Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie [Christie, Agatha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Traditional British, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9781611731552
Publisher: Center Point Large Print
Published: 1941-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

I

Superintendent Harper stood looking at the charred and twisted heap of metal. A burnt-up car was always a revolting object, even without the additional gruesome burden of a charred and blackened corpse.

Venn’s Quarry was a remote spot, far from any human habitation. Though actually only two miles as the crow flies from Danemouth, the approach to it was by one of those narrow, twisted, rutted roads, little more than a cart track, which led nowhere except to the quarry itself. It was a long time now since the quarry had been worked, and the only people who came along the lane were the casual visitors in search of blackberries. As a spot to dispose of a car it was ideal. The car need not have been found for weeks but for the accident of the glow in the sky having been seen by Albert Biggs, a labourer, on his way to work.

Albert Biggs was still on the scene, though all he had to tell had been heard some time ago, but he continued to repeat the thrilling story with such embellishments as occurred to him.

“Why, dang my eyes, I said, whatever be that? Proper glow it was, up in the sky. Might be a bonfire, I says, but who’d be having bonfire over to Venn’s Quarry? No, I says, ’tis some mighty big fire, to be sure. But whatever would it be, I says? There’s no house or farm to that direction. ’Tis over by Venn’s, I says, that’s where it is, to be sure. Didn’t rightly know what I ought to do about it, but seeing as Constable Gregg comes along just then on his bicycle, I tells him about it. ’Twas all died down by then, but I tells him just where ’twere. ’Tis over that direction, I says. Big glare in the sky, I says. Mayhap as it’s a rick, I says. One of them tramps, as likely as not, set alight of it. But I did never think as how it might be a car—far less as someone was being burnt up alive in it. ’Tis a terrible tragedy, to be sure.”

The Glenshire police had been busy. Cameras had clicked and the position of the charred body had been carefully noted before the police surgeon had started his own investigation.

The latter came over now to Harper, dusting black ash off his hands, his lips set grimly together.

“A pretty thorough job,” he said. “Part of one foot and shoe are about all that has escaped. Personally I myself couldn’t say if the body was a man’s or a woman’s at the moment, though we’ll get some indication from the bones, I expect. But the shoe is one of the black strapped affairs—the kind schoolgirls wear.”

“There’s a schoolgirl missing from the next county,” said Harper; “quite close to here. Girl of sixteen or so.”

“Then it’s probably her,” said the doctor. “Poor kid.”

Harper said uneasily: “She wasn’t alive when—?”

“No, no, I don’t think so. No signs of her having tried to get out.

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