N or M_ - Agatha Christie [43]
Mrs Sprot was out first and running wildly after the two fugitives.
The others followed her.
When they were within twenty yards, the other woman turned at bay. She was standing now at the very edge of the cliff. With a hoarse cry she clutched the child closer.
Haydock cried out:
‘My God, she’s going to throw the kid over the cliff…’
The woman stood there, clutching Betty tightly. Her face was disfigured with a frenzy of hate. She uttered a long hoarse sentence that none of them understood. And still she held the child and looked from time to time at the drop below–not a yard from where she stood.
It seemed clear that she was threatening to throw the child over the cliff.
All of them stood there, dazed, terrified, unable to move for fear of precipitating a catastrophe.
Haydock was tugging at his pocket. He pulled out a service revolver.
He shouted: ‘Put that child down–or I fire.’
The foreign woman laughed. She held the child closer to her breast. The two figures were moulded into one.
Haydock muttered:
‘I daren’t shoot. I’d hit the child.’
Tommy said:
‘The woman’s crazy. She’ll jump over with the child in another moment.’
Haydock said again, helplessly:
‘I daren’t shoot–’
But at that moment a shot rang out. The woman swayed and fell, the child still clasped in her arms.
The men ran forward, Mrs Sprot stood swaying, the smoking pistol in her hands, her eyes dilated.
She took a few stiff steps forward.
Tommy was kneeling by the bodies. He turned them gently. He saw the woman’s face–noted appreciatively its strange wild beauty. The eyes opened, looked at him, then went blank. With a sigh, the woman died, shot through the head.
Unhurt, little Betty Sprot wriggled out and ran towards the woman standing like a statue.
Then, at last, Mrs Sprot crumpled. She flung away the pistol and dropped down, clutching the child to her.
She cried:
‘She’s safe–she’s safe–oh, Betty–Betty.’ And then, in a low, awed whisper:
‘Did I–did I–kill her?’
Tuppence said firmly:
‘Don’t think about it–don’t think about it. Think about Betty. Just think about Betty.’
Mrs Sprot held the child close against her, sobbing.
Tuppence went forward to join the men.
Haydock murmured:
‘Bloody miracle. I couldn’t have brought off a shot like that. Don’t believe the woman’s ever handled a pistol before either–sheer instinct. A miracle, that’s what it is.’
Tuppence said:
‘Thank God! It was a near thing!’ And she looked down at the sheer drop to the sea below and shuddered.
Chapter 8
The inquest on the dead woman was held some days later. There had been an adjournment whilst the police identified her as a certain Vanda Polonska, a Polish refugee.
After the dramatic scene on the cliffs, Mrs Sprot and Betty, the former in a state of collapse, had been driven back to Sans Souci, where hot bottles, nice cups of tea, ample curiosity, and finally a stiff dollop of brandy had been administered to the half-fainting heroine of the night.
Commander Haydock had immediately got in touch with the police, and under his guidance they had gone out to the scene of the tragedy on the cliff.
But for the disturbing war news, the tragedy would probably have been given much greater space in the papers than it was. Actually it occupied only one small paragraph.
Both Tuppence and Tommy had to give evidence at the inquest, and in case any reporters should think fit to take pictures of the more unimportant witnesses, Mr Meadowes was unfortunate enough to get something in his eye which necessitated a highly disfiguring eyeshade. Mrs Blenkensop was practically obliterated by her hat.
However, such interest as there was focused itself entirely on Mrs Sprot and Commander Haydock. Mr Sprot, hysterically summoned by telegraph, rushed down to see his wife, but had to go back again the same day. He seemed an amiable but not very interesting young man.
The inquest opened with the formal identification of the body by a certain Mrs Calfont, a thin-lipped, gimlet-eyed woman