At Bertram's Hotel - Christie Agatha - Страница 19

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"Now don't you worry, Mrs. McCrae," he said in his genial fashion, as he sat down to the meal she had prepared for his arrival. "We'll hunt the absentminded fellow down. Ever heard that story about Chesterton? G. K. Chesterton, you know, the writer. Wired to his wife when he'd gone on a lecture tour 'Am at Crewe Station. Where ought I to be?'"

He laughed. Mrs. McCrae smiled dutifully. She did not think it was very funny because it was so exactly the sort of thing that Canon Pennyfather might have done.

"Ah," said Archdeacon Simmons, with appreciation, "one of your excellent veal cutlets! You're a marvellous cook, Mrs. McCrae. I hope my old friend appreciates you."

Veal cutlets having been succeeded by some small castle puddings with a blackberry sauce which Mrs. McCrae had remembered was one of the archdeacon's favourite sweets, the good man applied himself in earnest to the tracking down of his missing friend. He addressed himself to the telephone with vigour and a complete disregard for expense, which made Mrs. McCrae purse her lips anxiously, although not really disapproving, because definitely her master had to be tracked down.

Having first dutifully tried the canon's sister who took little notice of her brother's goings and comings and as usual had not the faintest idea where he was or might be, the archdeacon spread his net farther afield. He addressed himself once more to Bertram's Hotel and got details as precisely as possible. The canon had definitely left there on the early evening of the nineteenth. He had with him a small B.E.A. handbag, but his other luggage had remained behind in his room, which he had duly retained. He had mentioned that he was going to a conference of some kind at Lucerne. He had not gone direct to the airport from the hotel. The commissionaire, who knew him well by sight, had put him into a taxi and had directed it as told by the canon, to the Athenaeum Club. That was the last time that anyone at Bertram's Hotel had seen Canon Pennyfather. Oh yes, a small detail-he had omitted to leave his key behind but had taken it with him. It was not the first time that that had happened.

Archdeacon Simmons paused for a few minutes' consideration before the next call. He could ring up the airlines in London. That would no doubt take some time. There might be a short cut. He rang up Dr. Weissgarten, a learned Hebrew scholar who was almost certain to have been at the conference.

Dr. Weissgarten was at his home. As soon as he heard who was speaking to him he launched out into a torrent of verbiage consisting mostly of disparaging criticism of two papers that had been read at the conference in Lucerne.

"Most unsound, that fellow Hogarov," he said, "most unsound. How he gets away with it I don't know! Fellow isn't a scholar at all. Do you know what he actually said?"

The archdeacon sighed and had to be firm with him. Otherwise there was a good chance that the rest of the evening would be spent in listening to criticism of fellow scholars at the Lucerne Conference. With some reluctance Dr. Weissgarten was pinned down to more personal matters.

"Pennyfather?" he said, "Pennyfather? He ought to have been there. Can't think why he wasn't there. Said he was going. Told me so only a week before when I saw him in the Athenaeum."

"You mean he wasn't at the conference at all?"

"That's what I've just said. He ought to have been there."

"Do you know why he wasn't there? Did he send an excuse?"

"How should I know? He certainly talked about being there. Yes, now I remember. He was expected. Several people remarked on his absence. Thought he might have had a chill or something. Very treacherous weather." He was about to revert to his criticisms of his fellow scholars but Archdeacon Simmons rang off.

He had got a fact but it was a fact that for the first time awoke in him an uneasy feeling. Canon Pennyfather had not been at the Lucerne Conference. He had meant to go to that conference. It seemed very extraordinary to the archdeacon that he had not been there. He might, of course, have taken the wrong plane, though on the whole, B.E.A. were pretty careful of you and shepherded you away from such possibilities. Could Canon Pennyfather have forgotten the actual day that he was going to the conference? It was always possible, he supposed. But if so where had he gone instead?

He addressed himself now to the air terminal. It involved a great deal of patient waiting and being transferred from department to department. In the end he got a definite fact. Canon Pennyfather had booked as a passenger on the 21:40 plane to Lucerne on the eighteenth but he had not been on the plane.

"We're getting on," said Archdeacon Simmons to Mrs. McCrae, who was hovering in the background. "Now, let me see. Who shall I try next?"

"All this telephoning will cost a fearful lot of money," said Mrs. McCrae.

"I'm afraid so. I'm afraid so," said Archdeacon Simmons. "But we've got to get on his track, you know. He's not a very young man."

"Oh, sir, you don't think there's anything could really have happened to him?"

"Well I hope not… I don't think so, because I think you'd have heard if so. He-er-always had his name and address on him, didn't he?"

"Oh yes, sir, he had cards on him. He'd have letters too, and all sorts of things in his wallet."

"Well, I don't think he's in a hospital then," said the archdeacon. "Let me see. When he left the hotel he took a taxi to the Athenaeum. I'll ring them up next."

Here he got some definite information. Canon Pennyfather, who was well known there, had dined there at seven-thirty on the evening of the nineteenth. It was then that the archdeacon was struck by something he had overlooked until then. The aeroplane ticket had been for the eighteenth but the canon had left Bertram's Hotel by taxi to the Athenaeum, having mentioned he was going to the Lucerne Conference, on the nineteenth. Light began to break. Silly old ass, thought Archdeacon Simmons to himself, but careful not to say it aloud in front of Mrs. McCrae. "Got his dates wrong. The conference was on the nineteenth. I'm sure of it. He must have thought that he was leaving on the eighteenth. He was one day wrong."

He went over the next bit carefully. The canon would have gone to the Athenaeum, he would have dined, he would have gone on to Kensington Air Station. There, no doubt, it would have been pointed out to him that his ticket was for the day before and he would then have realized that the conference he was going to attend was now over.

"That's what happened," said Archdeacon Simmons, "depend upon it." He explained it to Mrs. McCrae, who agreed that it was likely enough. "Then what would he do?"

"Go back to his hotel," said Mrs. McCrae.

"He wouldn't have come straight down here-gone straight to the station, I mean."

"Not if his luggage was at the hotel. At any rate, he would have called there for his luggage."

"True enough," said Simmons. "All right. We'll think of it like this. He left the airport with his little bag and he went back to the hotel, or started for the hotel at all events. He might have had dinner perhaps-no, he'd dined at the Athenaeum. All right, he went back to the hotel. But he never arrived there." He paused a moment or two and then said doubtfully, "Or did he? Nobody seems to have seen him there. So what happened to him on the way?"

"He could have met someone," said Mrs. McCrae, doubtfully.

"Yes. Of course that's perfectly possible. Some old friend he hadn't seen for a long time… He could have gone off with a friend to the friend's hotel or the friend's house, but he wouldn't have stayed there three days, would he? He wouldn't have forgotten for three whole days that his luggage was at the hotel. He'd have rung up about it, he'd have called for it, or in a supreme fit of absent-mindedness he might have come straight home. Three days' silence. That's what's so inexplicable."

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