Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie [89]
‘But what about the codicil that the cleaning woman witnessed?’
‘My surmise is that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe discovered that Michael Garfield and Rowena Drake were having an affair—probably before her husband died. In her anger Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe made a codicil to her Will leaving everything to her au pair girl. Probably the girl told Michael about this—she was hoping to marry him.’
‘I thought it was young Ferrier?’
‘That was a plausible tale told me by Michael. There was no confirmation of it.’
‘Then if he knew there was a real codicil why didn’t he marry Olga and get hold of the money that way?’
‘Because he doubted whether she really would get the money. There is such a thing as undue influence. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe was an elderly woman and a sick woman also. All her preceeding Wills had been in favour of her own kith and kin—good sensible Wills such as law courts approve of. This girl from foreign parts had been known to her only a year—and had no kind of claim upon her. That codicil even though genuine could have been upset. Besides, I doubt if Olga could have put through the purchase of a Greek island—or would even have been willing to do so. She had no influential friends, or contacts in business circles. She was attracted to Michael, but she looked upon him as a good prospect matrimonially, who would enable her to live in England—which is what she wanted to do.’
‘And Rowena Drake?’
‘She was infatuated. Her husband had been for many years a crippled invalid. She was middle-aged but she was a passionate woman, and into her orbit came a young man of unusual beauty. Women fell for him easily—but he wanted—not the beauty of women—but the exercise of his own creative urge to make beauty. For that he wanted money—a lot of money. As for love—he only loved himself. He was Narcissus. There is an old French song I heard many years ago–’
He hummed softly.
‘Regarde, Narcisse
Regarde dans l’eau
Regarde, Narcisse, que tu es beau
Il n’y a au monde
Que la Beauté
Et la Jeunesse,
Hélas! Et la Jeunesse…
Regarde, Narcisse…
Regarde dans l’eau…’
‘I can’t believe—I simply can’t believe that anyone would do murder just to make a garden on a Greek island,’ said Mrs Oliver unbelievingly.
‘Can’t you? Can’t you visualize how he held it in his mind? Bare rock, perhaps, but so shaped as to hold possibilities. Earth, cargoes of fertile earth to clothe the bare bones of the rocks—and then plants, seeds shrubs, trees. Perhaps he read in the paper of a shipping millionaire who had created an island garden for the woman he loved. And so it came to him –he would make a garden, not for a woman, but—for himself.’
‘It still seems to me quite mad.’
‘Yes. That happens. I doubt if he even thought of his motive as sordid. He thought of it only as necessary for the creation of more beauty. He’d gone mad on creation. The beauty of the Quarry Wood, the beauty of other gardens he’d laid out and made—and now he envisaged even more—a whole island of beauty. And there was Rowena Drake, infatuated with him. What did she mean to him but the source of money with which he could create beauty. Yes—he had become mad, perhaps. Whom the gods destroy, they first drive mad.’
‘He really wanted his island so much? Even with Rowena Drake tied round his neck as well? Bossing him the whole time?’
‘Accidents can happen. I think one might possibly have happened to Mrs Drake in due course.’
‘One more murder?’
‘Yes. It started simply. Olga had to be removed because she knew about the codicil—and she was also to be the scapegoat, branded as a forger. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe had hidden the original document, so I think that young Ferrier was given money to produce a similar forged document. So obviously forged that it would