The Christie Affair(40)

By now more guests had gathered in the hall, including a painfully thin spinster who covered her mouth with one slim, freckled hand and gasped, ‘How dreadful.’

‘I suspect she died of a broken heart,’ Miss Armstrong announced to the bleary-eyed gatherers with an air of diagnostic expertise. She had delicate white skin and eyes almost as black as her hair. ‘They’d been star-crossed, you know, Mrs and Mrs Marston. Before they married.’

I wanted to say I was thankful I shouldn’t have to hear that phrase – star-crossed – ever again in my life. I wanted to say that if it were possible for a broken heart to kill, I’d have been dead long ago. Instead, I closed my door without another word. Given the situation, the usual manners did not apply.



Chilton was downstairs using the telephone to call Lippincott. He heard the scream but, muffled as it was, did not pay it particular notice. Perhaps one of the ladies had come upon a spider.

‘Will you be sparing a man to investigate?’ he asked Lippincott, referring to Mr Marston’s death.

‘There’s no man to spare, that’s why you’re here in the first place. Probably nothing to it. A heart attack, is my guess.’

Of course, this was likely right. Why would anyone want to harm the old Irishman?

Just as Chilton rang off, Mrs Leech came rushing down the stairs, looking most discombobulated.

‘Mrs Leech?’

She held up her hand, too weepy to answer, and rushed to the kitchen where her husband was overseeing breakfast preparations. After a moment, the doctor came downstairs, no more fully dressed than he’d been the previous night, sweat gathered on his brow despite the season. Chilton gave him a handkerchief. The two had chatted last night while they shared a cigarette and waited for the coroner to collect poor Mr Marston, and had already established battles in common.

The doctor mopped his brow. ‘Damn it all,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be on holiday.’

‘What’s happened now?’ Chilton asked.

‘Another death. The wife. Mrs Marston. What a honeymoon they’re having, eh?’

‘Gads. Well. Perhaps now they’re having the ultimate honeymoon. Reunited in the hereafter.’ Chilton didn’t believe this for a moment but he had an inkling the Marstons would have liked the idea. They had that look about them, a smug religiosity, like happiness was owed, in this life and whatever followed. He hadn’t had a chance to chat with Marston before the old man keeled over, but even though plenty of older men had signed up to do their bit, Chilton could tell Marston hadn’t been one of them.

Because jocularity could be soothing under the most dire circumstances, Chilton thought about saying something such as, Who’d you think would want to off that pair? Certainly the odds of the first death being suspicious was elevated now the man’s wife was dead.

‘Any ideas about the cause?’

‘Not a mark on her, at least at a glance, nor anything else disturbed. Young for it to be heart failure, though she’d certainly had a shock.’

‘Did she take anything? Last night?’

The doctor bristled. ‘I gave her a simple sleeping draught. Perfectly harmless.’

‘Of course,’ Chilton said. ‘Damn shame.’

‘Indeed. I might be cutting this holiday short. Hardly seems right. Or restful, for that matter.’

Chilton nodded and took his leave. He felt a little guilty for having disliked the Marstons at first sight. For now he’d take care of his primary order of business, searching for Agatha Christie. He’d canvas the hotels, keep an eye out on the roads. Carefully doing his duty.



After the unfortunate ruckus I skipped breakfast, instead bundling up in my warmest clothes. As I passed the front desk, Mrs Leech greeted me with frantic cheer. ‘Off for a walk, are you? Lovely day for it, cold air will do you good. Terrible about the Marstons, him dying of a heart attack and her of a broken heart.’

‘Has the coroner made his conclusions already?’

‘Well, then, what else could it be? So sad, so sad, but could have happened anywhere! Nothing to do with us!’

I gathered more than one guest had already checked out, the hot baths not seeming much of a cure in the wake of two sudden deaths: the last thing their hotel needed.

Walking down the dusty road, I thought of my conversation with Ursula Owen at Godalming on the night of Agatha’s disappearance, about Lucid Dreaming. And how Lucid Living would be a lovely corollary. As a girl, I’d had that very ability – to think of Finbarr and suddenly he’d appear. On this day in Harrogate, for the first time since the Armistice celebration, I knew I’d regained the power. Nothing else supernatural was afoot. I felt confident the ghosts of the Marstons were well and truly departed. But I knew that if I walked in the same direction Lizzie and I had done yesterday, Finbarr would appear.

Sure enough, when I rounded the corner I’d envisioned, there he was: hands in his pockets, breath gusting out before him, cheeks rosy. This time I didn’t run to him but walked, and kept walking, as he held out his arms, straight into them.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘Are you eating? Sleeping?’

‘Yes,’ he said into my ear. His hand at my back was steady, no tremor. ‘Are you?’

‘Me?’ I pulled away from him. ‘I’m staying in a hotel. Luxury. Food. Roof and hearth fires. Where are you staying?’