Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [12]
The knock came again, a little louder this time. But Hilary did not move. There could be no real urgency, and whoever it was would soon go away.
Her eyes were on the door, and suddenly they widened with astonishment. The key was slowly turning backwards round the lock. It jerked forward and fell on the floor with a metallic clang. Then the handle turned, the door opened and a man came in. She recognized him as the solemn, owlish young man who had been buying toothpaste. Hilary stared at him. She was too startled for the moment to say or do anything. The young man turned round, shut the door, picked the key up from the floor, put it into the lock and turned it. Then he came across towards her and sat down in a chair the other side of the table. He said, and it seemed to her a most incongruous remark:
‘My name’s Jessop.’
The colour rose sharply in Hilary’s face. She leaned forward. She said with cold anger:
‘What do you think you’re doing here, may I ask?’
He looked at her solemnly–and blinked.
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I came to ask you that.’ He gave a quick sideways nod towards the preparations on the table. Hilary said sharply:
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh yes, you do.’
Hilary paused, struggling for words. There were so many things she wanted to say. To express indignation. To order him out of the room. But strangely enough, it was curiosity that won the day. The question rose to her lips so naturally that she was almost unaware of asking it.
‘That key,’ she said, ‘it turned, of itself, in the lock?’
‘Oh, that!’ The young man gave a sudden boyish grin that transformed his face. He put his hand into his pocket and, taking out a metal instrument, he handed it to her to examine.
‘There you are,’ he said, ‘very handy little tool. Insert it into the lock the other side, it grips the key and turns it.’ He took it back from her and put it in his pocket. ‘Burglars use them,’ he said.
‘So you’re a burglar?’
‘No, no, Mrs Craven, do me justice. I did knock, you know. Burglars don’t knock. Then, when it seemed you weren’t going to let me in, I used this.’
‘But why?’
Again her visitor’s eyes strayed to the preparations on the table.
‘I shouldn’t do it if I were you,’ he said. ‘It isn’t a bit what you think, you know. You think you just go to sleep and you don’t wake up. But it’s not quite like that. All sorts of unpleasant effects. Convulsions sometimes, gangrene of the skin. If you’re resistant to the drug, it takes a long time to work, and someone gets to you in time and then all sorts of unpleasant things happen. Stomach pump. Castor oil, hot coffee, slapping and pushing. All very undignified, I assure you.’
Hilary leaned back in her chair, her eyelids narrowed. She clenched her hands slightly. She forced herself to smile.
‘What a ridiculous person you are,’ she said. ‘Do you imagine that I was committing suicide, or something like that?’
‘Not only imagine it,’ said the young man called Jessop, ‘I’m quite sure of it. I was in that chemist’s, you know, when you came in. Buying toothpaste, as a matter of fact. Well, they hadn’t got the sort I like, so I went to another shop. And there you were, asking for sleeping-pills again. Well, I thought that was a bit odd, you know, so I followed you. All those sleeping-pills at different places. It could only add up to one thing.’
His tone was friendly, off-hand, but quite assured. Looking at him Hilary Craven abandoned pretence.
‘Then don’t you think it is unwarrantable impertinence on your part to try and stop me?’
He considered the point for a moment or two. Then he shook his head.
‘No. It’s one of those things that you can’t not do–if you understand.’
Hilary spoke with energy. ‘You can stop me for the moment. I mean you can take the pills away–throw them out of the window or something like that–but you can’t stop me from buying more another day or throwing myself down from the top floor of the building, or jumping in front of a train.’
The young man considered this.
‘No,’ he said.