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would be only right."
"And there speaks our bonny Jean," said Nigel.
"Moi, je n'aime pas les flics," said René, offering his contribution to the discussion.
"Tell what?" Leonard Bateson asked again.
"The things we know," said Nigel. "About each other, I mean," he added helpfully. His glance swept
round the breakfast room table with a malicious gleam.
"After all," he said, cheerfully, "we all do know lots of things about each other, don't we? I mean, one's
bound to, living in the same house."
"But who is to decide what is important or not? There are many things no business of the police at all,"
said Mr. Ahmed Ali. He spoke hotly, with a injured remembrance of the Inspector's sharp remarks about
his collection of postcards.
"I hear," said Nigel, turning towards Mr. Akibombo, "that they found some very interesting things in
your room."
Owing to his colour, Mr. Akibombo was not able to blush, but his eyelids blinked in a discomfited
manner.
"Very much superstition in my country," he said. "My grandfather give me things to bring here. I keep
out of feeling of piety and respect. I, myself, am modern and scientific; not believe in voodoo, but
owing to imperfect command of language I find very difficult to explain to policeman."
"Even dear little Jean has her secrets, I expect," said Nigel, turning his gaze back to Miss Tomlinson.
Jean said hotly that she wasn't going to be insulted.
"I shall leave this place and go to the WCA," she said.
"Come now, Jean," said Nigel. "Give us another chance."
"Oh, cut it out, Nigel!" said Valèrie wearily. "The police have to snoop, I suppose, under the
circumstances."
Colin McNabb cleared his throat, preparatory to making a remark.
"In my opinion," he said judicially, "the present position ought to be made clear to us. What exactly was
the cause of Mrs. Nick's death?"
"We'll hear at the inquest, I suppose," said Valèrie, impatiently.
"I very much doubt it," said Colin. "In my opinion they'll adjourn the inquest."
"I suppose it was her heart, wasn't it?" said Patricia. "She fell down in the street."
"Drunk and incapable," said Len Bateson. "That's how she got taken to the police station."
"So she did drink," said Jean. "You know, I always thought so.
"When the police searched the house they found cupboards full of empty brandy bottles in her room, I
believe," she added.
"Trust our Jean to know all the dirt," said Nigel, approvingly.
"Well, that does explain why she was sometimes so odd in her manner," said Patricia.
Colin cleared his throat again.
"Ah! hem," he said. "I happened to observe her going into The Queen's Necklace on Saturday evening,
when I was on my way home."
"That's where she got tanked up, I suppose," said Nigel.
"I suppose she just died of drink, then?" said Jean.
Len Bateson shook his head.
"Cerebral haemorrhage? I rather doubt it."
"For goodness' sake, you don't think she was murdered, too, do you?" said Jean.
"I bet she was," said Sally Finch. "Nothing would surprise me less."
"Please," said Mr. Akibombo. "It is thought someone killed her? Is that right?"
He looked from face to face.
"We've no reason to suppose anything of the sort yet," said Colin.
"But who would want to kill her?" demanded Geneviève. "Had she much money to leave? If she was
rich it is possible, I suppose."
"She was a maddening woman, my dear," said Nigel. "I'm sure everybody wanted to kill her. I often
did," he added, helping himself happily to marmalade.
II
"Please, Miss Sally, may I ask you a question? It is after what was said at breakfast. I have been
thinking very much."
"Well, I shouldn't think too much if I were you, Akibombo," said Sally. "It isn't healthy."
Sally and Akibombo were partaking of an open air lunch in Regent's Park. Summer was officially
supposed to have come and the restaurant was open.
"All this morning," said Akibombo mournfully, "I have been much disturbed. I cannot answer my
professor's questions good at all. He is not pleased at me. He says to me that I copy large bits out of
books and do not think for myself. But I am here to acquire wisdom from much books and it seems to
me that they say better in the books than the way I put it, because I have not good command of the
English. And besides, this morning I find it very hard to think at all except for what goes on at Hickory
Road and difficulties there."
"I'll say you're right about that," said Sally. "I just couldn't concentrate myself, this morning."
"So that is why I ask you please to tell me certain things, because as I say, I have been thinking very
much."
"Well, let's hear what you've been thinking about, then."
"Well, it is this bor-ass-sic."
"Bor-ass-sic? Oh, boracic! Yes. What about it?"
"Well, I do not understand very well. It is an acid, they say? An acid like sulphuric acid?"
"Not like sulphuric acid, no," said Sally.
"It is not something for laboratory experiment only?"
"I shouldn't imagine they ever did any experiments in laboratories with it. It's something quite mild and
harmless."
"You mean, even, you could put it in your eyes?"
"That's right. That's just what one uses it for."
"Ah, that explains that then. Mr. Chandra Lal, he have little white bottle with white powder, and he puts
powder in hot water and bathes his eyes with it. He keeps it in bathroom and then it is not there one day
and he is very angry. That would be the bor-ac-ic, yes?"
"What is all this about boracic?"
"I tell you by and by. Please not now. I think some more."
"Well, don't go sticking your neck out," said Sally. "I don't want yours to be the next corpse,
Akibombo."
III
"Valèrie, do you think you could give me some advice?"
"Of course I could give you advice, Jean, though I don't know why anyone ever wants advice. They
never take it."
"It's really a matter of conscience," said Jean.
"Then I'm the last person you ought to ask. I haven't got any conscience to speak of."
"Oh, Valèrie, don't say things like that!"
"Well, it's quite true," said Valèrie. She stubbed out a cigarette as she spoke. "I smuggle clothes in from
Paris and tell the most frightful lies about their faces to the hideous women who come to the salon. I
even travel on buses without paying my fare when I'm hard up. But come on, tell me. What's it all
about?"
"It's what Nigel said at breakfast. If one knows something about someone else, do you think one ought
to tell?"
"What an idiotic question! You can't put a thing like that in general terms. What is it you want to tell, or
don't want to tell?"
"It's about a passport."
"A passport?" Valèrie sat up, surprised. "Whose passport?"
"Nigel's. He's got a false passport."
"Nigel?" Valèrie sounded disbelieving. "I don't believe it. It seems most improbable."
"But he has. And you know, Valèrie, I believe there's some question - I think I heard the police saying
that Celia had said something about a passport. Supposing she'd found out about it and he killed her?"
"Sounds very melodramatic," said Valèrie. "But frankly, I don't believe a word of it. What is this story
about a passport?"
"I saw it."
"How did you see it?"
"Well, it was absolutely an accident," said Jean. "I was looking for something in my despatch case a
week or two ago, and by mistake I must have looked in Nigel's attaché case instead. They were both on
the shelf in the Common Room."
Valèrie laughed rather disagreeably.
"Tell that to the marines!" she said. "What were you really doing? Snooping?"
"No, of course not!" Jean sounded justly indignant. "The one thing I'd never do is to look among
anybody's private papers. I'm not that sort of person. It was just that I was feeling rather absent-minded,
so I opened the case and I was just sorting through it..."
"Look here, Jean, you can't get away with that. Nigel's attaché case is a good deal larger than yours and [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]