Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [69]
“So long as we thought it was Jacko—” Hester said and broke off.
“I know, Hester, I know. But you’ve got to go behind that, you know. What you were living in was a false security. It wasn’t a real thing, it was only a thing of make-believe, of cardboard—a kind of stage scenery. Sometimes that represented security but which was not really, and could never be, security.”
“You’re saying, aren’t you,” said Hester, “that one must have courage, that it’s no good snatching at a thing because it’s false and easy?” She paused a minute and then said: “You had courage! I realize that. To come and tell us yourself. Not knowing how we’d feel, how we’d react. It was brave of you. I admire bravery because, you see, I’m not really very brave myself.”
“Tell me,” said Calgary gently, “tell me just what the trouble is now. It’s something special, isn’t it?”
“I had a dream,” said Hester. “There’s someone—a young man—a doctor—”
“I see,” said Calgary. “You are friends, or, perhaps, more than friends?”
“I thought,” said Hester, “we were more than friends … And he thought so too. But you see, now that all this has come up—”
“Yes?” said Calgary.
“He thinks I did it,” said Hester. Her words came with a rush. “Or perhaps he doesn’t think I did it but he’s not sure. He can’t be sure. He thinks—I can see he thinks—that I’m the most likely person. Perhaps I am. Perhaps we all think that about each other. And I thought, somebody has got to help us in the terrible mess we’re in, and I thought of you because of the dream. You see, I was lost and I couldn’t find Don. He’d left me and there was a great big sort of ravine thing—an abyss. Yes, that’s the word. An abyss. It sounds so deep, doesn’t it? So deep and so—so unbridgeable. And you were there on the other side and you held out your hands and said, ‘I want to help you.’” She drew a deep breath. “So I came to you. I ran away and I came here because you’ve got to help us. If you don’t help us, I don’t know what’s going to happen. You must help us. You brought all this. You’ll say, perhaps, that it’s nothing to do with you. That having once told us—told us the truth about what happened—that it’s no business of yours. You’ll say—”
“No,” said Calgary, interrupting her. “I shall not say anything of the kind. It is my business, Hester. I agree with you. When you start a thing you have to go on with it. I feel that every bit as much as you do.”
“Oh!” Colour flamed up into Hester’s face. Suddenly, as was the way with her, she looked beautiful. “So I’m not alone!” she said. “There is someone.”
“Yes, my dear, there is someone—for what he’s worth. So far I haven’t been worth very much, but I’m trying and I’ve never stopped trying to help.” He sat down and drew his chair nearer to her. “Now tell me all about it,” he said. “Has it been very bad?”
“It’s one of us, you see,” said Hester. “We all know that. Mr. Marshall came and we pretended it must have been someone who got in, but he knew it wasn’t. It’s one of us.”
“And your young man—what’s-his-name?”
“Don. Donald Craig. He’s a doctor.”
“Don thinks it’s you?”
“He’s afraid it’s me,” said Hester. She twisted her hands in a dramatic gesture. She looked at him. “Perhaps you think it’s me, too?”
“Oh, no,” said Calgary. “Oh no, I know quite well that you’re innocent.”
“You say that as though you were really quite sure.”
“I am quite sure,” said Calgary.
“But why? How can you be so sure?”
“Because of what you said to me when I left the house after telling all of you. Do you remember? What you said to me about innocence. You couldn’t have said that—you couldn’t have felt that way—unless you were innocent.”
“Oh,” cried Hester. “Oh—the relief! To know there’s someone who really feels like that!”
“So now,” said Calgary, “we can discuss it calmly, can’t we?”
“Yes,” said Hester. “It feels—it feels quite different now.”
“Just as a matter of interest,” said Calgary, “and keeping firmly in mind that you know what I feel about it, why should anyone for one moment think that you would kill your adopted