Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [90]
“Do you think,” said Kirsten Lindstrom, “do you think that I would have taken Mrs. Argyle’s money to give him instead of giving him my own?”
“No,” said Calgary, “you would have given him your own if you’d had any. But I don’t think you had … You had a good income from the annuity which Mrs. Argyle had bought for you, but I think he’d already milked you dry of that. So he was desperate that evening and when Mrs. Argyle had gone up to her husband in the library, you went outside the house where he was waiting and he told you what you had to do. First you must give him the money and then, before the theft could be discovered, Mrs. Argyle had to be killed. Because she would not have covered up the theft. He said it would be easy. You had just to pull out the drawers to make it look as though a burglar had been there and to hit her on the back of the head. It would be painless, he said. She would not feel anything. He himself would establish an alibi, so that you must be careful to do this thing within the right time limits, between seven and seven-thirty.”
“It’s not true,” said Kirsten. She had begun to tremble. “You are mad to say such things.”
Yet there was no indignation in her voice. Strangely enough it was mechanical and weary.
“Even if what you say is true,” she said, “do you think I would let him be accused of the murder?”
“Oh yes,” said Calgary. “After all, he had told you he would have an alibi. You expected him, perhaps, to be arrested and then to prove his innocence. That was all part of the plan.”
“But when he couldn’t prove his innocence,” said Kirsten. “Would I not have saved him then?”
“Perhaps,” said Calgary, “perhaps—but for one fact. The fact that on the morning after the murder Jacko’s wife turned up here. You didn’t know he was married. The girl had to repeat the statement two or three times before you would believe her. At that moment your world crashed around you. You saw Jacko for what he was—heartless, scheming, without a particle of affection for you. You realized what he had made you do.”
Suddenly Kirsten Lindstrom was speaking. The words came rushing out incoherently.
“I loved him … I loved him with all my heart. I was a fool, a credulous middle-aged doting fool. He made me think it—he made me believe it. He said he had never cared for girls. He said—I cannot tell you all the things he said. I loved him. I tell you I loved him. And then that silly, simpering child came here, that common little thing. I saw it was all lies, all wickedness, wickedness …His wickedness, not mine.”
“The night I came here,” said Calgary, “you were afraid, weren’t you? You were afraid of what was going to happen. You were afraid for the others. Hester, whom you loved, Leo, whom you were fond of. You saw, perhaps, a little of what this might do to them. But principally you were afraid for yourself. And you see where fear has led you … You have two more deaths on your hands now.”
“You are saying I killed Tina and Philip?”
“Of course you killed them,” said Calgary. “Tina has recovered consciousness.”
Kirsten’s shoulders dropped in the sagging of despair.
“So she has told you that I stabbed her. I did not think she even knew. I was mad, of course. I was mad by then, mad with terror. It was coming so close—so close.”
“Shall I tell you what Tina said when she regained consciousness?” said Calgary. “She said ‘The cup was empty.’ I knew what that meant. You pretended to be taking up a cup of coffee to Philip Durrant, but actually you had already stabbed him and were coming out of that room when you heard Tina coming. So you turned round and pretended you were taking the tray in. Later, although she was shocked almost into unconsciousness by his death, she noticed automatically that the cup that had dropped on the floor was an empty cup and there was no stain of coffee left by it.”
Hester cried out:
“But Kirsten couldn’t have stabbed her! Tina walked downstairs and out to Micky. She was quite all right.”
“My dear child,” said Calgary, “people