Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [89]
‘Murder!’
He saw her face go white. He went on quickly:
‘You heard Mrs Annesley go into your son’s room last night. He had told her of his engagement? No, I see he hadn’t. He told her then. They quarrelled, and he–’
‘That’s a lie!’
They had been so absorbed in their duel of words that they had not heard approaching footsteps. Roger Graham had come up behind them unperceived by either.
‘It’s all right, Mother. Don’t–worry. Come into my room, Mr Satterthwaite.’
Mr Sattherwaite followed him into his room. Mrs Graham had turned away and did not attempt to follow them. Roger Graham shut the door.
‘Listen, Mr Satterthwaite, you think I killed Mabelle. You think I strangled her–here–and took her along and hung her up on that door–later–when everyone was asleep?’
Mr Satterthwaite stared at him. Then he said surprisingly:
‘No, I do not think so.’
‘Thank God for that. I couldn’t have killed Mabelle. I–I loved her. Or didn’t I? I don’t know. It’s a tangle that I can’t explain. I’m fond of Madge–I always have been. And she’s such a good sort. We suit each other. But Mabelle was different. It was–I can’t explain it–a sort of enchantment. I was, I think–afraid of her.’
Mr Satterthwaite nodded.
‘It was madness–a kind of bewildering ecstasy…But it was impossible. It wouldn’t have worked. That sort of thing–doesn’t last. I know what it means now to have a spell cast over you.’
‘Yes, it must have been like that,’ said Mr Satterthwaite thoughtfully.
‘I–I wanted to get out of it all. I was going to tell Mabelle–last night.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Graham slowly. ‘I swear to you, Mr Satterthwaite, that I never saw her after I said goodnight downstairs.’
‘I believe you,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
He got up. It was not Roger Graham who had killed Mabelle Annesley. He could have fled from her, but he could not have killed her. He had been afraid of her, afraid of that wild intangible fairy-like quality of hers. He had known enchantment–and turned his back on it. He had gone for the safe sensible thing that he had known ‘would work’ and had relinquished the intangible dream that might lead him he knew not where.
He was a sensible young man, and, as such, uninteresting to Mr Satterthwaite, who was an artist and a connoisseur in life.
He left Roger Graham in his room and went downstairs. The drawing-room was empty. Mabelle’s ukelele lay on a stool by the window. He took it up and twanged it absent-mindedly. He knew nothing of the instrument, but his ear told him that it was abominably out of tune. He turned a key experimentally.
Doris Coles came into the room. She looked at him reproachfully.
‘Poor Mabelle’s uke,’ she said.
Her clear condemnation made Mr Satterthwaite feel obstinate.
‘Tune it for me,’ he said, and added: ‘If you can.’
‘Of course I can,’ said Doris, wounded at the suggestion of incompetence in any direction.
She took it from him, twanged a string, turned a key briskly–and the string snapped.
‘Well, I never. Oh! I see–but how extraordinary! It’s the wrong string–a size too big. It’s an A string. How stupid to put that on. Of course it snaps when you try to tune it up. How stupid people are.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘They are–even when they try to be clever…’
His tone was so odd that she stared at him. He took the ukelele from her and removed the broken string. He went out of the room holding it in his hand. In the library he found David Keeley.
‘Here,’ he said.
He held out the string. Keeley took it.
‘What’s this?’
‘A broken ukelele string.’ He paused and then went on: ‘What did you do with the other one? ’
‘The other one?’
‘The one you strangled her with. You were very clever, weren’t you? It was done very quickly–just in that moment we were all laughing and talking in the hall.
‘Mabelle came back into this room for her ukelele. You had taken the string off as you fiddled with it just before. You caught her round the throat with it and strangled her. Then you came out and locked the door and joined us. Later, in the dead of night,