Free 4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie Page A

added politely.
    “She doesn't mind,” said Cedric, answering for his sister. “You're only young once. Your first inquest, I expect?”
    “It was rather disappointing,” said Alexander. “All over so soon.”
    “We can't stay here talking,” said Harold irritably. “There's quite a crowd. And all those men with cameras.”
    At a sign from him, the chauffeur pulled away from the kerb. The boys waved cheerfully.
    “All over so soon!” said Cedric. “That's what they think, the young innocents! It's just beginning.”
    “It's all very unfortunate. Most unfortunate,” said Harold. “I suppose -”
    He looked at Mr. Wimborne who compressed his thin lips and shook his head with distaste.
    “I hope,” he said sententiously, “that the whole matter will soon be cleared up satisfactorily. The police are very efficient. However, the whole thing, as Harold says, has been most unfortunate.”
    He looked, as he spoke, at Lucy, and there was distinct disapproval in his glance.
    “If it had not been for this young woman,” his eyes seemed to say, “poking about where she had no business to be - none of this would have happened.”
    This sentiment, or one closely resembling it, was voiced by Harold Crackenthorpe.
    “By the way - er - Miss - er - er - Eyelesbarrow, just what made you go looking in that sarcophagus?”
    Lucy had already wondered just when this thought would occur to one of the family. She had known that the police would ask it first thing: what surprised her was that it seemed to have occurred to no one else until this moment.
    Cedric, Emma, Harold and Mr. Wimborne all looked at her.
    Her reply, for what it was worth, had naturally been prepared for some time.
    “Really,” she said in a hesitating voice, “I hardly know... I did feel that the whole place needed a thorough clearing out and cleaning. And there was -” she hesitated - “a very peculiar and disagreeable smell...”
    She had counted accurately on the immediate shrinking of everyone from the unpleasantness of this idea...
    Mr. Wimborne murmured: “Yes, yes, of course... about three weeks the police surgeon said... I think, you know, we must all try and not let our minds dwell on this thing.” He smiled encouragingly at Emma who had turned very pale. “Remember,” he said, “this wretched young woman was nothing to do with any of us.”
    “Ah, but you can't be so sure of that, can you?” said Cedric.
    Lucy Eyelesbarrow looked at him with some interest. She had already been intrigued by the rather startling differences between the three brothers. Cedric was a big man with a weather-beaten rugged face, unkempt dark hair, and a jocund manner. He had arrived from the airport unshaven, and though he had shaved in preparation for the inquest, he was still wearing the clothes in which he had arrived and which seemed to be the only ones he had, old grey flannel trousers, and a patched and rather threadbare baggy jacket.
    He looked the stage Bohemian to the life and proud of it.
    His brother Harold, on the contrary, was the perfect picture of a City gentleman and a director of important companies. He was tall with a neat erect carriage, had dark hair going slightly bald on the temples, a small black moustache, and was impeccably dressed in a dark well-cut suit and a pearl-grey tie. He looked what he was, a shrewd and successful business man.
    He now said stiffly:
    “Really, Cedric, that seems a most uncalled for remark.”
    “Don't see why? She was in our barn after all. What did she come there for?”
    Mr. Wimborne coughed, and said: “Possibly some - er - assignation. I understand that it was a matter of local knowledge that the key was kept outside on a nail.”
    His tone indicated outrage at the carelessness of such procedure. So clearly marked was this that Emma spoke apologetically.
    “It started during the war. For the A.R.P. wardens. There was a little spirit stove and they made themselves hot cocoa. And afterwards, since there