By the Pricking of My Thumbs - Agatha Christie [94]
‘You’re doing fine,’ he said encouragingly.
It seemed very natural, somehow, to be sitting here, in this room with broken glass on the floor, talking to this man–with the dark agonized face–
‘I made a mistake–at Sunny Ridge. I was all wrong about her–I was afraid, then–a–wave of fear–But I got it wrong–I wasn’t afraid of her–I was afraid for her–I thought something was going to happen to her–I wanted to protect her–to save her–I–’ She looked doubtfully at him. ‘Do you understand? Or does it sound silly?’
‘Nobody understands better than I do–nobody in this world.’
Tuppence stared at him–frowning.
‘Who–who was she? I mean Mrs Lancaster–Mrs Yorke–that’s not real–that’s just taken from a rose tree–who was she–herself?’
Philip Starke said harshly:
‘Who was she? Herself? The real one, the true one
Who was she–with God’s Sign upon her brow?’
‘Did you ever read Peer Gynt, Mrs Beresford?’
He went to the window. He stood there a moment, looking out–Then he turned abruptly.
‘She was my wife, God help me.’
‘Your wife–But she died–the tablet in the church–’
‘She died abroad–that was the story I circulated–And I put up a tablet to her memory in the church. People don’t like to ask too many questions of a bereaved widower. I didn’t go on living here.’
‘Some people said she had left you.’
‘That made an acceptable story, too.’
‘You took her away when you found out–about the children–’
‘So you know about the children?’
‘She told me–It seemed–unbelievable.’
‘Most of the time she was quite normal–no one would have guessed. But the police were beginning to suspect–I had to act–I had to save her–to protect her–You understand–can you understand–in the very least?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘I can understand quite well.’
‘She was–so lovely once–’ His voice broke a little. ‘You see her–there,’ he pointed to the painting on the wall. ‘Waterlily–She was a wild girl–always. Her mother was the last of the Warrenders–an old family–inbred–Helen Warrender–ran away from home. She took up with a bad lot–a gaolbird–her daughter went on the stage–she trained as a dancer–Waterlily was her most popular role–then she took up with a criminal gang–for excitement–purely to get a kick out of it–She was always being disappointed–
‘When she married me, she had finished with all that–she wanted to settle down–to live quietly–a family life–with children. I was rich–I could give her all the things she wanted. But we had no children. It was a sorrow to both of us. She began to have obsessions of guilt–Perhaps she had always been slightly unbalanced–I don’t know–What do causes matter?–She was–’
He made a despairing gesture.
‘I loved her–I always loved her–no matter what she was–what she did–I wanted her safe–to keep her safe–not shut up–a prisoner for life, eating her heart out. And we did keep her safe–for many many years.’
‘We?’
‘Nellie–my dear faithful Nellie Bligh. My dear Nellie Bligh. She was wonderful–planned and arranged it all. The Homes for the Elderly–every comfort and luxury. And no temptations–no children–keep children out of her way–It seemed to work–these homes were in faraway places–Cumberland–North Wales–no one was likely to recognize her–or so we thought. It was on Mr Eccles’s advice–a very shrewd lawyer–his charges were high–but I relied on him.’
‘Blackmail?’ suggested Tuppence.
‘I never thought of it like that. He was a friend, and an adviser–’
‘Who painted the boat in the picture–the boat called Waterlily?’
‘I did. It pleased her. She remembered her triumph on the stage. It was one of Boscowan’s pictures. She liked his pictures. Then, one day, she wrote a name in black pigment on the bridge–the name of a dead child–So I painted a boat to hide it and labelled the boat Waterlily–’
The door in the wall swung open–The friendly witch came through it.
She looked at Tuppence and from Tuppence to Philip Starke.
‘All right again?’ she said in a matter-of-fact way.
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. The nice thing about the friendly witch, she saw, was that there wasn’t going to be any fuss.