Agatha Christie: The Seven Dials Mystery

"Where are the others? Punting on the lake?"

"I expect so. I mean, I shouldn't wonder if they were."

Lady Coote turned and plunged abruptly into the house. Tredwell was just examining the coffee pot.

"Oh, dear," said Lady Coote. "Isn't Mr. – Mr. –"

"Wade, m'lady?"

"Yes, Mr. Wade. Isn't he down yet?"

"No, m'lady."

"It's very late."

"Yes, m'lady."

"Oh, dear. I suppose he will come down sometime, Tredwell?"

"Oh, undoubtedly, m'lady. It was eleven-thirty yesterday morning when Mr. Wade came down, m'lady."

Lady Coote glanced at the clock. It was now twenty minutes to twelve. A wave of human sympathy rushed over her.

"It's very hard luck on you, Tredwell. Having to clear and then get lunch on the table by one o'clock ."

"I am accustomed to the ways of young gentlemen, m'lady."

The reproof was dignified, but unmistakable.

So might a prince of the Church reprove a Turk or an infidel who had unwittingly committed a solecism in all good faith.

Lady Coote blushed for the second time that morning. But a welcome interruption occurred. The door opened and a serious, spectacled young man put his head in.

"Oh, there you are, Lady Coote. Sir Oswald was asking for you."

"Oh, I'll go to him at once, Mr. Bateman."

Lady Coote hurried out.

Rupert Bateman, who was Sir Oswald's private secretary, went out the other way, through the window where Jimmy Thesiger was still lounging amiably.

"Morning, Pongo," said Jimmy. "I suppose I shall have to go and make myself agreeable to those blasted girls. You coming?"

Bateman shook his head and hurried along the terrace and in at the library window.

Jimmy grinned pleasantly at his retreating back. He and Bateman had been at school together, when Bateman had been a serious, spectacled boy, and had been nicknamed Pongo for no earthly reason whatever.

Pongo, Jimmy reflected, was very much the same sort of ass now that he had been then. The words "Life is real, life is earnest" might have been written specially for him.

Jimmy yawned and strolled slowly down to the lake. The girls were there, three of them – just the usual sort of girls, two with dark shingled heads and one with a fair shingled head. The one that giggled most was (he thought) called Helen – and there was another called Nancy – and the third one was, for some reason, addressed as Socks. With them were his two friends, Bill Eversleigh and Ronny Devereux, who were employed in a purely ornamental capacity at the Foreign Office.

"Hallo," said Nancy (or possibly Helen).

"It's Jimmy. Where's what's his name?"

"You don't mean to say," said Bill Eversleigh, "that Gerry Wade's not up yet? Something ought to be done about it."

"If he's not careful," said Ronny Devereux, "he'll miss his breakfast altogether one day – find it's lunch or tea instead when he rolls down."

"It's a shame," said the girl called Socks. "Because it worries Lady Coote so. She gets more and more like a hen that wants to lay an egg and can't. It's too bad."

"Let's pull him out of bed," suggested Bill. "Come on, Jimmy."

"Oh! let's be more subtle than that," said the girl called Socks. Subtle was a word of which she was rather fond. She used it a great deal.

"I'm not subtle," said Jimmy. "I don't know how."

"Let's get together and do something about it tomorrow morning," suggested Ronny vaguely. "You know, get him up at seven. Stagger the household. Tredwell loses his false whiskers and drops the tea urn. Lady Coote has hysterics and faints in Bill's arms – Bill being the weight carrier. Sir Oswald says "Ha!" and steel goes up a point and five eighths. Pongo registers emotion by throwing down his spectacles and stamping on them."

"You don't know Gerry," said Jimmy. "I daresay enough cold water might wake him – judiciously applied, that is. But he'd only turn over and go to sleep again."

"Oh! we must think of something more subtle than cold water," said Socks.

"Well, what?" asked Ronny bluntly. And nobody had any answer ready.

"We ought to be able to think of something," said Bill. "Who's got any brains?"

"Pongo," said Jimmy. "And here he is, rushing along in a harried manner as usual. Pongo was always the one for brains. It's been his misfortune from his youth upwards. Let's turn Pongo on to it."

Mr. Bateman listened patiently to a somewhat incoherent statement. His attitude was that of one poised for flight. He delivered his solution without loss of time.

"I should suggest an alarm clock," he said briskly. "I always use one myself for fear of oversleeping. I find that early tea brought in in a noiseless manner is sometimes powerless to awaken one."

He hurried away.

"An alarm clock." Ronny shook his head. "One alarm clock. It would take about a dozen to disturb Gerry Wade."

"Well, why not?" Bill was flushed and earnest. "I've got it. Let's all go into Market Basing and buy an alarm clock each."

There was laughter and discussion. Bill and Ronny went off to get hold of cars. Jimmy was deputed to spy upon the dining-room. He returned rapidly.

"He's there right enough. Making up for lost time and wolfing down toast and marmalade. How are we going to prevent him coming along with us?"

It was decided that Lady Coote must be approached and instructed to hold him in play. Jimmy and Nancy and Helen fulfilled this duty. Lady Coote was bewildered and apprehensive.

"A rag? You will be careful, won't you, my dears? I mean, you won't smash the furniture and wreck things or use too much water. We've got to hand this house over next week, you know. I shouldn't like Lord Caterham to think –"

Bill, who had returned from the garage, broke in reassuringly.

"That's all right, Lady Coote. Bundle Brent – Lord Caterham's daughter – is a great friend of mine. And there's nothing she'd stick at – absolutely nothing! You can take it from me. And anyway there's not going to be any damage done. This is quite a quiet affair."

"Subtle," said the girl called Socks.

Lady Coote went sadly along the terrace just as Gerald Wade emerged from the breakfast-room. Jimmy Thesiger was a fair, cherubic young man, and all that could be said of Gerald Wade was that he was fairer and more cherubic, and that his vacuous expression made Jimmy's face quite intelligent by contrast.

"'Morning, Lady Coote," said Gerald Wade. "Where are all the others?"

"They've all gone to Market Basing," said Lady Coote.

"What for?"

"Some joke," said Lady Coote in her deep, melancholy voice.

"Rather early in the morning for jokes," said Mr. Wade.

"It's not so very early in the morning," said Lady Coote pointedly.

"I'm afraid I was a bit late coming down," said Mr. Wade with engaging frankness. "It's an extraordinary thing, but wherever I happen to be staying, I'm always last to be down."

"Very extraordinary," said Lady Coote.

"I don't know why it is," said Mr. Wade, meditating. "I can't think, I'm sure."

"Why don't you just get up?" suggested Lady Coote.

"Oh!" said Mr. Wade. The simplicity of the solution rather took him aback.

Lady Coote went on earnestly.

"I've heard Sir Oswald say so many times that's there's nothing for getting a young man on in the world like punctual habits."

"Oh, I know," said Mr. Wade. "And I have to when I'm in town. I mean, I have to be round at the jolly old Foreign Office by eleven o'clock . You mustn't think I'm always a slacker, Lady Coote. I say, what awfully jolly flowers you've got down in that lower border. I can't remember the names of them, but we've got some at home – those mauve thingummybobs. My sister's tremendously keen on gardening."

Lady Coote was immediately diverted. Her wrongs rankled within her.

"What kind of gardeners do you have?"