Читать книгу: «The Sittaford Mystery»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

1. Sittaford House

2. The Message

3. Five and Twenty Past Five

4. Inspector Narracott

5. Evans

6. At the Three Crowns

7. The Will

8. Mr Charles Enderby

9. The Laurels

10. The Pearson Family

11. Emily Sets to Work

12. The Arrest

13. Sittaford

14. The Willetts

15. Visit to Major Burnaby

16. Mr Rycroft

17. Miss Percehouse

18. Emily Visits Sittaford House

19. Theories

20. Visit to Aunt Jennifer

21. Conversations

22. Nocturnal Adventures of Charles

23. At Hazelmoor

24. Inspector Narracott Discusses the Case

25. At Deller’s Café

26. Robert Gardner

27. Narracott Acts

28. Boots

29. The Second Séance

30. Emily Explains

31. The Lucky Man

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About Agatha Christie

The Agatha Christie Collection

Essay by Charles Osborne

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About the Publisher

Chapter 1
Sittaford House

Major Burnaby drew on his gum boots, buttoned his overcoat collar round his neck, took from a shelf near the door a hurricane lantern, and cautiously opened the front door of his little bungalow and peered out.

The scene that met his eyes was typical of the English countryside as depicted on Xmas cards and in old-fashioned melodramas. Everywhere was snow, deep drifts of it—no mere powdering an inch or two thick. Snow had fallen all over England for the last four days, and up here on the fringe of Dartmoor it had attained a depth of several feet. All over England householders were groaning over burst pipes, and to have a plumber friend (or even a plumber’s mate) was the most coveted of all distinctions.

Up here, in the tiny village of Sittaford, at all times remote from the world, and now almost completely cut off, the rigours of winter were a very real problem.

Major Burnaby, however, was a hardy soul. He snorted twice, grunted once, and marched resolutely out into the snow.

His destination was not far away. A few paces along a winding lane, then in at a gate, and so up a drive partially swept clear of snow to a house of some considerable size built of granite.

The door was opened by a neatly clad parlourmaid. The Major was divested of his British Warm, his gum boots and his aged scarf.

A door was flung open and he passed through it into a room which conveyed all the illusion of a transformation scene.

Although it was only half past three the curtains had been drawn, the electric lights were on and a huge fire blazed cheerfully on the hearth. Two women in afternoon frocks rose to greet the staunch old warrior.

‘Splendid of you to turn out, Major Burnaby,’ said the elder of the two.

‘Not at all, Mrs Willett, not at all. Very good of you to ask me.’ He shook hands with them both.

‘Mr Garfield is coming,’ went on Mrs Willett, ‘and Mr Duke, and Mr Rycroft said he would come—but one can hardly expect him at his age in such weather. Really, it is too dreadful. One feels one must do something to keep oneself cheerful. Violet, put another log on the fire.’

The Major rose gallantly to perform this task.

‘Allow me, Miss Violet.’

He put the log expertly in the right place and returned once more to the armchair his hostess had indicated. Trying not to appear as though he were doing so, he cast surreptitious glances round the room. Amazing how a couple of women could alter the whole character of a room—and without doing anything very outstanding that you could put your finger on.

Sittaford House had been built ten years ago by Captain Joseph Trevelyan, R.N., on the occasion of his retirement from the Navy. He was a man of substance, and he had always had a great hankering to live on Dartmoor. He had placed his choice on the tiny hamlet of Sittaford. It was not in a valley like most of the villages and farms, but perched right on the shoulder of the moor under the shadow of Sittaford Beacon. He had purchased a large tract of ground, had built a comfortable house with its own electric light plant and an electric pump to save labour in pumping water. Then, as a speculation, he had built six small bungalows, each in its quarter acre of ground, along the lane.

The first of these, the one at his very gates, had been allotted to his old friend and crony, John Burnaby—the others had by degrees been sold, there being still a few people who from choice or necessity like to live right out of the world. The village itself consisted of three picturesque but dilapidated cottages, a forge and a combined post office and sweet shop. The nearest town was Exhampton, six miles away, a steady descent which necessitated the sign, ‘Motorists engage your lowest gear’, so familiar on the Dartmoor roads.

Captain Trevelyan, as has been said, was a man of substance. In spite of this—or perhaps because of it—he was a man who was inordinately fond of money. At the end of October a house agent in Exhampton wrote to him asking if he would consider letting Sittaford House. A tenant had made inquiries concerning it, wishing to rent it for the winter.

Captain Trevelyan’s first impulse was to refuse, his second to demand further information. The tenant in question proved to be a Mrs Willett, a widow with one daughter. She had recently arrived from South Africa and wanted a house on Dartmoor for the winter.

‘Damn it all, the woman must be mad,’ said Captain Trevelyan. ‘Eh, Burnaby, don’t you think so?’

Burnaby did think so, and said so as forcibly as his friend had done.

‘Anyway, you don’t want to let,’ he said. ‘Let the fool woman go somewhere else if she wants to freeze. Coming from South Africa too!’

But at this point Captain Trevelyan’s money complex asserted itself. Not once in a hundred times would you get a chance of letting your house in mid-winter. He demanded what rent the tenant was willing to pay.

An offer of twelve guineas a week clinched matters. Captain Trevelyan went into Exhampton, rented a small house on the outskirts at two guineas a week, and handed over Sittaford House to Mrs Willett, half the rent to be paid in advance.

‘A fool and her money are soon parted,’ he growled.

But Burnaby was thinking this afternoon as he scanned Mrs Willett covertly, that she did not look a fool. She was a tall woman with a rather silly manner—but her physiognomy was shrewd rather than foolish. She was inclined to overdress, had a distinct Colonial accent, and seemed perfectly content with the transaction. She was clearly very well off and that—as Burnaby had reflected more than once—really made the whole affair more odd. She was not the kind of woman one would credit with a passion for solitude.

As a neighbour she had proved almost embarrassingly friendly. Invitations to Sittaford House were rained on everybody. Captain Trevelyan was constantly urged to ‘Treat the house as though we hadn’t rented it.’ Trevelyan, however, was not fond of women. Report went that he had been jilted in his youth. He persistently refused all invitations.

Two months had passed since the installation of the Willetts and the first wonder at their arrival had passed away.

Burnaby, naturally a silent man, continued to study his hostess, oblivious to any need for small talk. Liked to make herself out a fool, but wasn’t really. So he summed up the situation. His glance shifted to Violet Willett. Pretty girl—scraggy, of course—they all were nowadays. What was the good of a woman if she didn’t look like a woman? Papers said curves were coming back. About time too.

He roused himself to the necessity of conversation.

‘We were afraid at first that you wouldn’t be able to come,’ said Mrs Willett. ‘You said so, you remember. We were so pleased when you said that after all you would.’

‘Friday,’ said Major Burnaby, with an air of being explicit.

Mrs Willett looked puzzled.

‘Friday?’

‘Every Friday go to Trevelyan’s. Tuesday he comes to me. Both of us done it for years.’

‘Oh! I see. Of course, living so near—’

‘Kind of habit.’

‘But do you still keep it up? I mean now that he is living in Exhampton—’

‘Pity to break a habit,’ said Major Burnaby. ‘We’d both of us miss those evenings.’

‘You go in for competitions, don’t you?’ asked Violet. ‘Acrostics and crosswords and all those things.’

Burnaby nodded.

‘I do crosswords. Trevelyan does acrostics. We each stick to our own line of country. I won three books last month in a crossword competition,’ he volunteered.

‘Oh! really. How nice. Were they interesting books?’

‘Don’t know. Haven’t read them. Looked pretty hopeless.’

‘It’s the winning them that matters, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Willett vaguely.

‘How do you get to Exhampton?’ asked Violet. ‘You haven’t got a car.’

‘Walk.’

‘What? Not really? Six miles.’

‘Good exercise. What’s twelve miles? Keeps a man fit. Great thing to be fit.’

‘Fancy! Twelve miles. But both you and Captain Trevelyan were great athletes, weren’t you?’

‘Used to go to Switzerland together. Winter sports in winter, climbing in summer. Wonderful man on ice, Trevelyan. Both too old for that sort of thing nowadays.’

‘You won the Army Racquets Championship, too, didn’t you?’ asked Violet.

The Major blushed like a girl.

‘Who told you that?’ he mumbled.

‘Captain Trevelyan.’

‘Joe should hold his tongue,’ said Burnaby. ‘He talks too much. What’s the weather like now?’

Respecting his embarrassment, Violet followed him to the window. They drew the curtain aside and looked out over the desolate scene.

‘More snow coming,’ said Burnaby. ‘A pretty heavy fall too, I should say.’

‘Oh! how thrilling,’ said Violet. ‘I do think snow is so romantic. I’ve never seen it before.’

‘It isn’t romantic when the pipes freeze, you foolish child,’ said her mother.

‘Have you lived all your life in South Africa, Miss Willett?’ asked Major Burnaby.

Some of the girl’s animation dropped away from her. She seemed almost constrained in her manner as she answered.

‘Yes—this is the first time I’ve ever been away. It’s all most frightfully thrilling.’

Thrilling to be shut away like this in a remote moorland village? Funny ideas. He couldn’t get the hang of these people.

The door opened and the parlourmaid announced:

‘Mr Rycroft and Mr Garfield.’

There entered a little elderly, dried-up man and a fresh-coloured, boyish young man. The latter spoke first.

‘I brought him along, Mrs Willett. Said I wouldn’t let him be buried in a snowdrift. Ha, ha. I say, this all looks simply marvellous. Yule logs burning.’

‘As he says, my young friend very kindly piloted me here,’ said Mr Rycroft as he shook hands somewhat ceremoniously. ‘How do you do, Miss Violet? Very seasonable weather—rather too seasonable, I fear.’

He moved to the fire talking to Mrs Willett. Ronald Garfield buttonholed Violet.

‘I say, can’t we get up any skating anywhere? Aren’t there some ponds about?’

‘I think path digging will be your only sport.’

‘I’ve been at it all the morning.’

‘Oh! you he-man.’

‘Don’t laugh at me. I’ve got blisters all over my hands.’

‘How’s your aunt?’

‘Oh! she’s always the same—sometimes she says she’s better and sometimes she says she’s worse, but I think it’s all the same really. It’s a ghastly life, you know. Each year, I wonder how I can stick it—but there it is—if one doesn’t rally round the old bird for Xmas—why, she’s quite capable of leaving her money to a Cat’s Home. She’s got five of them, you know. I’m always stroking the brutes and pretending I dote upon them.’

‘I like dogs much better than cats.’

‘So do I. Any day. What I mean is a dog is—well, a dog’s a dog, you know.’

‘Has your aunt always been fond of cats?’

‘I think it’s just a kind of thing old maids grow into. Ugh! I hate the brutes.’

‘Your aunt’s very nice, but rather frightening.’

‘I should think she was frightening. Snaps my head off sometimes. Thinks I’ve got no brains, you know.’

‘Not really?’

‘Oh! look here, don’t say it like that. Lots of fellows look like fools and are laughing underneath.’

‘Mr Duke,’ announced the parlourmaid.

Mr Duke was a recent arrival. He had bought the last of the six bungalows in September. He was a big man, very quiet and devoted to gardening. Mr Rycroft who was an enthusiast on birds and who lived next door to him had taken him up, overruling the section of thought which voiced the opinion that of course Mr Duke was a very nice man, quite unassuming, but was he, after all, quite—well, quite? Mightn’t he, just possibly, be a retired tradesman?

But nobody liked to ask him—and indeed it was thought better not to know. Because if one did know, it might be awkward, and really in such a small community it was best to know everybody.

‘Not walking to Exhampton in this weather?’ he asked of Major Burnaby.

‘No, I fancy Trevelyan will hardly expect me tonight.’

‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Willett with a shudder. ‘To be buried up here, year after year—it must be ghastly.’

Mr Duke gave her a quick glance. Major Burnaby too stared at her curiously.

But at that moment tea was brought in.

Chapter 2
The Message

After tea, Mrs Willett suggested bridge.

‘There are six of us. Two can cut in.’

Ronnie’s eyes brightened.

‘You four start,’ he suggested. ‘Miss Willett and I will cut in.’

But Mr Duke said that he did not play bridge.

Ronnie’s face fell.

‘We might play a round game,’ said Mrs Willett.

‘Or table-turning,’ suggested Ronnie. ‘It’s a spooky evening. We spoke about it the other day, you remember. Mr Rycroft and I were talking about it this evening as we came along here.’

‘I am a member of the Psychical Research Society,’ explained Mr Rycroft in his precise way. ‘I was able to put my young friend right on one or two points.’

‘Tommy rot,’ said Major Burnaby very distinctly.

‘Oh! but it’s great fun, don’t you think?’ said Violet Willett. ‘I mean, one doesn’t believe in it or anything. It’s just an amusement. What do you say, Mr Duke?’

‘Anything you like, Miss Willett.’

‘We must turn the lights out, and we must find a suitable table. No—not that one, Mother. I’m sure it’s much too heavy.’

Things were settled at last to everyone’s satisfaction. A small round table with a polished top was brought from an adjoining room. It was set in front of the fire and everyone took his place round it with the lights switched off.

Major Burnaby was between his hostess and Violet. On the other side of the girl was Ronnie Garfield. A cynical smile creased the Major’s lips. He thought to himself:

‘In my young days it was Up Jenkins.’ And he tried to recall the name of a girl with fluffy hair whose hand he had held beneath the table at considerable length. A long time ago that was. But Up Jenkins had been a good game.

There were all the usual laughs, whispers, stereotyped remarks.

‘The spirits are a long time.’

‘Got a long way to come.’

‘Hush—nothing will happen unless we are serious.’

‘Oh! do be quiet—everyone.’

‘Nothing’s happening.’

‘Of course not—it never does at first.’

‘If only you’d all be quiet.’

At last, after some time, the murmur of talk died away.

A silence.

‘This table’s dead as mutton,’ murmured Ronnie Garfield disgustedly.

‘Hush.’

A tremor ran through the polished surface. The table began to rock.

‘Ask it questions. Who shall ask? You, Ronnie.’

‘Oh—er—I say—what do I ask it?’

‘Is a spirit present?’ prompted Violet.

‘Oh! Hullo—is a spirit present?’

A sharp rock.

‘That means yes,’ said Violet.

‘Oh! er—who are you?’

No response.

‘Ask it to spell its name.’

The table started rocking violently.

‘A B C D E F G H I—I say, was that I or J?’

‘Ask it. Was that I?’

One rock.

‘Yes. Next letter, please.’

The spirit’s name was Ida.

‘Have you a message for anyone here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who is it for? Miss Willett?’

‘No.’

‘Mrs Willett?’

‘No.’

‘Mr Rycroft?’

‘No.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s for you, Ronnie. Go on. Make it spell it out.’

The table spelt ‘Diana’.

‘Who’s Diana? Do you know anyone called Diana?’

‘No, I don’t. At least—’

‘There you are. He does.’

‘Ask her if she’s a widow?’

The fun went on. Mr Rycroft smiled indulgently. Young people must have their jokes. He caught one glance of his hostess’s face in a sudden flicker of the firelight. It looked worried and abstracted. Her thoughts were somewhere far away.

Major Burnaby was thinking of the snow. It was going to snow again this evening. Hardest winter he ever remembered.

Mr Duke was playing very seriously. The spirits, alas, paid very little attention to him. All the messages seemed to be for Violet and Ronnie.

Violet was told she was going to Italy. Someone was going with her. Not a woman. A man. His name was Leonard.

More laughter. The table spelt the name of the town. A Russian jumble of letters—not in the least Italian.

The usual accusations were levelled.

‘Look here, Violet,’ (‘Miss Willett’ had been dropped) ‘you are shoving.’

‘I’m not. Look, I take my hands right off the table and it rocks just the same.’

‘I like raps. I’m going to ask it to rap. Loud ones.’

‘There should be raps.’ Ronnie turned to Mr Rycroft. ‘There ought to be raps, oughtn’t there, sir?’

‘Under the circumstances, I should hardly think it likely,’ said Mr Rycroft drily.

There was a pause. The table was inert. It returned no answer to questions.

‘Has Ida gone away?’

One languid rock.

‘Will another spirit come, please?’

Nothing. Suddenly the table began to quiver and rock violently.

‘Hurrah. Are you a new spirit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you a message for someone?’

‘Yes.’

‘For me?’

‘No.’

‘For Violet?’

‘No.’

‘For Major Burnaby?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s for you, Major Burnaby. Will you spell it out, please?’

The table started rocking slowly.

‘T R E V—are you sure it’s V? It can’t be. T R E V—it doesn’t make sense.’

‘Trevelyan, of course,’ said Mrs Willett. ‘Captain Trevelyan.’

‘Do you mean Captain Trevelyan?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got a message for Captain Trevelyan?’

‘No.’

‘Well, what is it then?’

The table began to rock—slowly, rhythmically. So slowly that it was easy to count the letters.

‘D—’ a pause. ‘E—AD.’

‘Dead.’

‘Somebody is dead?’

Instead of Yes or No, the table began to rock again till it reached the letter T.

‘T—do you mean Trevelyan?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t mean Trevelyan is dead?’

‘Yes.’

A very sharp rock. ‘Yes.’

Somebody gasped. There was a faint stir all round the table.

Ronnie’s voice as he resumed his questions held a different note—an awed uneasy note.

‘You mean—that Captain Trevelyan is dead?’

‘Yes.’

There was a pause. It was as though no one knew what to ask next, or how to take this unexpected development.

And in the pause, the table started rocking again.

Rhythmically and slowly, Ronnie spelled out the letters aloud…

M-U-R-D-E-R…

Mrs Willett gave a cry and took her hands off the table.

‘I won’t go on with this. It’s horrible. I don’t like it.’

Mr Duke’s voice rang out, resonant and clear. He was questioning the table.

‘Do you mean—that Captain Trevelyan has been murdered?’

The last word had hardly left his lips when the answer came. The table rocked so violently and assertively that it nearly fell over. One rock only.

‘Yes…’

‘Look here,’ said Ronnie. He took his hands from the table. ‘I call this a rotten joke.’ His voice trembled.

‘Turn up the lights,’ said Mr Rycroft.

Major Burnaby rose and did so. The sudden glare revealed a company of pale uneasy faces.

Everyone looked at each other. Somehow—nobody quite knew what to say.

‘All rot, of course,’ said Ronnie with an uneasy laugh.

‘Silly nonsense,’ said Mrs Willett. ‘Nobody ought to—to make jokes like that.’

‘Not about people dying,’ said Violet. ‘It’s—oh! I don’t like it.’

‘I wasn’t shoving,’ said Ronnie, feeling unspoken criticism levelled at him. ‘I swear I wasn’t.’

‘I can say the same,’ said Mr Duke. ‘And you, Mr Rycroft?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Rycroft warmly.

‘You don’t think I’d make a joke of that kind, do you?’ growled Major Burnaby. ‘Rotten bad taste.’

‘Violet dear—’

‘I didn’t, Mother. Indeed, I didn’t. I wouldn’t do such a thing.’

The girl was almost tearful.

Everyone was embarrassed. A sudden blight had come over the cheerful party.

Major Burnaby pushed back his chair, went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. He stood there looking out with his back to the room.

‘Twenty-five minutes past five,’ said Mr Rycroft glancing up at the clock. He compared it with his own watch and somehow everyone felt the action was significant in some way.

‘Let me see,’ said Mrs Willett with forced cheerfulness. ‘I think we’d better have cocktails. Will you ring the bell, Mr Garfield?’

Ronnie obeyed.

Ingredients for cocktails were brought and Ronnie was appointed mixer. The situation grew a little easier.

‘Well,’ said Ronnie, raising his glass. ‘Here’s how.’

The others responded—all but the silent figure by the window.

‘Major Burnaby. Here’s your cocktail.’

The Major roused himself with a start. He turned slowly.

‘Thank you, Mrs Willett. Not for me.’ He looked once more out into the night, then came slowly back to the group by the fire. ‘Many thanks for a very pleasant time. Good night.’

‘You’re not going?’

‘Afraid I must.’

‘Not so soon. And on a night like this.’

‘Sorry, Mrs Willett—but it’s got to be done. If there were only a telephone.’

‘A telephone?’

‘Yes—to tell you the truth—I’m—well. I’d like to be sure that Joe Trevelyan’s all right. Silly superstition and all that—but there it is. Naturally, I don’t believe in this tommy rot—but—’

‘But you can’t telephone from anywhere. There’s not such a thing in Sittaford.’

‘That’s just it. As I can’t telephone, I’ll have to go.’

‘Go—but you couldn’t get a car down that road! Elmer wouldn’t take his car out on such a night.’

Elmer was the proprietor of the sole car in the place, an aged Ford, hired at a handsome price by those who wished to go into Exhampton.

‘No, no—car’s out of the question. My two legs will take me there, Mrs Willett.’

There was a chorus of protest.

‘Oh! Major Burnaby—it’s impossible. You said yourself it was going to snow.’

‘Not for an hour—perhaps longer. I’ll get there, never fear.’

‘Oh! you can’t. We can’t allow it.’

She was seriously disturbed and upset.

But argument and entreaty had no more effect on Major Burnaby than if he were a rock. He was an obstinate man. Once his mind was made up on any point, no power on earth could move him.

He had determined to walk to Exhampton and see for himself that all was well with his old friend, and he repeated that simple statement half a dozen times.

In the end they were brought to realize that he meant it. He wrapped himself up in his overcoat, lighted the hurricane lantern, and stepped out into the night.

‘I’ll just drop in to my place for a flask,’ he said cheerily, ‘and then push straight on. Trevelyan will put me up for the night when I get there. Ridiculous fuss, I know. Everything sure to be all right. Don’t worry, Mrs Willett. Snow or no snow—I’ll get there in a couple of hours. Good night.’

He strode away. The others returned to the fire.

Rycroft had looked up at the sky.

‘It is going to snow,’ he murmured to Mr Duke. ‘And it will begin long before he gets to Exhampton. I—I hope he gets there all right.’

Duke frowned.

‘I know. I feel I ought to have gone with him. One of us ought to have done so.’

‘Most distressing,’ Mrs Willett was saying, ‘most distressing. Violet, I will not have that silly game ever played again. Poor Major Burnaby will probably plunge into a snowdrift—or if he doesn’t he’ll die of the cold and exposure. At his age, too. Very foolish of him to go off like that. Of course, Captain Trevelyan is perfectly all right.’

Everyone echoed:

‘Of course.’

But even now they did not feel really too comfortable.

Supposing something had happened to Captain Trevelyan…

Supposing…