Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons

Cat Among the Pigeons

II

“There goes Rich with her hair coming down again,” said Ann Shapland as she straightened herself up from a flower bed. “If she can't control it I can't think why she doesn't get it cut off. She's got a good shaped head and she would look better.”

“You ought to tell her so,” said Adam.

“We're not on those terms,” said Ann Shapland. She went on, “D'you think this place will be able to carry on?”

“That's a very doubtful question,” said Adam, “and who am I to judge?”

“You could tell as well as another I should think,” said Ann Shapland. “It might, you know. The old Bull, as the girls call her, has got what it takes. A hypnotizing effect on parents to begin with. How long is it since the beginning of term - only a month! It seems like a year. I shall be glad when it comes to an end.”

“Will you come back if the school goes on?”

“No,” said Ann with emphasis, “no indeed. I've had enough of schools to last me for a lifetime. I'm not cut out for being cooped up with a lot of women anyway. And, frankly, I don't like murder. It's the sort of thing that's fun to read about in the paper or to read yourself to sleep with in the way of a nice book. But the real thing isn't so good. I think,” added Ann thoughtfully, “that when I leave here at the end of the term I shall marry Denis and settle down.”

“Denis?” said Adam. “That's the one you mentioned to me, wasn't it? As far as I remember his work takes him to Burma and Malaya and Singapore and Japan and places like that. It won't be exactly settling down, will it, if you marry him?”

Ann laughed suddenly. “No, no, I suppose it won't. Not in the physical, geographical sense.”

“I think you can do better than Denis,” said Adam.

“Are you making me an offer?” said Ann.

“Certainly not,” said Adam. “You're an ambitious girl, you wouldn't like to marry a humble jobbing gardener.”

“I was wondering about marrying into the C.I.D.,” said Ann.

“I'm not in the C.I.D.,” said Adam.

“No, no, of course not,” said Ann. “Let's preserve the niceties of speech. You're not in the C.I.D. Shaista wasn't kidnapped, everything in the garden's lovely. It is rather,” she added, looking round. “All the same,” she said after a moment or two, “I don't understand in the least about Shaista turning up in Geneva or whatever the story is. How did she get there? All you people must be very slack to allow her to be taken out of this country.”

“My lips are sealed,” said Adam.

“I don't think you know the first thing about it,” said Ann.

“I will admit,” said Adam, “that we have to thank Monsieur Hercule Poirot for having had a bright idea.”

“What, the funny little man who brought Julia back and came to see Miss Bulstrode?”

“Yes. He calls himself,” said Adam, “a consultant detective.”

“I think he's pretty much of a has-been,” said Ann.

“I don't understand what he's up to at all,” said Adam. “He even went to see my mother - or some friend of his did.”

“Your mother?” said Ann, “why?”

“I've no idea. He seems to have a kind of morbid interest in mothers. He went to see Jennifer's mother, too.”

“Did he go and see Miss Rich's mother, and Chaddy's?”

“I gather Miss Rich hasn't got a mother,” said Adam. “Otherwise, no doubt, he would have gone to see her.”

“Miss Chadwick's got a mother in Cheltenham, she told me,” said Ann, “but she's about eighty odd, I believe. Poor Miss Chadwick, she looks about eighty herself. She's coming to talk to us now.”

Adam looked up. “Yes,” he said, “she's aged a lot in the last week.”

“Because she really loves the school,” said Ann. “It's her whole life. She can't bear to see it go downhill.”

Miss Chadwick indeed looked ten years older than she had done on the day of the opening of term. Her step had lost its brisk efficiency. She no longer trotted about, happy and bustling. She came up to them now, her steps dragging a little.

“Will you please come to Miss Bulstrode,” she said to Adam. “She has some instruction about the garden.”

“I'll have to clean up a bit first,” said Adam. He laid down his tools and moved off in the direction of the potting shed.

Ann and Miss Chadwick walked together toward the house.

“It does seem quiet, doesn't it,” said Ann, looking round. “Like an empty house at the theatre,” she added thoughtfully, “with people spaced out by the box office as tactfully as possible to make them look like an audience.”

“It's dreadful,” said Miss Chadwick, “dreadful! Dreadful to think that Meadowbank has come to this. I can't get over it. I can't sleep at night. Everything in ruins. All the years of work, of building up something really fine.”

“It may get all right again,” said Ann cheerfully. “People have got very short memories, you know.”

“Not as short as all that,” said Miss Chadwick grimly.

Ann did not answer. In her heart she rather agreed with Miss Chadwick.