Cat Among the Pigeons. Агата Кристи
‘It’s not quite so absurd as it sounds. It seems possible that Prince Ali Yusuf gave your brother something to keep for him and that your brother thought it would be safer among your possessions than if he kept it himself.’
‘Sounds very unlikely to me,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe.
‘I wonder now, would you mind if we searched?’
‘Searched through my luggage, do you mean? Unpack?’ Mrs Sutcliffe’s voice rose with a wail on that word.
‘I know,’ said O’Connor. ‘It’s a terrible thing to ask you. But it might be very important. I could help you, you know,’ he said persuasively. ‘I often used to pack for my mother. She said I was quite a good packer.’
He exerted all the charm which was one of his assets to Colonel Pikeaway.
‘Oh well,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe, yielding, ‘I suppose—If you say so—if, I mean, it’s really important—’
‘It might be very important,’ said Derek O’Connor.
‘Well, now,’ he smiled at her. ‘Suppose we begin.’
II
Three quarters of an hour later Jennifer returned from her tea. She looked round the room and gave a gasp of surprise.
‘Mummy, what have you been doing?’
‘We’ve been unpacking,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe crossly. ‘Now we’re packing things up again. This is Mr O’Connor. My daughter Jennifer.’
‘But why are you packing and unpacking?’
‘Don’t ask me why,’ snapped her mother. ‘There seems to be some idea that your Uncle Bob put something in my luggage to bring home. He didn’t give you anything, I suppose, Jennifer?’
‘Uncle Bob give me anything to bring back? No. Have you been unpacking my things too?’
‘We’ve unpacked everything,’ said Derek O’Connor cheerfully, ‘and we haven’t found a thing and now we’re packing them up again. I think you ought to have a drink of tea or something, Mrs Sutcliffe. Can I order you something? A brandy and soda perhaps?’ He went to the telephone.
‘I wouldn’t mind a good cup of tea,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe.
‘I had a smashing tea,’ said Jennifer. ‘Bread and butter and sandwiches and cake and then the waiter brought me more sandwiches because I asked him if he’d mind and he said he didn’t. It was lovely.’
O’Connor ordered the tea, then he finished packing up Mrs Sutcliffe’s belongings again with a neatness and a dexterity which forced her unwilling admiration.
‘Your mother seems to have trained you to pack very well,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’ve all sorts of handy accomplishments,’ said O’Connor smiling.
His mother was long since dead, and his skill in packing and unpacking had been acquired solely in the service of Colonel Pikeaway.
‘There’s just one thing more, Mrs Sutcliffe. I’d like you to be very careful of yourself.’
‘Careful of myself? In what way?’
‘Well,’ O’Connor left it vague. ‘Revolutions are tricky things. There are a lot of ramifications. Are you staying in London long?’
‘We’re going down to the country tomorrow. My husband will be driving us down.’
‘That’s all right then. But—don’t take any chances. If anything in the least out of the ordinary happens, ring 999 straight away.’
‘Ooh!’ said Jennifer, in high delight. ‘Dial 999. I’ve always wanted to.’
‘Don’t be silly, Jennifer,’ said her mother.
III
Extract from account in a local paper.
A man appeared before the Magistrate’s court yesterday charged with breaking into the residence of Mr Henry Sutcliffe with intent to steal. Mrs Sutcliffe’s bedroom was ransacked and left in wild confusion whilst the members of the family were at Church on Sunday morning. The kitchen staff who were preparing the mid-day meal, heard nothing. Police arrested the man as he was making his escape from the house. Something had evidently alarmed him and he had fled without taking anything.
Giving his name as Andrew Ball of no fixed abode, he pleaded guilty. He said he had been out of work and was looking for money. Mrs Sutcliffe’s jewellery, apart from a few pieces which she was wearing, is kept at her bank.
‘I told you to have the lock of that drawing-room french window seen to,’ had been the comment of Mr Sutcliffe in the family circle.
‘My dear Henry,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe, ‘you don’t seem to realize that I have been abroad for the last three months. And anyway, I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that if burglars want to get in they always can.’
She added wistfully, as she glanced again at the local paper:
‘How beautifully grand “kitchen staff” sounds. So different from what it really is, old Mrs Ellis who is quite deaf and can hardly stand up and that half-witted daughter of the Bardwells who comes in to help on Sunday mornings.’
‘What I don’t see,’ said Jennifer, ‘is how the police found out the house was being burgled and got here in time to catch him?’
‘It seems extraordinary that he didn’t take anything,’ commented her mother.
‘Are you quite sure about that, Joan?’ demanded her husband. ‘You were a little doubtful at first.’
Mrs Sutcliffe gave an exasperated sigh.
‘It’s impossible to tell about a thing like that straight away. The mess in my bedroom—things thrown about everywhere, drawers pulled out and overturned. I had to look through everything before I could be sure—though now I come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing my best Jacqmar scarf.’
‘I’m sorry, Mummy. That was me. It blew overboard in the Mediterranean. I’d borrowed it. I meant to tell you but I forgot.’
‘Really, Jennifer, how often have I asked you not to borrow things without telling me first?’
‘Can I have some more pudding?’ said Jennifer, creating a diversion.
‘I suppose so. Really, Mrs Ellis has a wonderfully light hand. It makes it worth while having to shout at her so much. I do hope, though, that they won’t think you too greedy at school. Meadowbank isn’t quite an ordinary school, remember.’
‘I don’t know that I really want to go to Meadowbank,’ said Jennifer. ‘I knew a girl whose cousin had been there, and she said it was awful. They spent all their time telling you how to get in and out of Rolls-Royces, and how to behave if you went to lunch with the Queen.’
‘That will do, Jennifer,’ said Mrs Sutcliffe. ‘You don’t appreciate how extremely fortunate you are in being admitted to Meadowbank. Miss Bulstrode doesn’t take every girl, I can tell you. It’s entirely owing to your father’s important position and the influence of your Aunt Rosamond. You are exceedingly lucky. And if,’ added Mrs Sutcliffe, ‘you are ever asked to lunch with the Queen, it will be a good thing for you to know how to behave.’
‘Oh well,’ said Jennifer. ‘I expect the Queen often has to have people to lunch who don’t know how to behave—African chiefs and jockeys and sheikhs.’
‘African chiefs have the most polished manners,’ said her father, who had recently returned from a short business trip to Ghana.
‘So do Arab sheikhs,’