Read Online The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie - Free Book Online Page B

that people were always offering her things she didn't want -
    The Pale Horse was a half-timbered building (genuine half-timbering, not faked). It was set back a little way from the village street. A walled garden could be glimpsed behind it, which gave it a pleasant Old-World look.
    I was disappointed in it, and said so.
    “Not nearly sinister enough,” I complained. “No atmosphere.”
    “Wait till you get inside,” said Ginger.
    We got out of the car and went up to the door which opened as we approached.
    Miss Thyrza Grey stood on the threshold, a tall, slightly masculine figure in a tweed coat and skirt. She had rough grey hair springing up from a high forehead, a large beak of a nose, and very penetrating light blue eyes.
    “Here you are at last,” she said in a hearty bass voice. “Thought you'd all got lost.”
    Behind her tweed-clad shoulder I became aware of a face peering out from the shadows of the dark hall. A queer, rather formless face, like something made in putty by a child who had strayed in to play in a sculptor's studio. It was the kind of face, I thought, that you sometimes see amongst a crowd in an Italian or Flemish primitive painting.
    Rhoda introduced us and explained that we had been lunching with Mr Venables at Priors Court.
    “Ah!” said Miss Grey. “That explains it! Fleshpots. That Italian cook of his! And all the treasures of the treasure house as well. Oh, well, poor fellow - got to have something to cheer him up. But come in, come in. We're rather proud of our own little place. Fifteenth-century - and some of it fourteenth.”
    The hall was low and dark with a twisting staircase leading up from it. There was a wide fireplace and over it a framed picture.
    “The old inn sign,” said Miss Grey, noting my glance. “Can't see much of it in this light. The Pale Horse.”
    “I'm going to clean it for you,” said Ginger. “I said I would. You let me have it and you'll be surprised.”
    “I'm a bit doubtful,” said Thyrza Grey, and added bluntly, “Suppose you ruin it?”
    “Of course I shan't ruin it,” said Ginger indignantly. "It's my job.
    “I work for the London Galleries,” she explained to me. “Great fun.”
    “Modern picture restoring takes a bit of getting used to,” said Thyrza. “I gasp every time I go into the National Gallery nowadays. All the pictures look as though they'd had a bath in the latest detergent.”
    “You can't really prefer them all dark and mustard coloured,” protested Ginger. She peered at the inn sign. “A lot more would come up. The horse may even have a rider.”
    I joined her to stare into the picture. It was a crude painting with little merit except the doubtful one of old age and dirt. The pale figure of a stallion gleamed against a dark indeterminate background.
    “Hi, Sybil,” cried Thyrza. “The visitors are crabbing our Horse, damn their impertinence!”
    Miss Sybil Stamfordis came through a door to join us.
    She was a tall willowy woman with dark, rather greasy hair, a simpering expression, and a fishlike mouth.
    She was wearing a bright emerald-green sari which did nothing to enhance her appearance. Her voice was faint and fluttery.
    “Our dear, dear Horse,” she said. “We fell in love with that old inn sign the moment we saw it. I really think it influenced us to buy the house. Don't you, Thyrza? But come in, come in.”
    The room into which she led us was small and square and had probably been the bar in its time. It was furnished now with chintz and Chippendale and was definitely a lady's sitting room, country style. There were bowls of chrysanthemums.
    Then we were taken out to see the garden which I could see would be charming in summer, and then came back into the house to find tea had been laid. There were sandwiches and homemade cakes and as we sat down, the old woman whose face I had glimpsed for a moment in the hall came in bearing a silver teapot. She wore a plain dark green overall. The impression of a head