The Christie Affair(56)

Mrs Leech poked her head into the library. ‘Do you two have everything you need?’ she asked brightly, anxious to retain the guests she had left. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Tea would be lovely,’ Miss Armstrong said. After Mrs Leech’s retreat she said to Chilton, ‘I love seeing that. Mr and Mrs Leech, I mean. Together, and nobody seeming to mind.’

Chilton nodded, not wanting to tell her there were plenty who minded. Instead, he said, ‘People can certainly be beastly about the things that affect them least, can’t they?’

‘They certainly can. But Mr and Mrs Leech never let that stop them. It’s just too romantic, isn’t it?’

Mrs Leech returned with the tea tray, all business, not a hint of romance about her. Once she had gone, and their cups were full and steaming, Chilton said, ‘Terrible business about the Marstons.’

‘Oh,’ Miss Armstrong said, closing her book with a snap, as if she’d been dying to talk about it. ‘Isn’t it awful? And beautiful, in its way? They were star-crossed, Mrs Marston told me. Longing to be together for ever so long. And then just when they finally were . . .’ Tears welled up in her dark eyes.

It wasn’t that Chilton had lost his powers of observation. He could see things and even assess them. The loveliness of this girl before him, her impeccable manners, the way her eyes were so dark one could barely make out the pupils. He could also note the particular sweetness of a young woman very much wishing for love to enter her life, even as she bravely asserted her own independence. Chilton knew he himself was not the sort of man occupying her daydreams; he also knew he should at least be moved to some sort of emotion. There should be desire lurching forward, to be suppressed, with perhaps a sigh of sadness at what could never be. But regarding Miss Armstrong felt no more personal or emotional than reading a newspaper. He saw everything but felt nothing.

‘Did you meet Mrs Marston?’ said Miss Armstrong. ‘She was chatty and friendly, wasn’t she? Oh, I liked her, Mr Chilton. And I feel sure she died of a broken heart.’ At this she set down her teacup and brought her hands to cover her face.

Mrs Marston had certainly gone out of her way to make her love story known. Might there have been a method to her garrulousness? Chilton fished the handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Miss Armstrong.



This is how I found them when I entered the library. Chilton had appraised me correctly. Having finished Gatsby, I longed for something, anything, to distract me from the maelstrom of circumstances at the Bellefort Hotel. If I’d been smart, I would have gone home, as the Clarkes had done. Instead, I’d extended my stay, telling Mrs Leech I’d be keeping the room indefinitely. How could I do anything different, with Finbarr haunting the vicinity?

Miss Armstrong turned to look at me, her eyes widening in embarrassment, then correcting with that lift of her chin, daring me to judge her. I might almost have thought I’d walked in on a moment of romance if Chilton himself hadn’t looked so detached. In fact, he looked more interested in my sudden appearance than the lovely weeping girl before him. This put me immediately on my guard.

‘Mrs O’Dea,’ he said, and gestured towards his tearful companion.

I sat down next to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you all right, Miss Armstrong?’

‘You’re very kind,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes with a shabby handkerchief that couldn’t have been her own. ‘It’s silly. I didn’t know them until a few days ago. But talking to Mrs Marston, hearing her story . . . she was already a friend. And they were destined to be together, those two. There’s a Chinese legend called Yue Lao, have you heard it? When we’re born, the gods tie an invisible thread around our little finger, which connects us to our one true love, no matter what forces try to keep us apart.’

‘That’s lovely.’ To my own ears I sounded insincere. I wasn’t immune to that sort of romance. I could believe in a thousand red threads connecting Finbarr and me. I just had a hard time applying this legend to the Marstons.

‘It’s so sad and awful,’ wept Miss Armstrong, ‘that they would die like that, right under our noses, right when their threads finally found each other. Just when they were on the brink of happiness.’

‘Not on the brink.’ I eased the handkerchief out of her grasp and handed it back to Mr Chilton, then gave her my own, which was silk and monogrammed, and far better suited to her delicate skin. A gift from Archie, specially ordered from Harrods. ‘They had some days of happiness. Perhaps more than they deserved.’

Miss Armstrong stopped crying abruptly and stared at me, eyes full of rebuke. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’

‘You said yourself you hardly knew them,’ I pointed out. ‘They might have been wretched people.’

Chilton let out a caustic little laugh.

‘Why, Mrs Marston seemed the nicest lady in the world,’ said Miss Armstrong reproachfully.

‘Seeming is different to being,’ I said. ‘Best not to mourn people whose sins we don’t know.’

Miss Armstrong looked at me as if I were the coldest, hardest woman in the world. Which I very well may be. But I should have known better than to reveal it. Nothing is more suspicious than an unfeeling woman.

I stood and went to examine the selection of books. Miss Armstrong held my handkerchief out to me to return it, but I waved it away. ‘Keep it,’ I said, ‘I have loads.’