Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [63]
“No, of course not!” Jean sounded justly indignant. “The one thing I’d never do is to look among anybody’s private papers. I’m not that sort of person. It was just that I was feeling rather absentminded, so I opened the case and I was just sorting through it. . . .”
“Look here, Jean, you can’t get away with that. Nigel’s attaché case is a good deal larger than yours and it’s an entirely different colour. While you’re admitting things you might just as well admit that you are that sort of person. All right. You found a chance to go through some of Nigel’s things and you took it.”
Jean rose.
“Of course, Valerie, if you’re going to be so unpleasant and so very unfair and unkind, I shall. . . .”
“Oh, come back, child!” said Valerie. “Get on with it. I’m getting interested now. I want to know.”
“Well, there was this passport,” said Jean. “It was down at the bottom and it had a name on it. Stanford or Stanley or some name like that, and I thought, ‘How odd that Nigel should have somebody else’s passport here.’ I opened it and the photograph inside was Nigel! So don’t you see, he must be leading a double life? What I wonder is, ought I to tell the police? Do you think it’s my duty?”
Valerie laughed.
“Bad luck, Jean,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I believe there’s quite a simple explanation. Pat told me. Nigel came into some money, or something, on condition that he changed his name. He did it perfectly properly by deed poll or whatever it is, but that’s all it is. I believe his original name was Stanfield or Stanley, or something like that.”
“Oh!” Jean looked thoroughly chagrined.
“Ask Pat about it if you don’t believe me,” said Valerie.
“Oh—no—well, if it’s as you say, I must have made a mistake.”
“Better luck next time,” said Valerie.
“I don’t know what you mean, Valerie.”
“You’d like to get your knife into Nigel, wouldn’t you? And get him in wrong with the police?”
Jean drew herself up.
“You may not believe me, Valerie,” she said, “but all I wanted to do was my duty.”
She left the room.
“Oh, hell!” said Valerie.
There was a tap at the door and Sally entered.
“What’s the matter, Valerie? You’re looking a bit down in the mouth.”
“It’s that disgusting Jean. She really is too awful! You don’t think, do you, that there’s the remotest chance it was Jean that bumped off poor Celia? I should rejoice madly if I ever saw Jean in the dock.”
“I’m with you there,” said Sally. “But I don’t think it’s particularly likely. I don’t think Jean would ever stick her neck out enough to murder anybody.”
“What do you think about Mrs. Nick?”
“I just don’t know what to think. I suppose we shall hear soon.”
“I’d say ten to one she was bumped off, too,” said Valerie.
“But why? What’s going on here?” said Sally.
“I wish I knew. Sally, do you ever find yourself looking at people?”
“What do you mean, Val, looking at people?”
“Well, looking and wondering, ‘Is it you?’ I’ve got a feeling, Sally, that there’s someone here who’s mad. Really mad. Bad mad, I mean—not just thinking they’re a cucumber.”
“That may well be,” said Sally. She shivered.
“Ouch!” she said. “Somebody’s walking over my grave.”
IV
“Nigel I’ve got something I must tell you.”
“Well, what is it, Pat?” Nigel was burrowing frantically in his chest of drawers. “What the hell did I do with those notes of mine I can’t imagine. I shoved them in here, I thought.”
“Oh, Nigel, don’t scrabble like that! You leave everything in such a frightful mess and I’ve just tidied it.”
“Well, what the hell, I’ve got to find my notes, haven’t I?”
“Nigel, you must listen!”
“OK, Pat, don’t look so desperate. What is it?”
“It’s something I’ve got to confess.”
“Not murder, I hope?” said Nigel, with his usual flippancy.
“No, of course not!”
“Good. Well, what lesser sin?”
“It was one day when I mended your socks and I brought them along here to your room and was putting them away in your drawer. . . .”
“Yes?”
“And the bottle of morphia was there. The one you told me about, that you got from the hospital.”
“Yes, and you made such a