Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie [41]
Edward Jeffries looked at Mr Parker Pyne appealingly. He was a good-looking young man, tall and fair, with a round chin and very round eyes. ‘How can I make you understand?’ he said hopelessly. ‘To you I must seem just a common thief.’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘On the contrary, I should say you are almost painfully honest. I am accustomed to the classification of types. You, my dear sir, fall naturally into the category of victims. Now, tell me the whole story.’
‘I can tell you in one word–blackmail.’
‘Yes?’
‘You’ve seen my wife: you realize what a pure, innocent creature she is–without knowledge or thought of evil.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘She has the most marvellously pure ideals. If she were to find out about–about anything I had done, she would leave me.’
‘I wonder. But that is not the point. What have you done, my young friend? I presume there is some affair with a woman?’
Edward Jeffries nodded.
‘Since your marriage–or before?’
‘Before–oh, before.’
‘Well, well, what happened?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. This is just the cruel part of it. It was at a hotel in the West Indies. There was a very attractive woman–a Mrs Rossiter–staying there. Her husband was a violent man; he had the most savage fits of temper. One night he threatened her with a revolver. She escaped from him and came to my room. She was half-crazy with terror. She–she asked me to let her stay there till morning. I–what else could I do?’
Mr Parker Pyne gazed at the young man, and the young man gazed back with conscious rectitude. Mr Parker Pyne sighed. ‘In other words, to put it plainly, you were had for a mug, Mr Jeffries.’
‘Really–’
‘Yes, yes. A very old trick–but it often comes off successfully with quixotic young men. I suppose, when your approaching marriage was announced, the screw was turned?’
‘Yes. I received a letter. If I did not send a certain sum of money, everything would be disclosed to my prospective father-in-law. How I had–had alienated this young woman’s affection from her husband; how she had been seen coming to my room. The husband would bring a suit for divorce. Really, Mr Pyne, the whole thing made me out the most utter blackguard.’ He wiped his brow in a harassed manner.
‘Yes, yes, I know. And so you paid. And from time to time the screw has been put on again.’
‘Yes. This was the last straw. Our business has been badly hit by the slump. I simply could not lay my hands on any ready money. I hit upon this plan.’ He picked up his cup of cold coffee, looked at it absently, and drank it. ‘What am I to do now?’ he demanded pathetically. ‘What am I to do, Mr Pyne?’
‘You will be guided by me,’ said Parker Pyne firmly. ‘I will deal with your tormentors. As to your wife, you will go straight back to her and tell her the truth–or at least a portion of it. The only point where you will deviate from the truth is concerning the actual facts in the West Indies. You must conceal from her the fact that you were–well, had for a mug, as I said before.’
‘But–’
‘My dear Mr Jeffries, you do not understand women. If a woman has to choose between a mug and a Don Juan, she will choose Don Juan every time. Your wife, Mr Jeffries, is a charming, innocent, high-minded girl, and the only way she is going to get any kick out of her life with you is to believe that she has reformed a rake.’
Edward Jeffries was staring at him, open-mouthed.
‘I mean what I say,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘At the present moment your wife is in love with you, but I see signs that she may not remain so if you continue to present to her a picture of such goodness and rectitude that it is almost synonymous with dullness.’
‘Go to her, my boy,’ said Mr Parker Pyne kindly. ‘Confess