Sad cypress - Agatha Christie [45]
Poirot said stolidly:
‘You consider it quite impossible that Miss Carlisle should have done such a thing?’
‘Oh quite! That goes without saying! Elinor’s an exquisite creature – beautifully poised and balanced – no violence in her nature. She’s intellectual, sensitive and altogether devoid of animal passions. But get twelve fatheaded fools in a jury-box, and God knows what they can be made to believe! After all, let’s be reasonable: they’re not there to judge character; they’re there to sift evidence. Facts – facts – facts. And the facts are unfortunate!’
Hercule Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
He said:
‘You are a person, Mr Welman, of sensibility and intelligence. The facts condemn Miss Carlisle. Your knowledge of her acquits her. What, then, really happened? What can have happened?’
Roddy spread out his hands in exasperation.
‘That’s the devil of it all! I suppose the nurse couldn’t have done it?’
‘She was never near the sandwiches – oh, I have made the inquiries very minutely – and she could not have poisoned the tea without poisoning herself as well. I have made quite sure of that. Moreover, why should she wish to kill Mary Gerrard?’
Roddy cried out:
‘Why should anyone wish to kill Mary Gerrard?’
‘That,’ said Poirot, ‘seems to be the unanswerable question in this case. No one wished to kill Mary Gerrard.’ (He added in his own mind: ‘Except Elinor Carlisle.’) ‘Therefore, the next step logically would seem to be: Mary Gerrard was not killed! But that, alas, is not so. She was killed!’
He added, slightly melodramatically:
‘But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Roddy.
Hercule Poirot explained:
‘Wordsworth. I read him much. Those lines express, perhaps, what you feel?’
‘I?’
Roddy looked stiff and unapproachable.
Poirot said:
‘I apologize – I apologize deeply! It is so hard – to be a detective and also a pukka sahib. As it is so well expressed in your language, there are things that one does not say. But, alas, a detective is forced to say them! He must ask questions: about people’s private affairs, about their feelings!’
Roddy said:
‘Surely all this is quite unnecessary?’
Poirot said quickly and humbly:
‘If I might just understand the position? Then we will pass from the unpleasant subject and not refer to it again. It is fairly widely known, Mr Welman, that you – admired Mary Gerrard? That is, I think, true?’
Roddy got up and stood by the window. He played with the blind tassel. He said:
‘Yes.’
‘You fell in love with her?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Ah, and you are now heart-broken by her death –’
‘I – I suppose – I mean – well, really, M. Poirot –’
He turned – a nervous, irritable, sensitive creature at bay.
Hercule Poirot said:
‘If you could just tell me – just show me clearly – then it would be finished with.’
Roddy Welman sat down in a chair. He did not look at the other man. He spoke in a series of jerks.
‘It’s very difficult to explain. Must we go into it?’
Poirot said:
‘One cannot always turn aside and pass by from the unpleasantnesses of life, Mr Welman! You say you suppose you cared for this girl. You are not sure, then?’
Roddy said:
‘I don’t know…She was so lovely. Like a dream…That’s what it seems like now. A dream! Not real! All that – my seeing her first – my – well, my infatuation for her! A kind of madness! And now everything is finished – gone…as though – as though it had never happened.’
Poirot nodded his head…
He said:
‘Yes, I understand…’
He added:
‘You were not in England yourself at the time of her death?’
‘No, I went abroad on July 9th and returned on August 1st. Elinor’s telegram followed me about from place to place. I hurried home as soon as I got the news.’
Poirot said:
‘It must have been a great shock to you. You had cared for the girl very much.’
Roddy said, and there was bitterness and exasperation in his voice:
‘Why should these things happen to one?