My spine stiffened, and my shoulders went rigid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Madge. Reggie didn’t want me to stay at home moping. He specifically instructed me to go out to socialize and even see other chaps. After all, he is going to be in Hong Kong for two years.” My voice sounded strident and defensive, which I hated.
“I don’t think he meant seeing other fellows exclusively, Agatha. The way I understand you are seeing this Lieutenant Christie.” She shot Mummy an indiscernible look. They’d obviously been discussing me and Archie behind my back. I’d sensed for some time that Mummy didn’t care for Archie—although I couldn’t see that he’d given her any particular reason to dislike him other than the fact that he wasn’t Reggie Lucy—but this confirmed it. I guessed that Mummy had put Madge up to this conversation.
“It’s hardly as if Lieutenant Christie and I have an understanding between us, Madge. He’s simply become part of my set, that’s all.”
Even as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true. Over the past several weeks, Lieutenant Christie had taken me at my word to visit as often as he could. He came frequently and sometimes unexpectedly to Torquay, no longer pretending that an official errand brought him to Ashfield as he had on that first visit. In fact, he’d confessed to the embarrassment he suffered in prying my address out of Arthur Griffiths. Despite his many visits, he remained mostly a stranger to me, but I found his differentness—his intensity and determination—strangely intriguing.
“As your fellow, it seems. At your invitation. It’s not as if he’s bosom chums with the others.” Madge’s voice rose, and then my voice rose accordingly. Perhaps because I knew Madge was right.
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Madge. He is not my beau,” I yelled.
“So you keep saying, even though the evidence suggests otherwise.” She paused, then launched into an assault from a different angle. “We don’t know his people, Agatha. Not like we know the Lucys. And if you plan on moving forward with this relationship, you best know that you marry not only a man but his entire clan. I should know,” she said with a dramatic sigh. Her complaints about her in-laws were the stuff of legend.
We stood from our tea table chairs and faced each other.
“Girls,” Mummy called out. “That is enough.” This conversation was escalating into a full-scale argument, and no matter Mummy’s feelings toward Archie, she simply couldn’t tolerate that level of division between her daughters.
Madge and I settled back into our seats, and she reached for another cigarette. Mummy busied herself with her embroidery as if nothing untoward had just occurred. Madge spoke first. “I hear you’ve been putting my old Empire typewriter to good use in your spare time.”
It seemed that Mummy spared no details in describing my life to Madge. Was there no privacy from my older, bossy sister? I’d hesitated using the typewriter at first, as Madge had created her award-winning essays for Vanity Fair on the device and thought she might still claim it. Mummy assured me otherwise.
“Among other things,” I answered, still smarting from her sermon about Archie and Reggie.
“Been doing any reading?” she asked, sensing my coldness and trying to warm me with a familiar, shared topic.
Madge and I were great readers, and in fact, she had initiated me into the world of detective novels. On cold winter evenings at Ashfield, when I was about seven or eight years old, she began the ritual of reading aloud to me before my bedtime from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. This practice continued until she became Mrs. James Watts, when I took up the reins myself. The book that lassoed me to the genre was The Leavenworth Case, written by Anna Katharine Green a full ten years before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes. A true conundrum, the book focused on a wealthy merchant who was murdered in his mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City in a locked room by a pistol that was locked in another room altogether during the time of the murder.
“Yes,” I answered, my tone still chilly. “I just finished the new book by Gaston Leroux, The Mystery of the Yellow Room.”
Her eyes brightened, and she moved forward in her chair, closer to me. “I did too. I thought it was quite good. What did you think?”
Our disagreement forgotten, we launched into an animated discussion of the book’s merits and flaws. I marveled at the complicated crime in which the perpetrator apparently escaped from a locked room, and Madge adored the addition of the floor plans that illustrated the crime scene. But while we both enjoyed the intellectual puzzle the book provided to its readers, we agreed that it was no Sherlock Holmes, who remained our favorite.
“I’d like to try writing a detective story with your old Empire typewriter.” I spoke aloud the thought that had been running through my mind for some time.
Eyebrows raised, Madge assumed her typical expression and exhaled a long stream of smoke. She finally said, “I don’t think you can do it, Agatha. They are very difficult to master. I’ve even thought about taking a stab at one myself, but it’s too tricky.”
Implicit in her statement was, of course, that if she couldn’t manage a detective novel, there was no possible way that her baby sister could do so. I wasn’t going to let her dictate my actions—not with Archie and not with writing.
“Nevertheless, I should like to try.” I stood firm.
“You are capable of undertaking whatever you set your mind to, Agatha,” Mummy chimed in offhandedly as she stitched away. It was a familiar refrain, but the frequency of its repetition didn’t diminish Mummy’s intent.
“Well, I’ll bet you couldn’t do it properly,” Madge scoffed and then permitted herself a deep laugh. “I mean, how could you write an unsolvable mystery, the very core of a detective novel? You are positively transparent.”
Oh, I couldn’t write a detective story, could I? I thought to myself. I seethed at Madge’s patronizing words and condescension, but I also took them as a challenge. While Madge hadn’t technically laid down a bet—according to Miller family betting rules, terms must be set—I took it as a firm wager regardless. In that moment, Madge ignited a spark in me, and I vowed to keep it alive until I could fan it into a flame. The bet was on.
Chapter Eight
Day One after the Disappearance
Saturday, December 4, 1926
Styles, Sunningdale, England
Archie closes the door of his study behind him. Leaning against its sturdy four-panel door, he inhales slowly and deeply in an effort to moderate his breathing. He must remain calm. He cannot allow his nerves and latent anger to seep through his exterior of concern.
A soft knock interrupts his efforts. It doesn’t bear the authoritative rap of a policeman, but still, who else could it be? He smooths his hair and his suit jacket and pulls opens the notoriously creaky door.