At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha Christie [79]
“Did your family know that you were married to him?”
“No.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
“I didn’t think I was married.”
“How did that come about?”
“We were married in Ballygowlan, but when my people turned up, Micky came to me and told me the marriage had been a fake. He and his friends had cooked it up between them, he said. By that time it seemed to me quite a natural thing for him to have done. Whether he wanted the money that was being offered him, or whether he was afraid he’d committed a breach of the law by marrying me when I wasn’t of age, I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t doubt for a moment that what he said was true—not then.”
“And later?”
She seemed lost in her thoughts. “It wasn’t until—oh, quite a number of years afterwards, when I knew a little more of life, and of legal matters, that it suddenly occurred to me that probably I was married to Micky Gorman after all!”
“In actual fact, then, when you married Lord Coniston, you committed bigamy.”
“And when I married Johnnie Sedgwick, and again when I married my American husband, Ridgway Becker.” She looked at Chief-Inspector Davy and laughed with what seemed like genuine amusement.
“So much bigamy,” she said. “It really does seem very ridiculous.”
“Did you never think of getting a divorce?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It all seemed like a silly dream. Why rake it up? I told Johnnie, of course.” Her voice softened and mellowed as she said his name.
“And what did he say?”
“He didn’t care. Neither Johnnie nor I were ever very law-abiding.”
“Bigamy carries certain penalties, Lady Sedgwick.”
She looked at him and laughed.
“Who was ever going to worry about something that had happened in Ireland years ago? The whole thing was over and done with. Micky had taken his money and gone off. Oh, don’t you understand? It seemed just a silly little incident. An incident I wanted to forget. I put it aside with the things—the very many things—that don’t matter in life.”
“And then,” said Father, in a tranquil voice, “one day in November, Michael Gorman turned up again and blackmailed you?”
“Nonsense! Who said he blackmailed me?”
Slowly Father’s eyes went round to the old lady sitting quietly, very upright in her chair.
“You.” Bess Sedgwick stared at Miss Marple. “What can you know about it?”
Her voice was more curious than accusing.
“The armchairs in this hotel have very high backs,” said Miss Marple. “Very comfortable they are. I was sitting in one in front of the fire in the writing room. Just resting before I went out one morning. You came in to write a letter. I suppose you didn’t realize there was anyone else in the room. And so—I heard your conversation with this man Gorman.”
“You listened?”
“Naturally,” said Miss Marple. “Why not? It was a public room. When you threw up the window and called to the man outside, I had no idea that it was going to be a private conversation.”
Bess stared at her for a moment, then she nodded her head slowly.
“Fair enough,” she said. “Yes, I see. But all the same you misunderstood what you heard. Micky didn’t blackmail me. He might have thought of it—but I warned him off before he could try!” Her lips curled up again in that wide generous smile that made her face so attractive. “I frightened him off.”
“Yes,” agreed Miss Marple. “I think you probably did. You threatened to shoot him. You handled it—if you won’t think it impertinent of me to say so—very well indeed.”
Bess Sedgwick’s eyebrows rose in some amusement.
“But I wasn’t the only person to hear you,” Miss Marple went on.
“Good gracious! Was the whole hotel listening?”
“The other armchair was also occupied.