‘There.’ Mr Leech clapped, with an expression that couldn’t have been jollier. ‘Just as Sam thought all along, eh? We’ll keep that unpleasantness nice and quiet. And the Christie woman stopping here, we’ll keep nice and loud. Business will be booming, Isabelle, just you wait.’
Mrs Leech let out a stream of breath. As her husband turned to say something to his cousin, Chilton whispered, ‘It will help Miss O’Dea and her young man a great deal.’
Finally, Mrs Leech nodded, acquiescing. She preferred the idea of lying to help Nan to lying to save her hotel’s reputation. ‘I knew she was a Miss and not a Mrs,’ she whispered back. ‘I have a sixth sense for that sort of thing. I do hope she’ll marry that sad, handsome fellow. I love a happy ending, Mr Chilton.’
‘So do we all,’ Chilton said. ‘So do we all.’
The library door opened, and Archie and Agatha emerged. Chilton had never wanted anything so badly as to catch her eye in that moment, but she kept her gaze steadily to the floor, like a child who’d been properly chastised.
‘Mrs Christie,’ Chilton said, trying to regulate his voice into an official capacity. ‘Perhaps you’d better return to your room, so we can conduct an interview.’
‘She’ll do no such thing,’ Archie said. ‘This case is solved. There’s been no crime. Only a misunderstanding. There’s no need for any more police, we’ve had quite enough of that to last our lifetime.’
Chilton wondered if he himself had ever spoken with such certainty. It pained him to note that when Archie turned to his wife he spoke much more softly.
‘Agatha, darling. Go collect your things. We need to be on our way before the newspapers get wind of your discovery. I’m afraid you’ll have rather a to-doing with them in the next weeks.’
Still without a look at Chilton, Agatha climbed the stairs to my room. Chilton took a step, as if to follow her, but Lippincott caught him by the sleeve.
Upstairs in my hotel room, Agatha looked around, as if the place where our identities overlapped could betray anything about me, or herself, that she didn’t already know. Her eyes landed on a flash of lilac, a shawl thrown across the chair by the table. She picked it up sat down. The paper and pen I’d bought sat on the desk, unused. Agatha took up both, printing words so that her hand would not be recognizable, then folded the piece of paper in half and wrote ‘Inspector Chilton’ in large block letters. She didn’t worry someone else might find and read it. She knew he’d be here searching for clues the moment she left the hotel.
Agatha wrapped my shawl around her shoulders, as if it could transform her mannish outfit into something more respectable. She glided out of the room and down the stairs to her husband, who stood waiting for her, his face open and relieved all over again, every bit of love and hope she’d longed to see when once it had gone missing.
‘Where are your things?’ Archie asked, a tremor of fear in his voice, as if worried she’d decided to stay.
‘There’s nothing I need here.’
She walked past him, out of the hotel, into the waiting car, my new shawl pulled tightly around her. On the drive back to Sunningdale, Archie plied her with all the questions that had befuddled him to the point of madness.
‘Why did you abandon your car so precipitously?’
‘How did you manage to get to Yorkshire?’
‘Why are you dressed like that?’
‘Didn’t you see the papers? Didn’t you know how many people were looking for you? I can’t believe you would stay away if you knew about all that fuss.’
She didn’t answer, but rolled down the window a touch, needing the cold air to revive her. Archie shivered. Two weeks prior she would have closed the window hastily. Now she decided he’d have to endure it. She remembered her pearl ring and necklace, left behind at the manor house. They would do nicely, to pay for her time there, and all the provisions they’d stolen. Already she was returning to lawful ways of thinking.