Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [76]
He was told by the parlourmaid (a girl lacking the impudent polish of Betty Archdale) that Miss Iris had just come in and was in the study.
Anthony said with a smile, ‘Don’t bother. I’ll find my way,’ and went past her and along to the study door.
Iris spun round at his entrance with a nervous start.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
He came over to her swiftly.
‘What’s the matter, darling?’
‘Nothing.’ She paused, then said quickly, ‘Nothing. Only I was nearly run over. Oh, my own fault, I expect I was thinking so hard and mooning across the road without looking, and the car came tearing round a corner and just missed me.’
He gave her a gentle little shake.
‘You mustn’t do that sort of thing, Iris. I’m worried about you—oh! not about your miraculous escape from under the wheels of a car, but about the reason that lets you moon about in the midst of traffic. What is it, darling? There’s something special, isn’t there?’
She nodded. Her eyes, raised mournfully to his, were large and dark with fear. He recognized their message even before she said very low and quick:
‘I’m afraid.’
Anthony recovered his calm smiling poise. He sat down beside Iris on a wide settee.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s have it.’
‘I don’t think I want to tell you, Anthony.’
‘Now then, funny, don’t be like the heroines of third-rate thrillers who start in the very first chapter by having something they can’t possibly tell for no real reason except to gum up the hero and make the book spin itself out for another fifty thousand words.’
She gave a faint pale smile.
‘I want to tell you, Anthony, but I don’t know what you’d think—I don’t know if you’d believe—’
Anthony raised a hand and began to check off the fingers.
‘One, an illegitimate baby. Two, a blackmailing lover. Three—’
She interrupted him indignantly:
‘Of course not. Nothing of that kind.’
‘You relieve my mind,’ said Anthony. ‘Come on, little idiot.’
Iris’s face clouded over again.
‘It’s nothing to laugh at. It’s—it’s about the other night.’
‘Yes?’ His voice sharpened.
Iris said:
‘You were at the inquest this morning—you heard—’
She paused.
‘Very little,’ said Anthony. ‘The police surgeon being technical about cyanides generally and the effect of potassium cyanide on George, and the police evidence as given by that first inspector, not Kemp, the one with the smart moustache who arrived first at the Luxembourg and took charge. Identification of the body by George’s chief clerk. The inquest was then adjourned for a week by a properly docile coroner.’
‘It’s the inspector I mean,’ said Iris. ‘He described finding a small paper packet under the table containing traces of potassium cyanide.’
Anthony looked interested.
‘Yes. Obviously whoever slipped that stuff into George’s glass just dropped the paper that had contained it under the table. Simplest thing to do. Couldn’t risk having it found on him—or her.’
To his surprise Iris began to tremble violently.
‘Oh, no, Anthony. Oh, no, it wasn’t like that.’
‘What do you mean, darling? What do you know about it?’
Iris said, ‘I dropped that packet under the table.’
He turned astonished eyes upon her.
‘Listen, Anthony. You remember how George drank off that champagne and then it happened?’
He nodded.
‘It was awful—like a bad dream. Coming just when everything had seemed to be all right. I mean that, after the cabaret, when the lights went up—I felt so relieved. Because it was then, you know, that we found Rosemary dead—and somehow, I don’t know why, I felt I’d see it all happen again…I felt she was there, dead, at the table…’
‘Darling…’
‘Oh, I know. It was just nerves. But anyway, there we were, and there was nothing awful and suddenly it seemed the whole thing was really