The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery. Agatha Christie

this telephone call to have hailed from Scotland Yard; third, she professed not to know when Pandy died, which might indicate that she had not killed him.

      ‘Mr Pandy died on the seventh of December,’ said the caller.

      ‘Wait a moment and I shall go and look at last year’s diary,’ said Mrs Rule. ‘Incidentally, whether or not Inspector …’ There was a pause. The caller pictured Mrs Rule glancing down at a piece of paper. ‘Whether or not Inspector Catchpool judges it necessary to interview me, I should very much like to speak to him. I wish to make it clear that I have murdered nobody and am not the kind of person who would do such a thing. Once I’ve explained to him about Eustace, I’m sure he will see this unsavoury business for what it is: an attempt to frame me for a crime of which I am innocent. He will find it as shocking as I do, I have no doubt—a woman of my reputation and distinction! I’m rather pleased that this has happened, for I expect it to be Eustace’s downfall. Obstructing the proper investigation of a murder with slanderous accusations is a crime, is it not?’

      ‘I would have thought so,’ said the caller.

      ‘Well, then! I shall check my diary. The seventh of December last year, you say?’

      ‘Yes.’

      The caller waited, listening to the sounds of Sylvia Rule’s house. There was much stomping, doors opening and closing, footsteps on stairs. When Mrs Rule returned, she said triumphantly:

      ‘I was at Turville College on the seventh of December, from ten in the morning until supper time. My son Freddie is a pupil there, and it was the day of the Christmas Fair. I didn’t leave until well past eight o’clock. What is more, there were hundreds present—parents, teachers and pupils—and all of them will confirm what I have told you. Oh, how delightful!’ Sylvia Rule sighed. ‘Eustace’s plan is doomed to fail. Wouldn’t it be simply marvellous if he were to hang for his lies and calumnies against me—the very fate he had in mind for me?’

      After John McCrodden and Sylvia Rule, Annabel Treadway was a positive pleasure to interrogate. She had no obvious grudges, no Eustace equivalent, and did not speak venomously and at length about any person in whom the caller had no interest. Furthermore, she had relevant information to impart.

      ‘I was at home on the seventh of December,’ she said. ‘We all were—all of us who live at Combingham Hall. Kingsbury had just returned from a few days away. He drew the bath, as he always did, and he was the one who … who found Grandy under the water a while later. It was upsetting for all of us, but it must have been especially awful for Kingsbury. To be the person who discovers such a tragedy … By the time Lenore, Ivy and I reached the bathroom we knew something was wrong. I won’t say we were prepared—how can one ever be, for something so terrible?—but we’d had warning. The way Kingsbury cried out when he saw … Oh, poor Kingsbury! I shall never forget the way his voice cracked as he called out to us.’