Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

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.”
    â€œThere’s no one else who would possibly remember?”
    â€œOur staff is all on the comparatively young side. Of course there is old Mr. Galbraith himself. He retired some years ago.”
    â€œPerhaps I could ask him?” said Gwenda.
    â€œWell, 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.”
    â€œDoes he live in Dillmouth?”
    â€œOh yes. At Calcutta Lodge. A very nice little property on the Seaton road. But I really don’t think—”
    II
    â€œIt’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 beeswax 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.
    â€œI’m sorry, but I really don’t think I can help you,” she said. “It’s so long ago, isn’t it?”
    â€œOne does sometimes remember things,” said Gwenda.
    â€œOf 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.”
    â€œYour father might remember, perhaps,” said Gwenda.
    â€œFather?” Miss Galbraith shook her head. “He doesn’t take much notice nowadays, and his memory’s very shaky.”
    Gwenda’s eyes were resting thoughtfully on a Benares brass table and they shifted to a procession of ebony elephants marching along the mantelpiece.
    â€œI thought he might remember, perhaps,” she said, “because my father had just come from India. Your house is called Calcutta Lodge?”
    She paused interrogatively.
    â€œYes,” said Miss Galbraith. “Father was out in Calcutta for a time. In business there. Then the war came and in 1920 he came into the firm here, but would have liked to go back, he always says. But my mother didn’t fancy foreign parts—and of course you can’t say the climate’s really healthy. Well, I don’t know—perhaps you’d like to see my father. I don’t know that it’s one of his good days—”
    She led them into a small black study. Here, propped up in a big shabby leather chair sat an old gentleman with a white walrus moustache. His face was pulled slightly sideways. He eyed Gwenda with distinct approval as his daughter made the introductions.
    â€œMemory’s not what it used to be,” he said in a rather indistinct voice. “Halliday, you say? No, I don’t remember the name. Knew a boy at school in Yorkshire—but that’s seventy-odd years ago.”
    â€œHe rented Hillside, we think,” said Giles.
    â€œHillside? Was it called Hillside then?” Mr. Galbraith’s one movable eyelid snapped shut and open. “Findeyson lived there. Fine woman.”
    â€œMy father might have rented it furnished … He’d just come from India.”
    â€œIndia? India, d’you say? Remember a fellow—Army man. Knew that old rascal Mohammed Hassan who cheated me over some carpets. Had a young wife—and a baby—little girl.”
    â€œThat was me,” said Gwenda firmly.
    â€œIn—deed—you