4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online

just going for a walk.”
    “Nowhere to walk outside this place,” growled Mr. Crackenthorpe. “Nothing but pavements and miserable little band boxes of houses. Like to get hold of my land and build more of them. But they won't until I'm dead. And I'm not going to die to oblige anybody. I can tell you that! Not to oblige anybody.”
    Emma Crackenthorpe said mildly: “Now, Father.”
    “I know what they think - and what they're waiting for. All of 'em. Cedric, and that sly fox Harold with his smug face. As for Alfred, I wonder he hasn't had a shot at bumping me off himself. Not sure he didn't, at Christmas-time. That was a very odd turn I had. Puzzled old Quimper. He asked me a lot of discreet questions.”
    “Everyone gets these digestive upsets now and again. Father.”
    “All right, all right, say straight out that I ate too much! That's what you mean. And why did I eat too much? Because there was too much food on the table, far too much. Wasteful and extravagant. And that reminds me - you, young woman. Five potatoes you sent in for lunch - goodsized ones too. Two potatoes are enough for anybody. So don't send in more than four in future. The extra one was wasted today.”
    “It wasn't wasted, Mr. Crackenthorpe. I've planned to use it in a Spanish omelet tonight.”
    “Urgh!” As Lucy went out of the room carrying the coffee tray she heard him say, “Slick young woman, that, always got all the answers. Cooks well, though - and she's a handsome kind of girl.”
    Lucy Eyelesbarrow took a light iron out of the set of golf clubs she had had the forethought to bring with her, and strolled out into the park, climbing over the fencing.
    She began playing a series of shots. After five minutes or so, a ball, apparently sliced, pitched on the side of the railway embankment. Lucy went up and began to hunt about for it. She looked back towards the house. It was a long way away and nobody was in the least interested in what she was doing. She continued to hunt for the ball. Now and then she played shots from the embankment down into the grass.
    During the afternoon she searched about a third of the embankment. Nothing.
    She played her ball back towards the house.
    Then, on the next day, she came upon something. A thorn bush growing about half-way up the bank had been snapped off.
    Bits of it lay scattered about. Lucy examined the tree itself. Impaled on one of the thorns was a torn scrap of fur. It was almost the same colour as the wood, a pale brownish colour. Lucy looked at it for a moment, then she took a pair of scissors out of her pocket and snipped it carefully in half. The half she had snipped off she put in an envelope which she had in her pocket.
    She came down the steep slope searching about for anything else. She looked carefully at the rough grass of the field. She thought she could distinguish a kind of track which someone had made walking through the long grass. But it was very faint - not nearly so clear as her own tracks were. It must have been made some time ago and it was too sketchy for her to be sure that it was not merely imagination on her part.
    She began to hunt carefully down in the grass at the foot of the embankment just below the broken thorn bush. Presently her search was rewarded. She found a powder compact, a small cheap enamelled affair.
    She wrapped it in her handkerchief and put it in her pocket. She searched on but did not find anything more.
    On the following afternoon, she got into her car and went to see her invalid aunt.
    Emma Crackenthorpe said kindly, “Don't hurry back. We shan't want you until dinnertime.”
    “Thank you, but I shall be back by six at the latest.”
    No. 4 Madison Road was a small drab house in a small drab street. It had very clean Nottingham lace curtains, a shining white doorstep and a well-polished brass door handle. The door was opened by a tall, grim-looking woman, dressed in black with a large knob of iron-grey hair.
    She eyed Lucy in suspicious appraisal as