Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [5]
Leo Argyle moved uneasily.
“My wife and I had talked it over together. We were—very unhappy about the boy. Again and again we had come to his rescue, tried to give him a fresh start. It had seemed to us that perhaps the shock of a prison sentence—the training—” His voice died away. “But please go on.”
Calgary went on:
“Later that evening, your wife was killed. Attacked with a poker and struck down. Your son’s fingerprints were on the poker, and a large sum of money was gone from the bureau drawer where your wife had placed it earlier. The police picked up your son in Drymouth. The money was found on him, most of it was in five-pound notes, one of which had a name and address written on it which enabled it to be identified by the bank as one that had been paid out to Mrs. Argyle that morning. He was charged and stood his trial.” Calgary paused. “The verdict was wilful murder.”
It was out—the fateful word. Murder… Not an echoing word; a stifled word, a word that got absorbed into the hangings, the books, the pile carpet … The word could be stifled—but not the act….
“I have been given to understand by Mr. Marshall, the solicitor for the defence, that your son protested his innocence when arrested, in a cheery, not to say cocksure manner. He insisted that he had a perfect alibi for the time of the murder which was placed by the police at between seven and seven-thirty. At that time, Jack Argyle said, he was hitchhiking into Drymouth, having been picked up by a car on the main road from Redmyn to Drymouth about a mile from here just before seven. He didn’t know the make of the car (it was dark by then) but it was a black or dark blue saloon driven by a middle-aged man. Every effort was made to trace this car and the man who drove it, but no confirmation of his statement could be obtained, and the lawyers themselves were quite convinced that it was a story hastily fabricated by the boy and not very cleverly fabricated at that….
“At the trial the main line of defence was the evidence of psychologists who sought to prove that Jack Argyle had always been mentally unstable. The judge was somewhat scathing in his comments on this evidence and summed up dead against the prisoner. Jack Argyle was sentenced to imprisonment for life. He died of pneumonia in prison six months after he began to serve his sentence.”
Calgary stopped. Three pairs of eyes were fastened on him. Interest and close attention in Gwenda Vaughan’s, suspicion still in Hester’s. Leo Argyle’s seemed blank.
Calgary said, “You will confirm that I have stated the facts correctly?”
“You are perfectly correct,” said Leo, “though I do not yet see why it has been necessary to go over painful facts which we are all trying to forget.”
“Forgive me. I had to do so. You do not, I gather, dissent from the verdict?”
“I admit that the facts were as stated—that is, if you do not go behind the facts, it was, crudely, murder. But if you do go behind the facts, there is much to be said in mitigation. The boy was mentally unstable, though unfortunately not in the legal sense of the term. The McNaughten rules are narrow and unsatisfactory. I assure you, Dr. Calgary, that Rachel herself—my late wife, I mean—would have been the first to forgive and excuse that unfortunate boy for his rash act. She was a most advanced and humane thinker and had a profound knowledge of pyschological factors. She would not have condemned.”
“She knew just how awful Jacko could be,” said Hester. “He always was—he just didn’t seem able to help it.”
“So you all,” said Calgary slowly, “had no doubts? No doubts of his guilt, I mean.”
Hester stared.
“How could we? Of course he was guilty.”
“Not really guilty,” Leo dissented. “I don’t like that word.”
“It isn’t a true word, either.” Calgary took a deep breath. “Jack Argyle was—innocent!”
Two
It should have been a sensational announcement. Instead, it fell flat. Calgary had expected bewilderment, incredulous gladness struggling with