N or M_ - Agatha Christie [44]
Polonska, she said, had come to England in company with a cousin and his wife who were her only relatives, so far as she knew. The woman, in her opinion, was slightly mental. She understood from her that she had been through scenes of great horror in Poland and that her family, including several children, had all been killed. The woman seemed not at all grateful for anything done for her, and was suspicious and taciturn. She muttered to herself a lot, and did not seem normal. A domestic post was found for her, but she had left it without notice some weeks ago and without reporting to the police.
The coroner asked why the woman’s relatives had not come forward, and at this point Inspector Brassey made an explanation.
The couple in question were being detained under the Defence of the Realm Act for an offence in connection with a Naval dockyard. He stated that these two aliens had posed as refugees to enter the country, but had immediately tried to obtain employment near a Naval base. The whole family was looked upon with suspicion. They had had a larger sum of money in their possession than could be accounted for. Nothing was actually known against the deceased woman Polonska–except that her sentiments were believed to have been anti-British. It was possible that she also had been an enemy agent, and that her pretended stupidity was assumed.
Mrs Sprot, when called, dissolved at once into tears. The coroner was gentle with her, leading her tactfully along the path of what had occurred.
‘It’s so awful,’ gasped Mrs Sprot. ‘So awful to have killed someone. I didn’t mean to do that–I mean I never thought–but it was Betty–and I thought that woman was going to throw her over the cliff and I had to stop her–and oh, dear–I don’t know how I did it.’
‘You are accustomed to the use of firearms?’
‘Oh, no! Only those rifles at regattas–at fairs–when you shoot at booths, and even then I never used to hit anything. Oh, dear–I feel as though I’d murdered someone.’
The coroner soothed her and asked if she had ever come in contact with the dead woman.
‘Oh, no. I’d never seen her in my life. I think she must have been quite mad–because she didn’t even know me or Betty.’
In reply to further questions, Mrs Sprot said that she had attended a sewing party for comforts for Polish refugees, but that that was the extent of her connection with Poles in this country.
Haydock was the next witness, and he described the steps he had taken to track down the kidnapper and what had eventually happened.
‘You are clear in your mind that the woman was definitely preparing to jump over the cliff?’
‘Either that or to throw the child over. She seemed to be quite demented with hate. It would have been impossible to reason with her. It was a moment for immediate action. I myself conceived the idea of firing and crippling her, but she was holding up the child as a shield. I was afraid of killing the child if I fired. Mrs Sprot took the risk and was successful in saving her little girl’s life.’
Mrs Sprot began to cry again.
Mrs Blenkensop’s evidence was short–a mere confirming of the Commander’s evidence.
Mr Meadowes followed.
‘You agree with Commander Haydock and Mrs Blenkensop as to what occurred?’
‘I do. The woman was definitely so distraught that it was impossible to get near her. She was about to throw herself and the child over the cliff.’
There was little more evidence. The coroner directed the jury that Vanda Polonska came to her death by the hand of Mrs Sprot and formally exonerated the latter from blame. There was no evidence to show what was the state of the dead woman’s mind. She might have been actuated by hate of England. Some of the Polish ‘comforts’ distributed to refugees bore the names of the ladies sending them, and it was possible that the woman got Mrs Sprot’s name and address this way, but it was not easy to get at her reason for kidnapping the child–possibly some crazy motive quite incomprehensible to the normal mind. Polonska, according to her own story, had suffered