The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham

Author:Margery Allingham [Allingham, Margery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781448213733
Google: B2SImRB8KQIC
Amazon: 1448213738
Barnesnoble: 1448213738
Goodreads: 383197
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 1900-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

10 The Next Move

‘Look here, Dad, what are you going to do?’ Jerry put the question aggressively.

The two men were seated together in a deserted corner in the lounge of their hotel, having just returned from escorting Mrs Christensen and Norah home after dinner at the Café de Paris.

‘What are you going to do?’ the boy repeated.

W.T. put his brandy-and-soda down on the glass-topped cane table, and blinked at his son in mild astonishment.

‘Jerry,’ he said, ‘that Château Yquem has gone to your head – I should go to bed, my boy.’

Jerry flushed angrily.

‘I’m in no mood for that sort of chaff just now,’ he said, without troubling to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘I want to know what you’re doing. Why aren’t we going back to England tomorrow?’

‘Because,’ said W.T. cheerfully, ‘I think we shall do more good if we stay here.’

‘Good?’ The boy’s voice rose contemptuously. ‘I suppose by that you mean we shall worm out some more disgusting facts about that murder.’

‘Well,’ said the detective mildly, ‘we did come here for that, you know.’

Jerry paused for a moment or so before he spoke.

‘Anyway,’ he said sullenly, ‘we didn’t come here to take out girls to dinner and question them. It makes me sick!’

W.T. regarded him solemnly.

‘Jerry,’ he said at last, ‘do you think Norah Bayliss shot Eric Crowther?’

‘Good God, no!’

‘Do you think her sister did?’

‘N – no, no, of course not.’

‘Well, then,’ said the old man, leaning back in his chair, ‘isn’t it the best thing we can do for them to make sure – so that they can never fall under suspicion?’

Jerry frowned and moved uneasily.

‘Why, yes – I – I suppose so,’ he said at last. ‘It’s foul about that wretched money.’

W.T. nodded.

‘Most extraordinary,’ he said. ‘Deadwood must be off his head. I ought to have heard of that at once – the girls coming to Paris, too – and not a word from him – I don’t know what he’s doing over there.’

‘Maybe he was relying on your arresting Cellini,’ said Jerry.

W.T. frowned. ‘Very likely,’ he said gloomily. ‘Still, he ought to have let me know – especially about the money. I wired for a copy of the will as soon as I got in this afternoon, of course. We shall get it in the morning.’

Jerry sat forward in his chair, clasping his knee.

‘She – she couldn’t have done it,’ he said at last.

‘Who – Mrs Christensen?’

‘Of course.’

W.T. was silent for some moments. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘When a woman is goaded beyond all endurance, there’s nothing she couldn’t do.’

‘She couldn’t,’ the boy repeated. ‘She couldn’t!’

‘What makes you think that?’

The old man put the question casually, and the boy answered it with his thought.

‘Well – I mean to say – a woman with a sister like that – ‘He broke off short before the expression on the old detective’s face.

‘My dear boy’ – W.T. spoke inoffensively – ‘that is an argument that may convince you in your present state of blissful lunacy, but you can’t expect it to have the same effect on me.

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