Agatha Christie Read Free

rushing down the steps. His face was white and twisted, and his eyes glared in front of him unseeingly. He staggered like a drunken man.
    He passed Tommy and Tuppence as though he did not see them, muttering to himself with a kind of dreadful repetition.
    â€˜My God! My God! Oh, my God!’
    He clutched at the gatepost, as though to steady himself, and then, as though animated by sudden panic, he raced off down the road as hard as he could go in the opposite direction from that taken by the policeman.
    Tommy and Tuppence stared at each other in bewilderment.
    â€˜Well,’ said Tommy, ‘something’s happened in that house to scare our friend Reilly pretty badly.’
    Tuppence drew her finger absently across the gatepost.
    â€˜He must have put his hand on some wet red paint somewhere,’ she said idly.
    â€˜H’m,’ said Tommy. ‘I think we’d better go inside rather quickly. I don’t understand this business.’
    In the doorway of the house a white-capped maid-servant was standing, almost speechless with indignation.
    â€˜Did you ever see the likes of that now, Father,’ she burst out, as Tommy ascended the steps. ‘That fellow comes here, asks for the young lady, rushes upstairs without how or by your leave. She lets out a screech like a wild cat – and what wonder, poor pretty dear, and straightaway he comes rushing down again, with the white face on him, like one who’s seen a ghost. What will be the meaning of it all?’
    â€˜Who are you talking with at the front door, Ellen?’ demanded a sharp voice from the interior of the hall.
    â€˜Here’s Missus,’ said Ellen, somewhat unnecessarily.
    She drew back, and Tommy found himself confronting a grey-haired, middle-aged woman, with frosty blue eyes imperfectly concealed by pince-nez, and a spare figure clad in black with bugle trimming.
    â€˜Mrs Honeycott?’ said Tommy. ‘I came here to see Miss Glen.’
    Mrs Honeycott gave him a sharp glance, then went on to Tuppence and took in every detail of her appearance.
    â€˜Oh, you did, did you?’ she said. ‘Well, you’d better come inside.’
    She led the way into the hall and along it into a room at the back of the house, facing on the garden. It was a fair-sized room, but looked smaller than it was, owing to the large amount of chairs and tables crowded into it. A big fire burned in the grate, and a chintz-covered sofa stood at one side of it. The wallpaper was a small grey stripe with a festoon of roses round the top. Quantities of engravings and oil paintings covered the walls.
    It was a room almost impossible to associate with the expensive personality of Miss Gilda Glen.
    â€˜Sit down,’ said Mrs Honeycott. ‘To begin with, you’ll excuse me if I say I don’t hold with the Roman Catholic religion. Never did I think to see a Roman Catholic priest in my house. But if Gilda’s gone over to the Scarlet Woman, it’s only what’s to be expected in a life like hers – and I dare say it might be worse. She mightn’t have any religion at all. I should think more of Roman Catholics if their priests were married – I always speak my mind. And to think of those convents – quantities of beautiful young girls shut up there, and no one knowing what becomes of them – well, it won’t bear thinking about.’
    Mrs Honeycott came to a full stop, and drew a deep breath.
    Without entering upon a defence of the celibacy of the priesthood or the other controversial points touched upon, Tommy went straight to the point.
    â€˜I understand, Mrs Honeycott, that Miss Glen is in this house.’
    â€˜She is. Mind you, I don’t approve. Marriage is marriage and your husband’s your husband. As you make your bed, so you must lie on it.’
    â€˜I don’t quite understand –’ began Tommy, bewildered.
    â€˜I thought as much. That’s the reason I brought