One, two, buckle my shoe - Agatha Christie [60]
‘When did you begin to feel differently?’ Poirot hoped to get a little nearer the promised revelation by an encouraging but not too direct question.
Agnes replied promptly.
‘Seeing it in the paper about that Frank Carter — Miss Nevill’s young man as was. When I read as he’d shot at that gentleman where he was gardener, well, I thought, it looks as if he might be queer in the head, because I do know there’s people it takes like that, think they’re being persecuted, or something, and that they’re ringed round by enemies, and in the end it’s dangerous to keep them at home and they have to be took away to the asylum. And I thought that maybe that Frank Carter was like that, because I did remember that he used to go on about Mr Morley and say as Mr Morley was against him and trying to separate him from Miss Nevill, but of course she wouldn’t hear a word against him, and quite right too we thought — Emma and me, because you couldn’t deny as Mr Carter was very nice-looking and quite the gentleman. But, of course, neither of us thought he’d really done anything to Mr Morley. We just thought it was a bit queer if you know what I mean.’
Poirot said patiently:
‘What was queer?’
‘It was that morning, sir, the morning Mr Morley shot himself. I’d been wondering if I dared run down and get the post. The postman had come but that Alfred hadn’t brought up the letters, which he wouldn’t do, not unless there was some for Miss Morley or Mr Morley, but if it was just for Emma and me he wouldn’t bother to bring them up till lunch time.
‘So I went out on the landing and I looked down over the stairs. Miss Morley didn’t like us going down to the hall, not during the master’s business hours, but I thought maybe as I’d see Alfred taking in a patient to the master and I’d call down to him as he came back.’
Agnes gasped, took a deep breath and went on: ‘And it was then I saw him — that Frank Carter, I mean. Halfway up the stairs he was — our stairs, I mean, above the master’s floor. And he was standing there waiting and looking down — and I’ve come to feel more and more as though there was something queer about it. He seemed to be listening very intent, if you know what I mean?’
‘What time was this?’
‘It must have been getting on for half-past twelve, sir. And just as I was thinking: There now, it’s Frank Carter, and Miss Nevill’s away for the day and won’t he be disappointed, and I was wondering if I ought to run down and tell him because it looked as though that lump of an Alfred had forgot, otherwise I thought he wouldn’t have been waiting for her. And just as I was hesitating, Mr Carter, he seemed to make up his mind, and he slipped down the stairs very quick and went along the passage towards the master’s surgery, and I thought to myself, the master won’t like that, and I wondered if there was going to be a row, but just then Emma called me, said whatever was I up to? and I went up again and then, afterwards, I heard the master had shot himself and, of course, it was so awful it just drove everything out of my head. But later, when that Police Inspector had gone I said to Emma, I said, I didn’t say anything about Mr Carter having been up with the master this morning, and she said was he? and I told her, and she said well, perhaps I ought to tell, but anyway I said I’d better wait a bit, and she agreed, because neither of us didn’t want to get Frank Carter into trouble if we could help. And then, when it came to the inquest and it come out that the master had made that mistake in a drug and really had got the wind up and shot himself, quite natural-like — well, then, of course, there was no call to say anything. But reading that piece in the paper two days ago — Oh! it did give me a turn! And I said to myself, “If he’s one of those loonies that thinks they’re persecuted and goes round shooting people, well, then maybe he did shoot the master after all!”’
Her eyes, anxious and scared, looked hopefully at Hercule Poirot. He put as much reassurance into his voice as he could.
‘You may be sure