Read Online Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie - Free Book Online

quite deaf and can hardly stand up and that half-witted daughter of the Bardwells who comes in to help on Sunday mornings.”
    â€œWhat I don’t see,” said Jennifer, “is how the police found out the house was being burgled and got here in time to catch him?”
    â€œIt seems extraordinary that he didn’t take anything,” commented her mother.
    â€œAre you quite sure about that, Joan?” demanded her husband. “You were a little doubtful at first.”
    Mrs. Sutcliffe gave an exasperated sigh.
    â€œIt’s impossible to tell about a thing like that straight away. The mess in my bedroom—things thrown about everywhere, drawers pulled out and overturned. I had to look through everything before I could be sure—though now I come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing my best Jacqmar scarf.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mummy. That was me. It blew overboard in the Mediterranean. I’d borrowed it. I meant to tell you but I forgot.”
    â€œReally, Jennifer, how often have I asked you not to borrow things without telling me first?”
    â€œCan I have some more pudding?” said Jennifer, creating a diversion.
    â€œI suppose so. Really, Mrs. Ellis has a wonderfully light hand. It makes it worthwhile having to shout at her so much. I do hope, though, that they won’t think you too greedy at school. Meadowbank isn’t quite an ordinary school, remember.”
    â€œI don’t know that I really want to go to Meadowbank,” said Jennifer. “I knew a girl whose cousin had been there, and she said itwas awful. They spent all their time telling you how to get in and out of Rolls-Royces, and how to behave if you went to lunch with the Queen.”
    â€œThat will do, Jennifer,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “You don’t appreciate how extremely fortunate you are in being admitted to Meadowbank. Miss Bulstrode doesn’t take every girl, I can tell you. It’s entirely owing to your father’s important position and the influence of your Aunt Rosamond. You are exceedingly lucky. And if,” added Mrs. Sutcliffe, “you are ever asked to lunch with the Queen, it will be a good thing for you to know how to behave.”
    â€œOh well,” said Jennifer. “I expect the Queen often has to have people to lunch who don’t know how to behave—African chiefs and jockeys and sheikhs.”
    â€œAfrican chiefs have the most polished manners,” said her father, who had recently returned from a short business trip to Ghana.
    â€œSo do Arab sheikhs,” said Mrs. Sutcliffe. “Really courtly.”
    â€œD’you remember that sheikh’s feast we went to,” said Jennifer. “And how he picked out the sheep’s eye and gave it to you, and Uncle Bob nudged you not to make a fuss and to eat it? I mean, if a sheikh did that with roast lamb at Buckingham Palace, it would give the Queen a bit of a jolt, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œThat will do, Jennifer,” said her mother and closed the subject.
    IV
    When Andrew Ball of no fixed abode had been sentenced to three months for breaking and entering, Derek O’Connor, who had been occupying a modest position at the back of the Magistrate’s Court, put through a call to a Museum number.
    â€œNot a thing on the fellow when we picked him up,” he said. “We gave him plenty of time too.”
    â€œWho was he? Anyone we know?”
    â€œOne of the Gecko lot, I think. Small time. They hire him out for this sort of thing. Not much brain but he’s said to be thorough.”
    â€œAnd he took his sentence like a lamb?” At the other end of the line Colonel Pikeaway grinned as he spoke.
    â€œYes. Perfect picture of a stupid fellow lapsed from the straight and narrow path. You’d never connect him with any big time stuff. That’s his value, of course.”
    â€œAnd he didn’t find anything,” mused Colonel Pikeaway.