the name will be a handicap. I shall never be the Christopher Wren. However, Chris Wren's Pre-Fab Nests may achieve fame."

  Giles came down the stairs again, and Molly said, "I'll show you your room now, Mr Wren."

  When she came down a few minutes later, Giles said, "Well, did he like the pretty oak furniture?"

  "He was very anxious to have a four-poster, so I gave him the rose room instead." Giles grunted and murmured something that ended, "... young twerp."

  "Now, look here, Giles," Molly assumed a severe demeanour. "This isn't a house party of guests we're entertaining. This is business.

  Whether you like Christopher Wren or not -"

  "I don't," Giles interjected.

  "- has nothing whatever to do with it. He's paying seven guineas a week, and that's all that matters."

  "If he pays it, yes."

  "He's agreed to pay it. We've got his letter."

  "Did you transfer that suitcase of his to the rose room?"

  "He carried it, of course."

  "Very gallant. But it wouldn't have strained you. There's certainly no question of stones wrapped up in newspaper. It's so light that there seems to me there's probably nothing in it."

  "Ssh, here he comes," said Molly warningly.

  Christopher Wren was conducted to the library which looked, Molly thought, very nice, indeed, with its big chairs and its log fire. Dinner, she told him, would be in half an hour's time.

  In reply to a question, she explained that there were no other guests at the moment. In that case, Christopher said, how would it be if he came into the kitchen and helped?

  "I can cook you an omelette if you like," he said engagingly.

  The subsequent proceedings took place in the kitchen, and Christopher helped with the washing up.

  Somehow, Molly felt, it was not quite the right start for a conventional guest house - and Giles had not liked it at all. Oh, well, thought Molly, as she fell asleep, tomorrow when the others came it would be different.

  The morning came with dark skies and snow. Giles looked grave, and Molly's heart fell. The weather was going to make everything very difficult.

  Mrs Boyle arrived in the local taxi with chains on the wheels, and the driver brought pessimistic reports of the state of the road.

  "Drifts afore nightfall," he prophesied.

  Mrs Boyle herself did not lighten the prevailing gloom. She was a large, forbidding-looking woman with a resonant voice and a masterful manner. Her natural aggressiveness had been heightened by a war career of persistent and militant usefulness.

  "If I had not believed this was a running concern, I should never have come," she said. "I naturally thought it was a well-established guest house, properly run on scientific lines."

  "There is no obligation for you to remain if you are not satisfied, Mrs Boyle," said Giles. "No, indeed, and I shall not think of doing so."

  "Perhaps, Mrs Boyle," said Giles, "you would like to ring up for a taxi.

  The roads are not yet blocked. If there has been any misapprehension it would, perhaps, be better if you went elsewhere." He added, "We have had so many applications for rooms that we shall be able to fill your place quite easily - indeed, in future we are charging a higher rate for our rooms."

  Mrs Boyle threw him a sharp glance. "I am certainly not going to leave before I have tried what the place is like. Perhaps you would let me have a rather large bath towel, Mrs Davis. I am not accustomed to drying myself on a pocket handkerchief."

  Giles grinned at Molly behind Mrs Boyle's retreating back. "Darling, you were wonderful," said Molly. "The way you stood up to her."

  "Bullies soon climb down wh
en they get their own medicine," said Giles. "Oh, dear," said Molly. "I wonder how she'll get on with Christopher Wren." "She won't," said Giles.

  And, indeed, that very afternoon, Mrs Boyle remarked to Molly, "That's a very peculiar young man," with distinct disfavour in her voice.

  The baker arrived looking like an Arctic explorer and delivered the bread with the warning that his next call, due in two days' time, might not materialize.

  "Hold-ups everywhere," he announced. "Got plenty of stores in, I hope?"

  "Oh, yes," said Molly. "We've got lots of tins. I'd better take extra flour, though."

  She thought vaguely that there was something the Irish made called soda bread. If the worst came to the worst she could probably make that.

  The baker had also brought the papers, and she spread them out on the hall table. Foreign affairs had receded in importance. The weather and the murder of Mrs Lyon occupied the front page.

  She was staring at the blurred reproduction of the dead woman's features when Christopher Wren's voice behind her said, "Rather a sordid murder, don't you think? Such a drab-looking woman and such a drab street. One can't feel, can one, that there is any story behind it?"

  "I've no doubt," said Mrs Boyle with a snort, "that the creature got no more than she deserved."

  "Oh." Mr Wren turned to her with engaging eagerness. "So you think it's definitely a sex crime, do you?"

  "I suggested nothing of the kind, Mr Wren."

  "But she was strangled, wasn't she? I wonder -" he held out his long white hands - "what it would feel like to strangle anyone."

  "Really, Mr Wren!"

  Christopher moved nearer to her, lowering his voice. "Have you considered, Mrs Boyle, just what it would feel like to be strangled?"

  Mrs Boyle said again, even more indignantly, "Really, Mr Wren!"

  Molly read hurriedly out, '"The man the police are anxious to interview was wearing a dark overcoat and a light Homburg hat, was of medium height, and wore a woolen scarf.'"

  "In fact," said Christopher Wren, "he looked just like everybody else."

  He laughed. "Yes," said Molly. "Just like everybody else."

  In his room at Scotland Yard, Inspector Parminter said to Detective Sergeant Kane, "I'll see those two workmen now."