Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [32]
“Surely not girls like Molly?”
“Oh, how does one know the things people are frightened of? There are people who can’t be in the room with cats. And other people who faint if a caterpillar drops on them.”
“I hate suggesting it—but don’t you think perhaps she ought to see a—well, a psychiatrist?”
“No!” said Tim explosively. “I won’t have people like that monkeying about with her. I don’t believe in them. They make people worse. If her mother had left psychiatrists alone….”
“So there was trouble of that kind in her family—was there? I mean a history of—” she chose the word carefully—“instability.”
“I don’t want to talk about it—I took her away from it all and she was all right, quite all right. She has just got into a nervous state … But these things aren’t hereditary. Everybody knows that nowadays. It’s an exploded idea. Molly’s perfectly sane. It’s just that—oh! I believe it was that wretched old Palgrave dying that started it all off.”
“I see,” said Evelyn thoughtfully. “But there was nothing really to worry anyone in Major Palgrave’s death, was there?”
“No, of course there wasn’t. But it’s a kind of shock when somebody dies suddenly.”
He looked so desperate and defeated that Evelyn’s heart smote her. She put her hand on his arm.
“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, Tim, but if I could help in any way—I mean if I could go with Molly to New York—I could fly with her there or Miami or somewhere where she could get really first-class medical advice.”
“It’s very good of you, Evelyn, but Molly’s all right. She’s getting over it, anyway.”
Evelyn shook her head in doubt. She turned away slowly and looked along the line of the terrace. Most people had gone by now to their bungalows. Evelyn was walking towards her table to see if she’d left anything behind there, when she heard Tim give an exclamation. She looked up sharply. He was staring towards the steps at the end of the terrace and she followed his gaze. Then she too caught her breath.
Molly was coming up the steps from the beach. She was breathless with deep, sobbing breaths, her body swayed to and fro as she came, in a curious directionless run. Tim cried:
“Molly! What’s the matter?”
He ran towards her and Evelyn followed him. Molly was at the top of the steps now and she stood there, both hands behind her back. She said in sobbing breaths:
“I found her … She’s there in the bushes … There in the bushes … And look at my hands—look at my hands.” She held them out and Evelyn caught her breath as she saw the queer dark stains. They looked dark in the subdued lighting but she knew well enough that their real colour was red.
“What’s happened, Molly?” cried Tim.
“Down there,” said Molly. She swayed on her feet. “In the bushes….”
Tim hesitated, looked at Evelyn, then shoved Molly a little towards Evelyn and ran down the steps. Evelyn put her arm round the girl.
“Come. Sit down, Molly. Here. You’d better have something to drink.”
Molly collapsed in a chair and leaned forward on the table, her forehead on her crossed arm. Evelyn did not question her any more. She thought it better to leave her time to recover.
“It’ll be all right, you know,” said Evelyn gently. “It’ll be all right.”
“I don’t know,” said Molly. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know anything. I can’t remember. I—” she raised her head suddenly. “What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with me?”
“It’s all right, child. It’s all right.”
Tim was coming slowly up the steps. His face was ghastly. Evelyn looked up at him, raising her eyebrows in a query.
“It’s one of our girls,” he said. “What’s-her-name—Victoria. Somebody’s put a knife in her.”
Fourteen
INQUIRY
I
Molly lay on her bed. Dr. Graham and Dr. Robertson, the West Indian police doctor, stood on one side—Tim on the other. Robertson had his hand on Molly’s pulse—He nodded to the man at the foot of the bed, a slender dark man in police uniform, Inspector Weston of the St. Honoré Police Force.
“A bare statement—no more,” the doctor said.
The other nodded.
“Now, Mrs. Kendal—just tell us how you came