Day One after the Disappearance
Saturday, December 4, 1926
Hurtmore Cottage, Godalming, England, and Styles, Sunningdale, England
“Everything all right?” Sam asks him upon his return to the dining room.
Although he’s already crafted an answer to the inevitable question, Archie stammers when called upon to say the actual words. Lying has never come easily to him, even when circumstances as of late have presented him with abundant opportunities to practice. “Oh, it’s, um, my mother. She’s taken ill, I’m afraid.” Before he can explain further, Madge gasps. He holds up his hand and assures her, “Nothing serious, the doctor promises. But she’s asked for me, and needs must.”
Sam nods his head. “Duty and all that.”
“Well, if it’s not terribly serious, can you spare Nancy through luncheon?” Madge, recovered from her concern over Archie’s mother, asks with a coy glance at her friend. “Sam and I would love to keep her captive for a few hands of whist.”
“I don’t see why not,” Archie says, giving Madge and then Nancy his best approximation of a smile. Nancy, sweet and unchallenging and lovely in her pale-blue frock, deserves a happy, carefree afternoon with her friend.
“Will you be able to return for dinner?” Sam asks, and Archie feels the weight of the Jameses’ disappointment. They’ve been so kind to plan this weekend, and now he’s undermined their gesture. One he doubts anyone else would have made.
“I’ll ring to let you know whether that will be possible. If not—” Archie breaks off, unsure what to say. He doesn’t know what he’ll be facing at Styles, doesn’t know what the police know, and he cannot plan for the different eventualities. In truth, he hasn’t even allowed himself to consider those eventualities.
Sam rescues him. “No need to worry, old chap. We will take Nancy to her home if the evening plans prove impossible.”
Gratitude surges through him, and he rounds the table to shake his friend’s hand. Just as their fingers touch, a knock sounds at the door.
“Again? That damned maid.” Sam grunts in irritation, then yells out, “What is it now?”
“Sir, there is a policeman at the door,” the maid says through the crack.
Archie feels sick. He knows, or thinks he knows, why the police wait at the Jameses’ front door.
“What?” Sam couldn’t have looked more astonished if his maid had informed him that his beloved foxhound had spontaneously turned into a poodle. Police officers were for dealing with scrapes among petty laborers, not for knocking on the front door of country houses.
“Yes, sir, a police officer, sir. He’s asking for the colonel.”
“Whatever for?”
“He won’t say. Just keeps asking for the colonel.”
The humiliation of being summoned by a police officer—giving the lie to his concoction about his mother’s condition—almost overshadows his concern about the summoning itself. What must Madge and Sam think of him? How will he explain this to them? To Nancy?
As he proceeds down the road, a rock causes his Delage to spin out, and he nearly loses sight of the police car he’s meant to be following. The momentary separation from the vehicle plants a seed of recklessness in him. What if he just drove off, evading the situation at Styles? Would the police car be able to catch him?
No, he will face his comeuppance like a man. No matter how his actions will be judged, he never wants it said that he’s a man who shirks his duties, who runs from his mistakes.
Following the police car, he turns down the familiar lane leading to his home. The dust from the official vehicle blinds his vision for a second, and when his sight clears, the Tudor peaks of Styles materialize, nearly as impressive as the first time he saw them. How much has changed since that day, he thinks, forcing that memory from his mind.
Archie knows that he must somehow grasp the upper hand of this situation. Perhaps it will help if he sets the tone by assuming his rightful role as master of Styles? Accordingly, he does not wait for the policeman to alight from his car. Instead, he marches past the other police cars parked in Styles’s governor’s drive and heads directly to the slightly ajar front door. When he pushes it wide open, he is surprised to note that not one of the black-uniformed officers gathered in the kitchen like a swarm of deadly bees gathered around their queen takes notice of him. Archie realizes that he has been given a singular chance to assess the situation before he speaks.
He scans the long mahogany table lining the foyer’s right wall to see if any calling cards lie on the silver receiving tray. The tray is bare, but he notices something unusual. Peeking out from underneath the tray is the corner of an envelope, his wife’s distinctive ivory stationary.
Glancing at the police officers absorbed in the loud yet strangely muffled voice of a man he can’t see, undoubtedly their supervisor, Archie slides the envelope out from under the silver tray. Then, keeping his footsteps light, he creeps into his study and quietly closes the door behind him.
Grabbing the ivory-handled letter opener from his desk, he slices open the envelope. The sprawling, spiky handwriting of his wife stares out at him from the notepaper within. Time presses upon him urgently, but he needs little more than several seconds to scan her words. As he finishes, he looks up, feeling as if he’s awoken from a deep slumber into a nightmare. When on earth did she have the time—nay, the prescience, the shrewdness, the patient calculation—to write these words? Had he ever really known his wife?
The narrow walls of his study seem to constrict, and he feels like he cannot breathe. But he knows he must take action. The letter has made clear that he’s no longer the executor of a plan but merely its subject—one trapped in a labyrinth at that—and he must find a way out. Tossing the letter down on the desk, he begins pacing the room, which grows gloomier by the second with an impending storm. What in the name of god should he do?
He is certain of only one thing. While he is prepared to pay his penance, he doesn’t plan on handing over the keys to the jailor. No one can be allowed to see this letter. Walking over to the hearth, he drops the letter and envelope into the flames and watches Agatha’s words burn.