Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [47]
She was worried and afraid.
The police didn’t like foreigners. She had been in England so long that she herself did not feel foreign. But the police could not know that.
That Dr. Calgary—why did he have to come and do this to her?
Justice had been done. She thought of Jacko—and repeated to herself that justice had been done.
She thought of him as she had known him from a small boy.
Always, yes, always, a liar and a cheat! But so charming, so engaging. Always one forgave him. Always one tried to shield him from punishment.
He lied so well. That was the horrible truth. He lied so well that one believed him—that one couldn’t help believing him. Wicked, cruel Jacko.
Dr. Calgary might think he knew what he was talking about! But Dr. Calgary was wrong. Places and times and alibis indeed! Jacko could arrange things of that kind easily enough. Nobody really knew Jacko as she had known him.
Would anybody believe her if she told them just exactly what Jacko was like? And now—tomorrow, what was going to happen? The police would come. And everyone so unhappy, so suspicious. Looking at each other … Not sure what to believe.
And she loved them all so much … so much. She knew more about them all than anyone else could know. Far more than Mrs. Argyle had ever known. For Mrs. Argyle had been blinded by her intense maternal possessiveness. They were her children—she saw them always as belonging to her. But Kirsten had seen them as individuals—as themselves—with all their faults and virtues. If she had had children of her own, she might have felt possessive about them, she supposed. But she was not pre-eminently a maternal woman. Her principal love would have been for the husband she had never had.
Women like Mrs. Argyle were difficult for her to understand. Crazy about a lot of children who were not her own, and treating her husband as though he were not there! A good man, too, a fine man, none better. Neglected, pushed aside. And Mrs. Argyle too self-absorbed to notice what was happening under her nose. That secretary—a good-looking girl and every inch a woman. Well, it was not too late for Leo—or was it too late now? Now, with murder raising its head from the grave in which it had been laid, would those two ever dare to come together?
Kirsten sighed unhappily. What was going to happen to them all? To Micky, who had borne that deep, almost pathological grudge against his adopted mother. To Hester, so unsure of herself, so wild. Hester, who had been on the point of finding peace and security with that nice stolid young doctor. To Leo and Gwenda, who had had motive and, yes, it had to be faced, opportunity, as they both must realize. To Tina, that sleek little catlike creature. To selfish, cold-hearted Mary, who until she had married had never shown affection for anybody.
Once, Kirsten thought, she herself had been full of affection for her employer, full of admiration. She couldn’t remember exactly when she had begun to dislike her, when she had begun to judge her and finding her wanting. So sure of herself, benevolent, tyrannical—a kind of living walking embodiment of mother knows best. And not really even a mother! If she had ever borne a child, it might have kept her humble.
But why go on thinking of Rachel Argyle? Rachel Argyle was dead.
She had to think of herself—and the others.
And of what might happen tomorrow.
II
Mary Durrant woke with a start.
She had been dreaming—dreaming that she was a child, back again in New York.
How odd. She hadn’t thought of those days for years.
It was really surprising that she could remember anything at all. How old had she been? Five? Six?
She had dreamed that she was being taken home to the tenement from the hotel. The Argyles were sailing for England and not taking her with them after all. Anger and rage filled her heart for a moment or two until the realization came that it had only been a dream.
How wonderful it had been. Taken into the car, going up in the elevator of the hotel to the eighteenth floor. The big suite, that wonderful