Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [6]
Leo Argyle said hesitantly:
“You mean, Dr. Calgary, that you agree with my attitude? You don’t feel he was responsible for his actions?”
“I mean he didn’t do it! Can’t you take it in, man? He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it. But for the most extraordinary and unfortunate combination of circumstances he could have proved that he was innocent. I could have proved that he was innocent.”
“You?”
“I was the man in the car.”
He said it so simply that for the moment they did not take it in. Before they could recover themselves, there was an interruption. The door opened and the woman with the homely face marched in. She spoke directly and to the point.
“I hear as I am passing the door outside. This man is saying that Jacko did not kill Mrs. Argyle. Why does he say this? How does he know?”
Her face, which had been militant and fierce, suddenly seemed to pucker.
“I must hear too,” she said piteously. “I cannot stay outside and not know.”
“Of course not, Kirsty. You’re one of the family.” Leo Argyle introduced her. “Miss Lindstrom, Dr. Calgary. Dr. Calgary is saying the most incredible things.”
Calgary was puzzled by the Scottish name of Kirsty. Her English was excellent but a faint foreign intonation remained.
She spoke accusingly to him.
“You should not come here and say things like that—upsetting people. They have accepted tribulation. Now you upset them by what you tell. What happened was the will of God.”
He was repelled by the glib complacence of her statement. Possibly, he thought, she was one of those ghoulish people who positively welcome disaster. Well, she was going to be deprived of all that.
He spoke in a quick, dry voice.
“At five minutes to seven on that evening, I picked up a young man on the main Redmyn to Drymouth road who was thumbing for a lift. I drove him into Drymouth. We talked. He was, I thought, an engaging and likeable young man.”
“Jacko had great charm,” said Gwenda. “Everyone found him attractive. It was his temper let him down. And he was crooked, of course,” she added thoughtfully. “But people didn’t find that out for some time.”
Miss Lindstorm turned on her.
“You should not speak so when he is dead.”
Leo Argyle said with a faint asperity:
“Please go on, Dr. Calgary. Why didn’t you come forward at the time?”
“Yes.” Hester’s voice sounded breathless. “Why did you skulk away from it all? There were appeals in the paper—advertisements. How could you be so selfish, so wicked—”
“Hester—Hester—” her father checked her. “Dr. Calgary is still telling us his story.”
Calgary addressed the girl direct.
“I know only too well how you feel. I know what I feel myself—what I shall always feel …” He pulled himself together and went on:
“To continue with my story: There was a lot of traffic on the roads that evening. It was well after half past seven when I dropped the young man, whose name I did not know, in the middle of Drymouth. That, I understand, clears him completely, since the police are quite definite that the crime was committed between seven and half past.”
“Yes,” said Hester. “But you—”
“Please be patient. To make you understand, I must go back a little. I had been staying in Drymouth for a couple of days in a friend’s flat. This friend, a naval man, was at sea. He had also lent me his car which he kept in a private lockup. On this particular day, November the 9th, I was due to return to London. I decided to go up by the evening train and to spend the afternoon seeing an old nurse of whom our family were very fond and who lived in a little cottage at Polgarth about forty miles west of Drymouth. I carried out my programme. Though very old and inclined to wander in her mind, she recognized me and was very pleased to see me, and quite excited because she had read in the papers about my ‘going to the Pole,’ as she put it. I stayed