Endless Night by Agatha Christie Page A

have so they’re willing to take the risk that you might drop down dead before your birthday comes.”
    “You sound so businesslike,” I said, “you take my breath away!”
    “Never mind business,” said Ellie, “I’ve got to get back to what I’m telling you. In a way I’ve told it you already, but I don’t suppose really you realize it.”
    “I don’t want to know,” I said. My voice rose, I was almost shouting. “Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to know anything about what you’ve done or who you’ve been fond of or what has happened to you.”
    “It’s nothing of that kind,” she said. “I didn’t realize that that was what you were fearing it might be. No, there’s nothing of that kind. No sex secrets. There’s nobody but you. The thing is that I’m—well—I’m rich.”
    “I know that,” I said, “you’ve told me already.”
    “Yes,” said Ellie with a faint smile, “and you said to me, ‘poor little rich girl.’ But in a way it’s more than that. My grandfather, you see, was enormously rich. Oil. Mostly oil. And other things. The wives he paid alimony to are dead, there was only my father and myself left because his two other sons were killed. One in Korea and one in a car accident. And so it was all left in a great big huge trust and when my father died suddenly, it all came to me. My father had made provision for my stepmother before, so she didn’t get anything more. It was all mine. I’m—actually one of the richest women in America, Mike.”
    “Good Lord,” I said. “I didn’t know…Yes, you’re right, I didn’t know it was like that. ”
    “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want to tell you. That was why I was afraid when I said my name—Fenella Goodman. We spell it G-u-t-e-m-a-n, and I thought you might know the name of Guteman so I slurred over it and made it into Goodman.”
    “Yes,” I said, “I’ve seen the name Guteman vaguely. But I don’t think I’d have recognized it even then. Lots of people are called names rather like that.”
    “That’s why,” she said, “I’ve been so hedged around all the time and fenced in, and imprisoned. I’ve had detectives guarding me and young men being vetted before they’re allowed even to speak to me. Whenever I’ve made a friend they’ve had to be quite sure it wasn’t an unsuitable one. You don’t know what a terrible, terrible prisoner’s life it is! But now that’s all over, and if you don’t mind—”
    “Of course I don’t mind,” I said, “we shall have lots of fun. In fact,” I said, “you couldn’t be too rich a girl for me!”
    We both laughed. She said: “What I like about you is that you can be natural about things.”
    “Besides,” I said, “I expect you pay a lot of tax on it, don’t you? That’s one of the few nice things about being like me. Any money I make goes into my pocket and nobody can take it away from me.”
    “We’ll have our house,” said Ellie, “our house on Gipsy’s Acre.” Just for a moment she gave a sudden little shiver.
    “You’re not cold, darling,” I said. I looked up at the sunshine.
    “No,” she said.
    It was really very hot. We’d been basking. It might almost have been the South of France.
    “No,” said Ellie, “it was just that—that woman, that gipsy that day.”
    “Oh, don’t think of her,” I said, “she was crazy anyway.”
    “Do you think she really thinks there’s a curse on the land?”
    “I think gipsies are like that. You know—always wanting to make a song and dance about some curse or something.”
    “Do you know much about gipsies?”
    “Absolutely nothing,” I said truthfully. “If you don’t want Gipsy’s Acre, Ellie, we’ll buy a house somewhere else. On the top of a mountain in Wales, on the coast of Spain or an Italian hillside, and Santonix can build us a house there just as well.”
    “No,” said Ellie, “that’s how I want it to be. It’s where I first saw you walking up the road,