After the Funeral by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

complete fool. She had no judgment, no balance, and a crude childish point of view, but she had also the child's uncanny knack of sometimes hitting 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 knew if Cora Lansquenet had left a will. Miss Gilchrist replied promptly that Mrs Lansquenet's will 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 draughtsmanship but with much fidelity to detail. He was also made to admire various small oil sketches of picturesque fishing 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 south-west, from the north-west, and presumably from the several other points of the compass, 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.

After the Funeral

Chapter 5
    “Worn out, 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?”
    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 your 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 Yorkshire - and that's about a funeral, too! Said he'd ring again later.”
    A personal call for Mr Entwhistle came through that evening. Taking it, he heard Maude Abernethie's voice at the other end.
    “Thank goodness I've got hold of you at last! Timothy has been in the most terrible state. This news about Cora has upset him dreadfully.”
    “Quite understandable,” said Mr Entwhistle.
    “What did you say?”
    “I said it was quite understandable.”
    “I suppose so.” Maude sounded more than doubtful. “Do you mean to say it was really murder?”
    (“It was murder, wasn't it?” Cora had said. But this time there was no hesitation about the answer.)
    “Yes, it was murder,” said Mr Entwhistle.
    “And with a hatchet, so the papers say?”
    “Yes.”
    “It seems quite incredible to me,” said Maude, “that Timothy's sister - his own sister - can have been murdered