Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [73]
‘I daresay he hadn’t thought of that, sir.’
Kemp shook his head. Stephen Farraday was not a fool. He had a clear and astute brain. And he had been passionately keen to impress on the inspector that Sandra knew nothing.
‘Well,’ said Kemp, ‘Colonel Race seems pleased with the line he’s dug up and if he’s right, the Farradays are out—both of them. I shall be glad if they are. I like this chap. And personally I don’t think he’s a murderer.’
II
Opening the door of their sitting-room, Stephen said, ‘Sandra?’
She came to him out of the darkness, suddenly holding him, her hands on his shoulders.
‘Stephen?’
‘Why are you all in the dark?’
‘I couldn’t bear the light. Tell me.’
He said:
‘They know.’
‘About Rosemary?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what do they think?’
‘They see, of course, that I had a motive…. Oh, my darling, see what I’ve dragged you into. It’s all my fault. If only I’d cut loose after Rosemary’s death—gone away—left you free—so that at any rate you shouldn’t be mixed up in all this horrible business.’
‘No, not that…Never leave me…never leave me.’
She clung to him—she was crying, the tears coursing down her cheeks. He felt her shudder.
‘You’re my life, Stephen, all my life—never leave me…’
‘Do you care so much, Sandra? I never knew…’
‘I didn’t want you to know. But now—’
‘Yes, now…We’re in this together, Sandra…we’ll face it together…whatever comes, together!’
Strength came to them as they stood there, clasped together in the darkness.
Sandra said with determination:
‘This shall not wreck our lives! It shall not. It shall not!’
Chapter 10
Anthony Browne looked at the card the little page was holding out to him.
He frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. He said to the boy:
‘All right, show him up.’
When Colonel Race came in, Anthony was standing by the window with the bright sun striking obliquely over his shoulder.
He saw a tall soldierly man with a lined bronze face and iron-grey hair—a man whom he had seen before, but not for some years, and a man whom he knew a great deal about.
Race saw a dark graceful figure and the outline of a well-shaped head. A pleasant indolent voice said:
‘Colonel Race? You were a friend of George Barton’s, I know. He talked about you on that last evening. Have a cigarette.’
‘Thank you, I will.’
Anthony said as he held a match:
‘You were the unexpected guest that night who did not turn up—just as well for you.’
‘You are wrong there. That empty place was not for me.’
Anthony’s eyebrows went up.
‘Really? Barton said—’
Race cut in.
‘George Barton may have said so. His plans were quite different. That chair, Mr Browne, was intended to be occupied when the lights went down by an actress called Chloe West.’
Anthony stared.
‘Chloe West? Never heard of her. Who is she?’
‘A young actress not very well known but who possesses a certain superficial resemblance to Rosemary Barton.’
Anthony whistled.
‘I begin to see.’
‘She had been given a photograph of Rosemary so that she could copy the style of hairdressing and she also had the dress which Rosemary wore the night she died.’
‘So that was George’s plan? Up go the lights—Hey Presto, gasps of supernatural dread! Rosemary has come back. The guilty party gasps out: “It’s true—it’s true—I dunnit.”’ He paused and added: ‘Rotten—even for an ass like poor old George.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you.’
Anthony grinned.
‘Oh, come now, sir—a hardened criminal isn’t going to behave like a hysterical schoolgirl. If somebody poisoned Rosemary Barton in cold blood, and was preparing to administer the same fatal dose of cyanide to George Barton, that person had a certain amount of nerve. It would take more than an actress dressed up as Rosemary to make him or her spill the beans.’
‘Macbeth, remember, a decidedly hardened criminal, went to pieces when he saw the ghost of Banquo at the feast.’
‘Ah, but what Macbeth saw really was a ghost! It wasn’t a ham actor wearing Banquo’s duds! I’m prepared to admit that a real ghost might bring its own atmosphere