Well, I must admit it, I was curious.
‘You think there’s nothing the matter with her?’ I asked.
‘Of course there’s nothing the matter with her! The woman’s as strong as an ox. “Dear Louise hasn’t slept.” “She’s got black circles under her eyes.” Yes—put there with a blue pencil! Anything to get attention, to have everybody hovering round her, making a fuss of her!’
There was something in that, of course. I had (what nurse hasn’t?) come across many cases of hypochondriacs whose delight it is to keep a whole household dancing attendance. And if a doctor or a nurse were to say to them: ‘There’s nothing on earth the matter with you!’ Well, to begin with they wouldn’t believe it, and their indignation would be as genuine as indignation can be.
Of course it was quite possible that Mrs Leidner might be a case of this kind. The husband, naturally, would be the first to be deceived. Husbands, I’ve found, are a credulous lot where illness is concerned. But all the same, it didn’t quite square with what I’d heard. It didn’t, for instance, fit in with that word ‘safer’.
Funny how that word had got kind of stuck in my mind.
Reflecting on it, I asked: ‘Is Mrs Leidner a nervous woman? Is she nervous, for instance, of living out far from anywhere?’
‘What is there to be nervous of? Good heavens, there are ten of them! And they’ve got guards too—because of the antiquities. Oh, no, she’s not nervous—at least—’
She seemed struck by some thought and stopped—going on slowly after a minute or two.
‘It’s odd your saying that.’
‘Why?’
‘Flight-Lieutenant Jervis and I rode over the other day. It was in the morning. Most of them were up on the dig. She was sitting writing a letter and I suppose she didn’t hear us coming. The boy who brings you in wasn’t about for once, and we came straight up on to the verandah. Apparently she saw Flight-Lieutenant Jervis’s shadow thrown on the wall—and she fairly screamed! Apologized, of course. Said she thought it was a strange man. A bit odd, that. I mean, even if it was a strange man, why get the wind up?’
I nodded thoughtfully.
Miss Reilly was silent, then burst out suddenly:
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with them this year. They’ve all got the jumps. Johnson goes about so glum she can’t open her mouth. David never speaks if he can help it. Bill, of course, never stops, and somehow his chatter seems to make the others worse. Carey goes about looking as though something would snap any minute. And they all watch each other as though—as though—Oh, I don’t know, but it’s queer.’
It was odd, I thought, that two such dissimilar people as Miss Reilly and Major Pennyman should have been struck in the same manner.
Just then Mr Coleman came bustling in. Bustling was just the word for it. If his tongue had hung out and he had suddenly produced a tail to wag you wouldn’t have been surprised.
‘Hallo-allo,’ he said. ‘Absolutely the world’s best shopper—that’s me. Have you shown nurse all the beauties of the town?’
‘She wasn’t impressed,’ said Miss Reilly dryly.
‘I don’t blame her,’ said Mr Coleman heartily. ‘Of all the one-horse tumble-down places!’
‘Not a lover of the picturesque or the antique, are you, Bill? I can’t think why you are an archaeologist.’
‘Don’t blame me for that. Blame my guardian. He’s a learned bird—fellow of his college—browses among books in bedroom slippers—that kind of man. Bit of a shock for him to have a ward like me.’
‘I think it’s frightfully stupid of you to be forced into a profession you don’t care for,’ said the girl sharply.
‘Not forced, Sheila, old girl, not forced. The old man asked if I had any special profession in mind, and I said I hadn’t, and so he wangled a season out here for me.’
‘But haven’t you any idea really what you’d like to do? You must have!’
‘Of course I have. My idea would be to give work a miss altogether. What I’d like to do is to have plenty of money and go in for motor-racing.’