Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?. Agatha Christie

said: “Why didn’t they ask Evans?”’

      ‘What a funny thing to say. Nothing else?’

      ‘No. He just opened his eyes and said that – quite suddenly – and then died, poor chap.’

      ‘Oh, well,’ said Frankie, turning it over in her mind. ‘I don’t see that you need worry. It wasn’t important.’

      ‘No, of course not. Still, I wish I’d just mentioned it. You see, I said he’d said nothing at all.’

      ‘Well, it amounts to the same thing,’ said Frankie. ‘I mean, it isn’t like – “Tell Gladys I always loved her”, or “The will is in the walnut bureau”, or any of the proper romantic Last Words there are in books.’

      ‘You don’t think it’s worth writing about it to them?’ ‘I shouldn’t bother. It couldn’t be important.’ ‘I expect you’re right,’ said Bobby and turned his attention with renewed vigour to the game.

      But the matter did not really dismiss itself from his mind. It was a small point but it fretted him. He felt very faintly uncomfortable about it. Frankie’s point of view was, he felt sure, the right and sensible one. The thing was of no importance – let it go. But his conscience continued to reproach him faintly. He had said that the dead man had said nothing. That wasn’t true. It was all very trivial and silly but he couldn’t feel quite comfortable about it. Finally, that evening, on an impulse, he sat down and wrote to Mr Cayman.

       Dear Mr Cayman, I have just remembered that your brother-in-law did actually say something before he died. I think the exact words were, ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ I apologize for not mentioning this this morning, but I attached no importance to the words at the time and so, I suppose, they slipped my memory.

       Yours truly,

       Robert Jones.

      On the next day but one he received a reply:

      Dear Mr Jones (wrote Mr Cayman), Your letter of 6th instant to hand. Many thanks for repeating my poor brother-in-law’s last words so punctiliously in spite of their trivial character. What my wife hoped was that her brother might have left her some last message. Still, thank you for being so conscientious.

       Yours faithfully,

       Leo Cayman.

      Bobby felt snubbed.

       Chapter 6 End of a Picnic

      On the following day Bobby received a letter of quite a different nature:

      It’s all fixed, old boy, (wrote Badger in an illiterate scrawl which reflected no credit on the expensive public school which had educated him). Actually got five cars yesterday for fifteen pounds the lot – an Austin, two Morrises and a couple of Rovers. At the moment they won’t actually go, but we can tinker them up sufficiently, I think. Dash it all, a car’s a car, after all. So long as it takes the purchaser home without breaking down, that’s all they can expect. I thought of opening up Monday week and am relying on you, so don’t let me down, will you, old boy? I must say old Aunt Carrie was a sport. I once broke the window of an old boy next door to her who’d been rude to her about her cats and she never got over it. Sent me a fiver every Christmas – and now this.

       We’re bound to succeed. The thing’s a dead cert. I mean, a car’s a car after all. You can pick ’em up for nothing. Put a lick of paint on and that’s all the ordinary fool notices. The thing will go with a Bang. Now don’t forget. Monday week. I’m relying on you.

       Yours ever,

       Badger.

      Bobby informed his father that he would be going up to town on Monday week to take up a job. The description of the job did not rouse the Vicar to anything like enthusiasm. He had, it may be pointed out, come across Badger Beadon in the past. He merely treated Bobby to a long lecture on the advisability of not making himself liable for anything. Not an authority on financial or business matters, his advice was technically vague, but its meaning unmistakable.

      On the Wednesday of that week Bobby received another letter. It was addressed in a foreign slanting handwriting. Its contents were somewhat surprising to the young man.

      It was from the firm of Henriquez and Dallo in Buenos Aires and, to put it concisely, it offered Bobby a job in the firm with a salary of a thousand a year.

      For the first minute or two the young man thought he must be dreaming. A thousand a year. He reread the letter more carefully. There was mention of an ex-Naval man being preferred. A suggestion that Bobby’s name had been put forward by someone (someone not named). That acceptance must be immediate, and that Bobby must be prepared to start for Buenos Aires within a week.

      ‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Bobby, giving vent to his feelings in a somewhat unfortunate manner.

      ‘Bobby!’

      ‘Sorry, Dad. Forgot you were there.’

      Mr Jones cleared his throat.

      ‘I should like to point out to you –’

      Bobby felt that this process – usually a long one – must at all costs be avoided. He achieved this course by a simple statement:

      ‘Someone’s offered me a thousand a year.’

      The Vicar remained open-mouthed, unable for the moment to make any comment.

      ‘That’s put him off his drive all right,’ thought Bobby with satisfaction.

      ‘My dear Bobby, did I understand you to say that someone had offered you a thousand a year? A thousand?’

      ‘Holed it in one, Dad,’ said Bobby.

      ‘It’s impossible,’ said the Vicar.

      Bobby was not hurt by this frank incredulity. His estimate of his own monetary value differed little from that of his father.

      ‘They must be complete mutts,’ he agreed heartily.

      ‘Who – er – are these people?’

      Bobby handed him the letter. The Vicar, fumbling for his pince-nez, peered at it suspiciously. Finally he perused it twice.

      ‘Most remarkable,’ he said at last. ‘Most remarkable.’

      ‘Lunatics,’ said Bobby.

      ‘Ah! my boy,’ said the Vicar. ‘It is after all, a great thing to be in Englishman. Honesty. That’s what we stand for. The Navy has carried that ideal all over the world. An Englishman’s world! This South American firm realizes the value of a young man whose integrity will be unshaken and of whose fidelity his employers will be assured. You can always depend on an Englishman to play the game –’

      ‘And keep a straight bat,’ said Bobby.

      The Vicar looked at his son doubtfully. The phrase, an excellent one, had actually been on the tip of his tongue, but there was something in Bobby’s tone that struck him as not quite sincere.

      The young man, however, appeared to be perfectly serious.

      ‘All the same, Dad,’ he said, ‘why me?’

      ‘What do you mean – why you?’

      ‘There are a lot of Englishmen in England,’ said Bobby. ‘Hearty fellows, full of cricketing qualities. Why pick on me?’

      ‘Probably your late commanding officer may have recommended you.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose that’s true,’ said Bobby doubtfully. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway, since I can’t take the job.’

      ‘Can’t