A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie Page B

and motioned Neele to go in.
    The room he entered was almost fantastically over-furnished. The Inspector felt rather as though he had taken a step backward into not merely Edwardian but Victorian times. At a table drawn up to a gas fire an old lady was sitting laying out a patience. She wore a maroon-coloured dress and her sparse grey hair was slicked down each side other face.
    Without looking up or discontinuing her game she said impatiently:
    “Well, come in, come in. Sit down if you like.”
    The invitation was not easy to accept as every chair appeared to be covered with tracts or publications of a religious nature.
    As he moved them slightly aside on the sofa Miss Ramsbottom asked sharply:
    “Interested in mission work?”
    “Well, I'm afraid I'm not very, ma'am.”
    “Wrong. You should be. That's where the Christian spirit is nowadays. Darkest Africa. Had a young clergyman here last week. Black as your hat. But a true Christian.”
    Inspector Neele found it a little difficult to know what to say.
    The old lady further disconcerted him by snapping:
    “I haven't got a wireless.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Oh I thought perhaps you came about a wireless licence. Or one of these silly forms. Well, man, what is it?”
    “I'm sorry to have to tell you. Miss Ramsbottom, that your brother-in-law, Mr Fortescue, was taken suddenly ill and died this morning.”
    Miss Ramsbottom continued with her patience without any sign of perturbation, merely remarking in a conversational way:
    “Struck down at last in his arrogance and sinful pride. Well, it had to come.”
    “I hope it's not a shock to you?”
    It obviously wasn't but the Inspector wanted to hear what she would say.
    Miss Ramsbottom gave him a sharp glance over the top of her spectacles and said:
    “If you mean I am not distressed, that is quite right. Rex Fortescue was always a sinful man and I never liked him.”
    “His death was very sudden -”
    “As befits the ungodly,” said the old lady with satisfaction.
    “It seems possible that he may have been poisoned -”
    The Inspector paused to observe the effect he had made.
    He did not seem to have made any. Miss Ramsbottom merely murmured, “Red seven on black eight. Now I can move up the King.”
    Struck apparently by the Inspector's silence, she stopped with a card poised in her hand and said sharply:
    “Well, what did you expect me to say? I didn't poison him if that's what you want to know.”
    “Have you any idea who might have done so?”
    “That's a very improper question,” said the old lady sharply. “Living in this house are two of my dead sister's children. I decline to believe that anybody with Ramsbottom blood in them could be guilty of murder. Because it's murder you're meaning, isn't it?”
    “I didn't say so, madam.”
    “Of course it's murder. Plenty of people have wanted to murder Rex in their time. A very unscrupulous man. And old sins have long shadows, as the saying goes.”
    “Have you anyone in particular in mind?”
    Miss Ramsbottom swept up the cards and rose to her feet. She was a tall woman.
    “I think you'd better go now,” she said.
    She spoke without anger but with a kind of cold finality.
    “If you want my opinion,” she went on, “it was probably one of the servants. That butler looks to me a bit of a rascal, and that parlourmaid is definitely subnormal. Good evening.”
    Inspector Neele found himself meekly walking out. Certainly a remarkable old lady. Nothing to be got out of her.
    He came down the stairs into the square hall to find himself suddenly face to face with a tall dark girl. She was wearing a damp mackintosh and she stared into his face with a curious blankness.
    “I've just come back,” she said. “And they told me - about Father - that he's dead.”
    “I'm afraid that's true.”
    She pushed out a hand behind her as though blindly seeking for support. She touched an oak chest and slowly, stiffly, she sat down on it.
    “Oh no,” she said.