Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [30]
“Micky, the other boy, has always been a young man with a chip on his shoulder; he resented bitterly being abandoned by his own mother. He resented it as a child and he never got over it. I think, at heart, he always hated his adopted mother.
“Then there’s the Swedish masseuse woman. She didn’t like Mrs. Argyle. She was fond of the children and she’s fond of Leo. She accepted many benefits from Mrs. Argyle and probably tried to be grateful but couldn’t manage it. Still I hardly think that her feelings of dislike could cause her to hit her benefactor on the head with a poker. After all, she could leave at any moment she liked. As for Leo Argyle—”
“Yes. What about him?”
“He’s going to marry again,” said Dr. MacMaster, “and good luck to him. A very nice young woman. Warm-hearted, kind, good company and very much in love with him. Has been for a long time. What did she feel about Mrs. Argyle? You can probably guess just as well as I can. Naturally, Mrs. Argyle’s death simplified things a good deal. Leo Argyle’s not the type of man to have an affair with his secretary with his wife in the same house. I don’t really think he’d have left his wife, either.”
Calgary said slowly:
“I saw them both; I talked to them. I can’t really believe that either of them—”
“I know,” said MacMaster. “One can’t believe, can one? And yet—one of that household did it, you know.”
“You really think so?”
“I don’t see what else there is to think. The police are fairly sure that it wasn’t the work of an outsider, and the police are probably right.”
“But which of them?” said Calgary.
MacMaster shrugged his shoulders. “One simply doesn’t know.”
“You’ve no idea yourself from your knowledge of them all?”
“Shouldn’t tell you if I had,” said MacMaster. “After all, what have I got to go on? Unless there’s some factor that I’ve missed none of them seems a likely murderer to me. And yet—I can’t rule any one of them out as a possibility. No,” he added slowly, “my view is that we shall never know. The police will make inquiries and all that sort of thing. They’ll do their best, but to get evidence after this time and with so little to go upon—” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think that the truth will ever be known. There are cases like that, you know. One reads about them. Fifty—a hundred years ago, cases where one of three or four or five people must have done it but there wasn’t enough evidence and no one’s ever been able to say.”
“Do you think it’s going to be like that here?”
“We-ll,” said Dr. MacMaster, “yes, I do …” Again he cast a shrewd look at Calgary. “And that’s what’s so terrible, isn’t it?” he said.
“Terrible,” said Calgary, “because of the innocent. That’s what she said to me.”
“Who? Who said what to you?”
“The girl—Hester. She said I didn’t understand that it was the innocent who mattered. It’s what you’ve just been saying to me. That we shall never know—”
“—who is innocent?” The doctor finished for him. “Yes, if we could only know the truth. Even if it doesn’t come to an arrest or trial or conviction. Just to know. Because otherwise—” He paused.
“Yes?” said Calgary.
“Work it out for yourself,” said Dr. MacMaster. “No—I don’t need to say that—you already have.”
He went on:
“It reminds me, you know, of the Bravo Case—nearly a hundred years ago now, I suppose, but books are still being written about it; making out a perfectly good case for his wife having done it, or Mrs. Cox having done it, or Dr. Gully—or even for Charles Bravo having taken the poison in spite of the Coroner’s verdict. All quite plausible theories—but no one now can ever know the truth. And so Florence Bravo, abandoned by her family, died alone of drink, and Mrs.