Weekend with Death by Patricia Wentworth Page B

repeated the performance, with the same result. At eight o’clock he was informed that the line was out of order. He then rose, shaved, dressed, and breakfasted. By this time it was nine o’clock. He decided that by walking to Bank Street he would get some fresh air and exercise and catch Sarah before she started her morning’s work. He could allow himself a quarter of an hour.
    Thompson answered the bell, and the minute she opened the door Henry had a premonition. Something was going to go wrong with his neat timetable. Something had in fact already gone wrong. Thompson, prim and tidy in lilac print and an apron which crackled with starch, shook her head reprovingly. She too prized the conventions, and to come asking for a young lady when it wasn’t hardly breakfast-time wasn’t at all the thing—not in the class of house she was accustomed to.
    â€œOh, no, sir—they’ve just left.”
    â€œ Left?” said Henry in a stupefied tone.
    â€œGone away for the week-end,” said Thompson, as one explaining things to a dull-witted child.
    â€œAnd there he stood,” she told Mrs. Perkins afterwards in the kitchen. “Looked as if he couldn’t hardly believe it, and frowned something shocking. And then he said, ‘Are you sure?’ and I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And he said, ‘Where have they gone? I suppose you can give me the address?’ and I said, ‘Indeed I can’t!’”
    Mrs. Perkins heaved a sigh.
    â€œSounds as if he’d got it bad,” she said—“doesn’t it?”
    â€œI don’t know about that.” Thompson’s voice was sharp.
    Mrs. Perkins shook her head.
    â€œAh, no—you wouldn’t. You mark my words, Lizzie, they’ve had a tiff—that’s what it is. You mark my words!”
    â€œThat was him on the ’phone last night. I heard her say ‘Henry’ as I come past with my tray—‘Henry, I can’t’, she said. And I thought to myself, ‘You just go on saying that and it’ll be a bit of all right.’ And what it was he was wanting her to do, well, it isn’t for me to say, but from what I’ve come across, they’re all alike, men are, and all any of them want is to have things their own way, so I just hope she goes on saying can’t to him.”
    Mrs. Perkins made a vaguely sympathetic sound.
    â€œAh well, dear, you’re bitter—and no wonder, the way you were treated. But there’s all sorts. You depend upon it, they’ve had a quarrel, and he come here on the way to his office in the hopes of making it up. A bit of a facer for him, poor fellow, to find them all gone off and no address, which I can’t say I hold with myself. Suppose we was to be murdered in our beds, or the house burnt down—it stands to reason we ought to know where we could get word to Mr. Cattermole. We did ought to know where he is, and that’s a fact.”
    â€œHe doesn’t want to be bothered,” said Thompson—“and I don’t blame him.”
    Henry Templar proceeded to his office, and in due course went out to lunch at his club, where he was joined by a friend of the name of Blenkinsop.
    Mr. Blenkinsop, who was a year or two older than Henry, was the secretary of an Under-Secretary. It being Saturday, there was time for conversation as well as food. Mr. Blenkinsop was discreet, but not so discreet with Henry as he would have been with most other people.
    Henry was never quite sure how the murder of Emily Case came up, but all in a minute there it was, and Blenkinsop was saying,
    â€œThe inquest’s on Monday, I see, but they’ll ask for an adjournment. There’s something behind it, you know.”
    Henry said, “Is there?” and hoped that he said it in his usual tone.
    Blenkinsop nodded.
    â€œOh, obviously. I wonder who the girl was.”
    â€œWhat girl?”
    â€œThe girl who was with her