Endless Night by Agatha Christie Page B

rushed in unguardedly either to admit or to deny.
    Yes, I had a sort of feeling that I'd better be wary and on my toes. And after ten minutes I was quite glad when he leaned back in his chair and the inquisition, if you could call it that, and it wasn't in the least like one, seemed to be over.
    “You have an adventurous attitude to life, Mr. Rogers - Michael. Not a bad thing. Tell me more about this house that you and Ellie are building.”
    “Well,” I said, “it's not far from a town called Market Chadwell.”
    “Yes,” he said, “I know just where it is. As a matter of fact I ran down to see it. Yesterday, to be exact.”
    That startled me a little. It showed he was a devious kind of fellow who got round to more things than you might think he would.
    “It's a beautiful site,” I said defensively, “and the house we're building is going to be a beautiful house. The architect's a chap called Santonix. Rudolf Santonix. I don't know if you've ever heard of him but -”
    “Oh yes,” said Mr. Lippincott, “he's quite a well known name among architects.”
    “He's done work in the States I believe.”
    “Yes, an architect of great promise and talent. Unfortunately I believe his health is not good.”
    “He thinks he's a dying man,” I said, “but I don't believe it. I believe he'll get cured, get well again. Doctors - they'll say anything.”
    “I hope your optimism is justified. You are an optimist.”
    “I am about Santonix.”
    “I hope all you wish will come true. I may say that I think you and Ellie have made an extremely good purchase in the piece of property that you have bought.”
    I thought it was nice of the old boy to use the pronoun 'you'. It wasn't rubbing it in that Ellie had done the buying on her own.
    “I have had a consultation with Mr. Crawford.”
    “Crawford?” I frowned slightly.
    “Mr. Crawford of Reece & Crawford, a firm of English solicitors. Mr. Crawford was the member of the firm who put the purchase in hand. It is a good firm of solicitors and I gather that this property was acquired at a cheap figure. I may say that I wondered slightly at that. I am familiar with the present prices of land in this country and I really felt rather at a loss to account for it. I think Mr. Crawford himself was surprised to get it at so low a figure. I wondered if you knew at all why property happened to go so cheaply. Mr. Crawford did not advance any opinion on that. In fact he seemed slightly embarrassed when I put the question to him.”
    “Oh well,” I said “it's got a curse on it.”
    “I beg your pardon, Michael, what did you say?”
    “A curse, sir,” I explained. “The gipsy's warning, that sort of thing. It is known locally as Gipsy's Acre.”
    “Ah. A story?”
    “Yes. It seems rather confused and I don't know how much people have made up and how much is true. There was a murder or something long ago. A man and his wife and another man. Some story that the husband shot the other two and then shot himself. At least that's the verdict that was brought in. But all sorts of other stories go flying about. I don't think anyone really knows what happened. It was a good long time ago. It's changed hands about four or five times since, but nobody stays there long.”
    “Ah,” said Mr. Lippincott appreciatively, “yes, quite a piece of English folklore.” He looked at me curiously.
    “And you and Ellie are not afraid of the curse?” He said it lightly, with a slight smile.
    “Of course not,” I said. “Neither Ellie nor I would believe in any rubbish of that kind. Actually it's a lucky thing since because of it we got it cheap.” When I said that a sudden thought struck me. It was lucky in one sense, but I thought that with all Ellie's money and her property and all the rest of it, it couldn't matter to her very much whether she bought a piece of land cheap or at the top price. Then I thought, no, I was wrong. After all, she'd had a grandfather who came up from being a dock