Agatha Christie - The Sittaford Mystery

SITTAFORD HOUSE

Major Burnaby drew on his gum boots, buttoned his overcoat collar round his neck, took from a shelf near the door a hurricane lantern, and cautiously opened the front door of his little bungalow and peered out. The scene that met his eyes was typical of the English countryside as depicted on Xmas cards and in old-fashioned melodramas. Everywhere was snow, deep drifts of it - no mere powdering an inch or two thick. Snow had fallen all over England for the last four days, and up here on the fringe of Dartmoor it had attained a depth of several feet. All over England householders were groaning over burst pipes, and to have a plumber friend (or even a plumber's mate) was the most coveted of all distinctions.

Up here, in the tiny village of Sittaford, at all times remote from the world, and now almost completely cut off, the rigors of winter were a very real problem.

Major Burnaby, however, was a hardy soul. He snorted twice, grunted once, and marched resolutely out into the snow.

His destination was not far away. A few paces along a winding lane, then in at a gate, and so up a drive partially swept clear of snow to a house of some considerable size built of granite.

The door was opened by a neatly clad parlormaid. The Major was divested of his British Warm, his gum boots and his aged scarf.

A door was flung open and he passed through it into a room which conveyed all the illusion of a transformation scene.

Although it was only half past three the curtains had been drawn, the electric lights were on and a huge fire blazed cheerfully on the hearth. Two women in afternoon frocks rose to greet the staunch old warrior.

"Splendid of you to turn out, Major Burnaby," said the elder of the two.

"Not at all, Mrs Willett, not at all. Very good of you to ask me." He shook hands with them both.

"Mr Garfield is coming," went on Mrs Willett, "and Mr Duke, and Mr Rycroft said he would come - but one can hardly expect him at his age in such weather. Really, it is too dreadful. One feels one must do something to keep oneself cheerful. Violet, put another log on the fire."

The Major rose gallantly to perform this task.

"Allow me, Miss Violet."

He put the log expertly in the right place and returned once more to the armchair his hostess had indicated. Trying not to appear as though he were doing so, he cast surreptitious glances round the room. Amazing how a couple of women could alter the whole character of a room - and without doing anything very outstanding that you could put your finger on.

Sittaford House had been built ten years ago by Captain Joseph Trevelyan, B.N., on the occasion of his retirement from the Navy. He was a man of substance, and he had always had a great hankering to live on Dartmoor. He had placed his chance on the tiny hamlet of Sittaford. It was not in a valley like most of the villages and farms, but perched right on the shoulder of the moor under the shadow of Sittaford Beacon. He had purchased a large tract of ground, had built a comfortable house with its own electric light plant and an electric pump to save labor in pumping water. Then, as a speculation, he had built six small bungalows, each in its quarter acre of ground, along the lane.

The first of these, the one at his very gates, had been allotted to his old friend and crony, John Burnaby - the others had by degrees been sold, there being several people who from choice or necessity liked to live right out of the world. The village itself consisted of three picturesque but dilapidated cottages, a forge, and a combined post office and sweet shop. The nearest town was Exhampton, six miles away, a steady descent which necessitated the sign, "Motorists engage your lowest gear," so familiar on the Dartmoor roads.

Captain Trevelyan, as has been said, was a man of substance. In spite of this - or perhaps because of it - he was a man who was inordinately fond of money. At the end of October a house-agent in Exhampton wrote to him asking if he would consider letting Sittaford House.

A tenant had made inquiries concerning it, wishing to rent it for the winter.

Captain Trevelyan's first impulse was to refuse, his second to demand further information. The tenant in question proved to be a Mrs Willett, a widow with one daughter. She had recently arrived from South Africa and wanted a house on Dartmoor for the winter.

"Damn it all, the woman must be mad," said Captain Trevelyan. "Eh, Burnaby, don't you think so?"

Burnaby did think so, and said so as forcibly as his friend had done.

"Anyway, you don't want to let," he said. "Let the fool woman go somewhere else if she wants to freeze. Coming from South Africa too!"

But at this point Captain Trevelyan's money complex asserted itself. Not once in a hundred times would you get a chance of letting your house in midwinter. He demanded what rent the tenant was willing to pay.

An offer of twelve guineas a week clinched matters. Captain Trevelyan went into Exhampton, rented a small house on the outskirts at two guineas a week, and handed over Sittaford House to Mrs Willet, half the rent to be paid in advance.

"A fool and her money are soon parted," he growled. But Burnaby was thinking this afternoon as he scanned Mrs Willett covertly, that she did not look a fool. She was a tall woman with a rather silly manner - but her physiognomy was shrewd rather than foolish. She was inclined to overdress, had a distinct Colonial accent, and seemed perfectly content with the transaction. She was clearly very well off and that, as Burnaby had reflected more than once, really made the whole affair more odd. She was not the kind of woman one would credit with a passion for solitude.

As a neighbor she had proved almost embarrassingly friendly. Invitations to Sittaford House were rained on everybody. Captain Trevelyan was constantly urged to "Treat the house as though we hadn't rented it." Trevelyan, however, was not fond of women. Report went that he had been jilted in his youth. He persistently refused all invitations.

Two months had passed since the installation of the Willetts and the first wonder at their arrival had passed away.

Burnaby, naturally a silent man, continued to study his hostess, oblivious to any need for small talk. Liked to make herself out a fool, but wasn't really. So he summed up the situation. His glance shifted to Violet Willett. Pretty girl - scraggy, of course - they all were nowadays. What was the good of a woman if she didn't look like a woman? Papers said curves were coming back. About time too.

He roused himself to the necessity of conversation.

"We were afraid at first that you wouldn't be able to come," said Mrs Willett. "You said so, you remember. We were so pleased when you said that after all you would."

"Friday," said Major Burnaby, with an air of being explicit.

Mrs Willett looked puzzled.

"Friday?"

"Every Friday go to Trevelyan's. Tuesday he comes to me. Both of us done it for years."

"Oh! I see. Of course, living so near -"

"Kind of habit."

"But do you still keep it up? I mean now that he is living in Exhampton -"

"Pity to break a habit," said Major Burnaby. "We'd both of us miss those evenings."

"You go in for competitions, don't you?" asked Violet. "Acrostics and crosswords and all those things."

Burnaby nodded.

"I do crosswords. Trevelyan does acrostics. We each stick to our own line of country. I won three books last month in a crossword competition," he volunteered.

"Oh! really. How nice. Were they interesting books?"

"Don't know. Haven't read them. Looked pretty hopeless."

"It's the winning them that matters, isn't it?" said Mrs Willett vaguely.

"How do you get to Exhampton?" asked Violet. "You haven't got a car."