Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

Miss Marple admitted that.'
    'She didn't help us with any ideas of how to set about it,' said Gwenda. 'And yet I feel, from the glint in her eye, that she had a few. I wonder how she would have gone about it.'
    'I don't suppose she would be likely to think of ways that we wouldn't,' said Giles positively. 'We must stop speculating, Gwenda, and set about things in a systematic way. We've made a beginning—I've looked through the Parish registers of deaths. There's no “Helen” of the right age amongst them. In fact there doesn't seem to be a Helen at all in the period I covered—Ellen Pugg, ninety-four, was the nearest. Now we must think of the next profitable approach. If your father, and presumably your stepmother, lived in this house, they must either have bought it or rented it.'
    'According to Foster, the gardener, some people called Elworthy had it before the Hengraves and before them Mrs Findeyson. Nobody else.'
    'Your father might have bought it and lived in it for a very short time—and then sold it again. But I think that it's much more likely that he rented it—probably rented it furnished. If so, our best bet is to go round the house agents.'
    Going round the house agents was not a prolonged labour. There were only two house agents in Dillmouth. Messrs Wilkinson were a comparatively new arrival. They had only opened their premises eleven years ago. They dealt mostly with the small bungalows and new houses at the far end of the town. The other agents, Messrs Galbraith and Penderley, were the ones from whom Gwenda had bought the house. Calling upon them, Giles plunged into his story. He and his wife were delighted with Hillside and with Dillmouth generally. Mrs Reed had only just discovered that she had actually lived in Dillmouth as a small child. She had some very faint memories of the place, and had an idea that Hillside was actually the house in which she had lived but could not be quite certain about it. Had they any record of the house being let to a Major Halliday? It would be about eighteen or nineteen years ago...
    Mr Penderley stretched out apologetic hands.
    'I'm afraid it's not possible to tell you, Mr Reed. Our records do not go back that far—not, that is, of furnished or short-period lets. Very sorry I can't help you, Mr Reed. As a matter of fact if our old head clerk, Mr Narracott, had still been alive—he died last winter—he might have been able to assist you. A most remarkable memory, really quite remarkable. He had been with the firm for nearly thirty years.'
    'There's no one else who would possibly remember?'
    'Our staff is all on the comparatively young side. Of course there is old Mr Galbraith himself. He retired some years ago.'
    'Perhaps I could ask him?' said Gwenda.
    'Well, I hardly know about that...' Mr Penderley was dubious. 'He had a stroke last year. His faculties are sadly impaired. He's over eighty, you know.'
    'Does he live in Dillmouth?'
    'Oh yes. At Calcutta Lodge. A very nice little property on the Seaton road. But I really don't think-'
    'It's rather a forlorn hope,’ said Giles to Gwenda. 'But you never know. I don't think we'll write. We'll go there together and exert our personality.'
    Calcutta Lodge was surrounded by a neat trim garden, and the sitting-room into which they were shown was also neat if slightly overcrowded. It smelt of bees-wax and Ronuk. Its brasses shone. Its windows were heavily festooned.
    A thin middle-aged woman with suspicious eyes came into the room.
    Giles explained himself quickly, and the expression of one who expects to have a vacuum cleaner pushed at her left Miss Galbraith's face.
    'I'm sorry, but I really don't think I can help you,' she said. 'It's so long ago, isn't it?' 'One does sometimes remember things,' said Gwenda.
    'Of course I shouldn't know anything myself. I never had any connection with the business. A Major Halliday, you said? No, I never remember coming across anyone in Dillmouth of that name.'
    'Your father might