The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

poor devil alone,” I said sternly.
    â€œHow dare he cross the street when he saw me coming?”
    â€œAll you women are alike. You harp on one theme. You’ll have Sister Aimée gunning you, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
    â€œShe dislikes me already,” said Joanna. She spoke meditatively, but with a certain satisfaction.
    â€œWe have come down here,” I said sternly, “for peace and quiet, and I mean to see we get it.”
    But peace and quiet were the last things we were to have.

Four
    I
    I t was, I think, about a week later, that Partridge informed me that Mrs. Baker would like to speak to me for a minute or two if I would be so kind.
    The name Mrs. Baker conveyed nothing at all to me.
    â€œWho is Mrs. Baker?” I said, bewildered—“Can’t she see Miss Joanna?”
    But it appeared that I was the person with whom an interview was desired. It further transpired that Mrs. Baker was the mother of the girl Beatrice.
    I had forgotten Beatrice. For a fortnight now, I had been conscious of a middle-aged woman with wisps of grey hair, usually on her knees retreating crablike from bathroom and stairs and passages when I appeared, and I knew, I suppose, that she was our new Daily Woman. Otherwise the Beatrice complication had faded from my mind.
    I could not very well refuse to see Beatrice’s mother, especiallyas I learned that Joanna was out, but I was, I must confess, a little nervous at the prospect. I sincerely hoped that I was not going to be accused of having trifled with Beatrice’s affections. I cursed the mischievous activities of anonymous letter writers to myself at the same time as, aloud, I commanded that Beatrice’s mother should be brought to my presence.
    Mrs. Baker was a big broad weather-beaten woman with a rapid flow of speech. I was relieved to notice no signs of anger or accusation.
    â€œI hope, sir,” she said, beginning at once when the door had closed behind Partridge, “that you’ll excuse the liberty I’ve taken in coming to see you. But I thought, sir, as you was the proper person to come to, and I should be thankful if you could see your way to telling me what I ought to do in the circumstances, because in my opinion, sir, something ought to be done, and I’ve never been one to let the grass grow under my feet, and what I say is, no use moaning and groaning, but ‘Up and doing’ as vicar said in his sermon only the week before last.”
    I felt slightly bewildered and as though I had missed something essential in the conversation.
    â€œCertainly,” I said. “Won’t you—er—sit down, Mrs. Baker? I’m sure I shall be glad to—er help you in anyway I can—”
    I paused expectantly.
    â€œThank you, sir.” Mrs. Baker sat down on the edge of a chair. “It’s very good of you, I’m sure. And glad I am that I came to you, I said to Beatrice, I said, and her howling and crying on her bed, Mr. Burton will know what to do, I said, being a London gentleman. And something must be done, what with young men being so hotheaded and not listening to reason the way they are, and notlistening to a word a girl says, and anyway, if it was me, I says to Beatrice I’d give him as good as I got, and what about that girl down at the mill?”
    I felt more than ever bewildered.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said. “But I don’t quite understand. What has happened?”
    â€œIt’s the letters, sir. Wicked letters—indecent, too, using such words and all. Worse than I’ve ever seen in the Bible, even.”
    Passing over an interesting sideline here, I said desperately:
    â€œHas your daughter been having more letters?”
    â€œNot her, sir. She had just the one. That one as was the occasion of her leaving here.”
    â€œThere was absolutely no reason—” I began, but Mrs. Baker firmly and respectfully interrupted me:
    â€œThere