Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [38]
‘I know that. But these weren’t written at the time—they weren’t written until six months afterwards.’
Race nodded.
‘That’s a point. Who do you think wrote them?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care. The point is that I believe what they say is true. My wife was murdered.’
Race laid down his pipe. He sat up a little straighter in his chair.
‘Now just why do you think that? Had you any suspicion at the time. Had the police?’
‘I was dazed when it happened—completely bowled over. I just accepted the verdict at the inquest. My wife had had ’flu, was run down. No suspicion of anything but suicide arose. The stuff was in her handbag, you see.’
‘What was the stuff?’
‘Cyanide.’
‘I remember. She took it in champagne.’
‘Yes. It seemed, at the time, all quite straightforward.’
‘Had she ever threatened to commit suicide?’
‘No, never. Rosemary,’ said George Barton, ‘loved life.’
Race nodded. He had only met George’s wife once. He had thought her a singularly lovely nit-wit—but certainly not a melancholic type.
‘What about the medical evidence as to state of mind, etcetera?’
‘Rosemary’s own doctor—an elderly man who has attended the Marle family since they were young children—was away on a sea voyage. His partner, a young man, attended Rosemary when she had ’flu. All he said, I remember, was that the type of ’flu about was inclined to leave serious depression.’
George paused and went on.
‘It wasn’t until after I got these letters that I talked with Rosemary’s own doctor. I said nothing of the letters, of course—just discussed what had happened. He told me then that he was very surprised at what had happened. He would never have believed it, he said. Rosemary was not at all a suicidal type. It showed, he said, how even a patient one knew well might act in a thoroughly uncharacteristic manner.’
Again George paused and then went on:
‘It was after talking to him that I realized how absolutely unconvincing to me Rosemary’s suicide was. After all, I knew her very well. She was a person who was capable of violent fits of unhappiness. She could get very worked up over things, and she would on occasions take very rash and unconsidered action, but I have never known her in the frame of mind that “wanted to get out of it all.”’
Race murmured in a slightly embarrassed manner:
‘Could she have had a motive for suicide apart from mere depression? Was she, I mean, definitely unhappy about anything?’
‘I—no—she was perhaps rather nervy.’
Avoiding looking at his friend, Race said:
‘Was she at all a melodramatic person? I only saw her once, you know. But there is a type that—well—might get a kick out of attempted suicide—usually if they’ve quarrelled with someone. The rather childish motive of—“I’ll make them sorry!”’
‘Rosemary and I hadn’t quarrelled.’
‘No. And I must say that the fact of cyanide having been used rather rules that possibility out. It’s not the kind of thing you can monkey about with safely—and everybody knows it.’
‘That’s another point. If by any chance Rosemary had contemplated doing away with herself, surely she’d never do it that way? Painful and—and ugly. An overdose of some sleeping stuff would be far more likely.’
‘I agree. Was there any evidence as to her purchasing or getting hold of the cyanide?’
‘No. But she had been staying with friends in the country and they had taken a wasps’ nest one day. It was suggested that she might have taken a handful of potassium cyanide crystals then.’
‘Yes—it’s not a difficult thing to get hold of. Most gardeners keep a stock of it.’
He paused and then said:
‘Let me summarize the position. There was no positive evidence as to a disposition to suicide, or to any preparation for it. The whole thing was negative. But there can also have been no positive evidence pointing to murder, or the police would have got hold of it. They’re quite wide awake, you know.’
‘The mere idea of murder would have seemed fantastic.’
‘But it didn’t seem fantastic to you six months later?’
George said slowly: