Agatha Christie Investigates Omnibus by Alison Joseph

Author:Alison Joseph [Joseph, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2018-03-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Captain Wingfield considered the sundial, reflecting upon the creeping shadow that marked the passage of time itself. Despite the brightness of the day, he was haunted by a sense of heaviness…

At the ring of the dinner bell, Agatha put down her pen. She went to the dressing table, fastened her pearls around her neck, pinned back her hair.

There was still no reply from Archie. It occurred to her, as she stared at her reflection in the looking glass, that she could just go home. Home is where I belong, she thought, by my husband’s side, not caught up in this very odd story of war artists and ruined manor houses, of shipwrecks and papers and ghosts, of tennis games that end in tragedy.

Perhaps my novel would be making more progress if I were back home, she thought. Back at my own study, with all my notebooks, and with dear Carlo sorting things out. Most of all, with Rosalind, she thought. I’ve been away from her too long.

In her mind, a picture of her daughter, playing with her cousins. There’d be ball games no doubt, laughter, hide and seek in the gardens, running, jumping, her daughter dancing, her golden curls shining in the sunlight…

I’ve been away too long.

She got to her feet, headed for the door. Tomorrow, she thought, I will find Inspector Olds and make sure I have his permission to leave.

*

The calm that had descended over the hotel earlier now seemed to be fractured. The mood in the dining room was tense, not helped by the shrill voices of the two Scottish ladies. Agatha took her place, and almost at once Mr. Finch was at her side. ‘Madam,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘my thanks for your intervention. The Detective Inspector has put my mind at ease.’

She smiled, uttered a few words, ‘Really it was no trouble, least I could do …’ and then he had gone.

The tennis party appeared rather twitchy. Blanche sat with Sebastian and Sophie. From time to time she would lean over and insist that Sebastian tell her the time from his pocket watch.

‘What can they want with him, all this time?’ she said to Sebastian. ‘I’ve got poor Finch keeping his dinner warm for him too.’

‘Perhaps Uncle Kurt did it,’ Sophie said. Her voice was tight, and she was drumming her fingers against the table.

‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ Blanche said.

‘He was awake at the same time as Mr. Collyer, wasn’t he,’ the girl went on. ‘Completely unlike him. And in tennis shoes. No one else was on the courts at the moment that Mr. Collyer was killed, that’s what the policeman said.’

Blanche opened her mouth as if to dispute this, but the girl’s words carried an obvious, inarguable truth.

Sebastian laughed. ‘You forget that dear Kurt has no motive. No motive at all.’

‘Whereas I –’ the voice was loud, as Robin Tyndall crossed the threshold into the dining room. ‘I, it seems, have every motive. According to our local police officers.’

The tennis party looked up at him.

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