Part 7 (1/2)

”Oh yes, I remember quite well.

Because I wondered

only in my own mind, you understand /f perhaps Mr.

a.r. . 33

Abernethie might be suffering from softening of the brain An aunt of mine”

Mr. Entwhistle deftly side-tracked the aunt.

”Something Mrs, Lansquenet said caused you to think of softening of the brain ”

” s Mrs Lansquenet said something like '- Poor R, icha[..d ^.,Y;es2, deth must have aged him a lot. Me souncts qmte senile. All these fancies about persecution and that someone is poisoning him. Old people get like that.' And of course, as I knew, that is only too true. This aunt that I was tel!lng you about--was convinced the servants were trying to pmson her in her food and at last would eat only boiled egg. s--because, she said, you couldn't get inside a boiled egg to pmson,it. We humoured her, but if it had been nowadays I don t know what we should have done. With eggs so scarce and mostly foreign at that, so that boiling is always risky.” ... , Mr. Entwhistle listened to the saga of Miss Glchnst s aunt with deaf ears. He was very much disturbed.

He said at last, when Miss Gilchrist had twittered into silence: ”I suppose Mrs. Lansquenet didn't take all this too seriou,s,l, xl Entwhislte, she qmtunders.to, od., Mi.''vh”'tle found that remark disturt)mg too, though not quite in the sense in which Miss Gilchrist had used it.

Had Cora Lansquenet understood ? Not then, perhaps, but later. Had she understood only too well ?

Mr. Entwhistle knew that there had been no senility about Richard Abernethie. Richard had been in full possession .of his faculties. He was not the man to have persecution mama in any form. He was, as he always had been, a hardheaded business man--and his illness made no difference in that respect.

It seemed extraordinary that he should have spoken to his . in the terms that he had. But perhaps Cora, with her sister -d read between the lines, and had odd chllOUKe snrewun - crossed the t's 'and dotted the i's of what Richard Abernethie

had actually said.

In most ways, thought Mr. Entwhistle, Cora had been a complete fool. She had no judgment, no balance, nd a crude childish point of view, but she had also the child s uncanny knack of sometimes. .h.i.tting the nail on the head in a way that

seemed quite startling.

Mr. Entwhistle left it at that. Miss Gilchrist, he thought, knew no more than she had told him. He asked whether she

34

knew if Cora Lansquenet had left a will. Miss Gilchrist replied promptly that Mrs. Lansquenet's wilt was at the Bank.

With that and after making certain further arrangements he took his leave. He insisted on Miss Gilchrist's accepting a small sum in cash to defray present expenses and told her he would communicate with her again, and in the meantime he would be grateful if she would stay on at the cottage while she was looking about for a new post. That would be, Miss Gilchrist said, a great convenience and really she was not at all nervous.

He was unable to escape without being shown round the cottage by Miss Gilchrist, and introduced to various pictures by the late Pierre Lansquenet which were crowded into the small dining-room and which made Mr. Entwhistle flinch--they were mostly nudes executed with a singular lack of draughtsmans.h.i.+p but with much fidelity to detail. He was also made to admire various small oil sketches of picturesque fis.h.i.+ng ports done by Cora herself.

”Polperro,” said Miss Gilchrist proudly. ”We were there last year and Mrs. Lansquenet was delighted with its picturesqueness.''

Mr. Entwhistle, viewing Polperro from the southwest, from the north-west, and presumably from the several other points of the compa.s.s, agreed that Mrs. Lansquenet had certainly been enthusiastic.

”Mrs. Lansquenet promised to leave me her sketches,”

said Miss Gilchrist wistfully. ”I admired them so much. One can really see the waves breaking in this one, can't one ?

Even if she forgot, I might perhaps have just one as a souvenir, do you think ?”

”I'm sure that could be arranged,” said Mr. Entwhistle graciously.

He made a few further arrangements and then left to interview the Bank Manager and to have a further consultation with Inspector Morton.

CHAPTER V

”WORN OU?, that's what you are,” said Miss Entwhistle in the indignant and bullying tones adopted by devoted sisters towards brothers for whom they keep house. ”You shouldn't do it, at your age. What's it all got to do with you, I'd like to know ? You've retired, haven't you ?” 35

Mr. Entwhistle said mildly that Richard Abernethie had been one of his oldest friends.

”I dare say. But Richard Abernethie's dead, isn't he ?

So I see no reason for you to go mixing yourself up in things that are no concern of yours and catching you-* death of cold in these nasty draughty railway trains. And murder, too[ I can't see why they sent for you at all.”

”They communicated with me because there was a letter in the cottage signed by me, telling Cora the arrangements for the funeral.”

”Funerals! One funeral after another, and that reminds me. Another of these precious Abernethies has been ringing you up--Timothy, ,I think he said. From somewhere in Yorks.h.i.+re--and that s about a funeral, too! Said he'd ring again later.”