Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [28]
Then they went back to London and Stephen relapsed. He looked haggard, worried, ill. He began to be unable to fix his mind on his work.
She thought she knew the cause. Rosemary wanted him to go away with her…He was making up his mind to take the step—to break with everything he cared about most. Folly! Madness! He was the type of man with whom his work would always come first—a very English type. He must know that himself, deep down—Yes, but Rosemary was very lovely—and very stupid. Stephen would not be the first man who had thrown away his career for a woman and been sorry afterwards!
Sandra caught a few words—a phrase one day at a cocktail party.
‘…Telling George—got to make up our minds.’
It was soon after that that Rosemary went down with ’flu.
A little hope rose in Sandra’s heart. Suppose she were to get pneumonia—people did after ’flu—a young friend of hers had died that way only last winter. If Rosemary were to die—
She did not try to repress the thought—she was not horrified at herself. She was medieval enough to hate with a steady and untroubled mind.
She hated Rosemary Barton. If thoughts could kill, she would have killed her.
But thoughts do not kill—
Thoughts are not enough…
How beautiful Rosemary had looked that night at the Luxembourg with her pale fox furs slipping off her shoulders in the ladies’ cloak-room. Thinner, paler since her illness—an air of delicacy made her beauty more ethereal. She had stood in front of the glass touching up her face…
Sandra, behind her, looked at their joint reflection in the mirror. Her own face like something sculptured, cold, lifeless. No feeling there, you would have said—a cold hard woman.
And then Rosemary said: ‘Oh, Sandra, am I taking all the glass? I’ve finished now. This horrid ’flu has pulled me down a lot. I look a sight. And I feel quite weak still and headachy.’
Sandra had asked with quiet polite concern:
‘Have you got a headache tonight?’
‘Just a bit of one. You haven’t got an aspirin, have you?’
‘I’ve got a Cachet Faivre.’
She had opened her handbag, taken out the cachet. Rosemary had accepted it. ‘I’ll take it in my bag in case.’
That competent dark-haired girl, Barton’s secretary, had watched the little transaction. She came in turn to the mirror, and just put on a slight dusting of powder. A nice-looking girl, almost handsome. Sandra had the impression that she didn’t like Rosemary.
Then they had gone out of the cloak-room, Sandra first, then Rosemary, then Miss Lessing—oh, and of course, the girl Iris, Rosemary’s sister, she had been there. Very excited, with big grey eyes, and a schoolgirlish white dress.
They had gone out and joined the men in the hall.
And the head waiter had come bustling forward and showed them to their table. They had passed in under the great domed arch and there had been nothing, absolutely nothing, to warn one of them that she would never come out through that door again alive…
Chapter 6
George Barton
Rosemary…
George Barton lowered his glass and stared rather owlishly into the fire.
He had drunk just enough to feel maudlin with self-pity.
What a lovely girl she had been. He’d always been crazy about her. She knew it, but he’d always supposed she’d only laugh at him.
Even when he first asked her to marry him, he hadn’t done it with any conviction.
Mowed and mumbled. Acted like a blithering fool.
‘You know, old girl, any time—you’ve only got to say. I know it’s no good. You wouldn’t look at me. I’ve always been the most awful fool. Got a bit of a corporation, too. But you do know what I feel, don’t you, eh? I mean—I’m always there. Know I haven’t got an earthly chance, but thought I’d just mention it.’
And Rosemary had laughed and kissed the top of his head.
‘You’re sweet, George, and I’ll remember the kind offer, but I’m not marrying anyone just at present.’
And he had said seriously: ‘Quite right. Take plenty of time to look around. You can take your pick.’
He’d never had any hope—not any real hope.
That’s why he had been so incredulous, so dazed when Rosemary had said she was going to