Agatha Christie: The Seven Dials Mystery

He only half heard Ronny's voice saying gravely:

"Yes, Miss Wade, I'll tell you. Gerry is dead."

She had plenty of pluck. She gasped and drew back, but in a minute or two she was asking eager, searching questions. How? When?

Ronny answered her as gently as he could.

"Sleeping draught? Gerry?"

The incredulity in her voice was plain.

Jimmy gave her a glance. It was almost a glance of warning. He had a sudden feeling that Loraine in her innocence might say too much.

In his turn he explained as gently as possible the need for an inquest. She shuddered. She declined their offer of taking her back to Chimneys with them, but explained she would come over later. She had a two-seater of her own.

"But I want to be – be alone a little first," she said piteously.

"I know," said Ronny.

"That's all right," said Jimmy.

They looked at her, feeling awkward and helpless.

"Thank you both ever so much for coming."

They drove back in silence and there was something like constraint between them.

"My God! that girl's plucky," said Ronny once.

Jimmy agreed.

"Gerry was my friend," said Ronny. "It's up to me to keep an eye on her."

"Oh! rather. Of course."

They said no more.

On returning to Chimneys, Jimmy was waylaid by a tearful Lady Coote.

"That poor boy," she kept repeating. "That poor boy."

Jimmy made all the suitable remarks he could think of.

Lady Coote told him at great length various details about the decease of various dear friends of hers. Jimmy listened with a show of sympathy and at last managed to detach himself without actual rudeness.

He ran lightly up the stairs. Ronny was just emerging from Gerald Wade's room. He seemed taken aback at the sight of Jimmy.

"I've been in to see him," he said. "Are you going in?"

"I don't think so," said Jimmy, who was a healthy young man with a natural dislike to being reminded of death.

"I think all his friends ought to."

"Oh! do you?" said Jimmy, and registered to himself an impression that Ronny Devereux was damned odd about it all.

"Yes. It's a sign of respect."

Jimmy sighed, but gave in.

"Oh! very well," he said, and passed in, setting his teeth a little.

There were white flowers arranged on the coverlet, and the room had been tidied and set to rights.

Jimmy gave one quick, nervous glance at the still, white face. Could that be cherubic, pink Gerry Wade? That still peaceful figure. He shivered.

As he turned to leave the room, his glance swept the mantelshelf and he stopped in astonishment. The alarm clocks had been ranged along it neatly in a row.

He went out sharply. Ronny was waiting for him.

"Looks very peaceful and all that. Rotten luck on him," mumbled Jimmy.

Then he said:

"I say, Ronny, who arranged all those clocks like that in a row?"

"How should I know? One of the servants, I suppose."

"The funny thing is," said Jimmy, "that there are seven of them, not eight. One of them's missing. Did you notice that?"

Ronny made an inaudible sound.

"Seven instead of eight," said Jimmy, frowning. "I wonder why."

"Very inconsiderate, that's what I call it," said Lord Caterham.

He spoke in a gentle, plaintive voice and seemed pleased with the adjective he had found.

"Yes, distinctly inconsiderate. I often find these self-made men are inconsiderate. Very possibly that is why they amass such large fortunes."

He looked mournfully out over his ancestral acres, of which he had today regained possession.

His daughter, Lady Eileen Brent, known to her friends and society in general as "Bundle," laughed.

"You'll certainly never amass a large fortune," she observed dryly, "though you didn't do so badly out of old Coote, sticking him for this place. What was he like? Presentable?"

"One of those large men," said Lord Caterham, shuddering slightly, "with a red square face and iron-grey hair. Powerful, you know. What they call a forceful personality. The kind of man you'd get if a steamroller were turned into a human being."

"Rather tiring?" suggested Bundle sympathetically.

"Frightfully tiring, full of all the most depressing virtues like sobriety and punctuality. I don't know which are the worst, powerful personalities or earnest politicians. I do so prefer the cheerful inefficient."

"A cheerful inefficient wouldn't have been able to pay you the price you asked for this old mausoleum," Bundle reminded him.

Lord Caterham winced.

"I wish you wouldn't use that word, Bundle. We were just getting away from the subject."

"I don't see why you're so frightfully sensitive about it," said Bundle. "After all, people must die somewhere."

"They needn't die in my house," said Lord Caterham.

"I don't see why not. Lots of people have. Masses of stuffy old great grandfathers and grandmothers."

"That's different," said Lord Caterham. "Naturally I expect parents to die here – they don't count. But I do object to strangers. And I especially object to inquests. The thing will become a habit soon. This is the second. You remember all that fuss we had four years ago? For which, by the way, I hold George Lomax entirely to blame."

"And now you're blaming poor old steamroller Coote. I'm sure he was quite as annoyed about it as anyone."

"Very inconsiderate," said Lord Caterham obstinately. "People who are likely to do that sort of thing oughtn't to be asked to stay. And you may say what you like, Bundle, I don't like inquests. I never have and I never shall."

"Well, this wasn't the same sort of thing as the last one," said Bundle soothingly. "I mean, it wasn't a murder."

"It might have been – from the fuss that thickhead of an inspector made. He's never got over that business four years ago. He thinks every death that takes place here must necessarily be a case of foul play fraught with grave political significance. You've no idea the fuss he made. I've been hearing about it from Tredwell. Tested everything imaginable for finger-prints. And of course they only found the dead man's own. The clearest case imaginable – though whether it was suicide or accident is another matter."

"I met Gerry Wade once," said Bundle. "He was a friend of Bill's. You'd have liked him, Father, I never saw anyone more cheerfully inefficient than he was."

"I don't like anyone who comes and dies in my house on purpose to annoy me," said Lord Caterham obstinately.

"But I certainly can't imagine anyone murdering him," continued Bundle. "The idea's absurd."

"Of course it is," said Lord Caterham. "Or would be to anyone but an ass like Inspector Raglan."

"I daresay looking for finger-prints made him feel important," said Bundle soothingly. "Anyway, they brought it in 'Death by misadventure,' didn't they?"

Lord Caterham acquiesced.

"They had to show some consideration for the sister's feelings."

"Was there a sister? I didn't know."

"Half-sister, I believe. She was much younger. Old Wade ran away with her mother – he was always doing that sort of thing. No woman appealed to him unless she belonged to another man."

"I'm glad there's one bad habit you haven't got," said Bundle.

"I've always led a very respectable God-fearing life," said Lord Caterham. "It seems extraordinary, considering how little harm I do to anybody, that I can't be let alone. If only –"

He stopped as Bundle made a sudden excursion through the window.

"MacDonald," called Bundle in a clear, autocratic voice.

The emperor approached. Something that might possibly have been taken for a smile of welcome tried to express itself on his countenance, but the natural gloom of gardeners dispelled it.

"Your ladyship?" said MacDonald.