Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [85]
‘Now go over the whole business again and the set-up is entirely different! You are the intended victim, not George! So it looks, doesn’t it, as though George is being used. What, if things had not gone wrong, would have been the story as the world would see it? A repetition of the party a year ago—and a repetition of—suicide! Clearly, people would say, a suicidal streak in that family! Bit of paper which has contained cyanide found in your bag. Clear case! Poor girl has been brooding over her sister’s death. Very sad—but these rich girls are sometimes very neurotic!’
Iris interrupted him. She cried out:
‘But why should anyone want to kill me? Why? Why?’
‘All that lovely money, angel. Money, money, money! Rosemary’s money went to you on her death. Now suppose you were to die—unmarried. What would happen to that money? The answer was it would go to your next of kin—to your aunt, Lucilla Drake. Now from all accounts of the dear lady, I could hardly see Lucilla Drake as First Murderess. But is there anyone else who would benefit? Yes, indeed. Victor Drake. If Lucilla has money, it will be exactly the same as Victor having it—Victor will see to that! He has always been able to do what he likes with his mother. And there is nothing difficult about seeing Victor as First Murderer. All along, from the very start of the case, there have been references to Victor, mentions of Victor. He has been in the offing, a shadowy, unsubstantial, evil figure.’
‘But Victor’s in the Argentine! He’s been in South America for over a year.’
‘Has he? We’re coming now to what has been said to be the fundamental plot of every story. “Girl meets Boy!” When Victor met Ruth Lessing, this particular story started. He got hold of her. I think she must have fallen for him pretty badly. Those quiet, level-headed, law-abiding women are the kind that often fall for a real bad lot.
‘Think a minute and you’ll realize that all the evidence for Victor’s being in South America depends on Ruth’s word. None of it was verified because it was never a main issue! Ruth said that she had seen Victor off on the S.S. Cristobal before Rosemary’s death! It was Ruth who suggested putting a call through to Buenos Aires on the day of George’s death—and later sacked the telephone girl who might have inadvertantly let out that she did no such thing.
‘Of course it’s been easy to check up now! Victor Drake arrived in Buenos Aires by a boat leaving England the day after Rosemary’s death a year ago. Ogilvie, in Buenos Aires, had no telephone conversation with Ruth on the subject of Victor Drake on the day of George’s death. And Victor Drake left Buenos Aires for New York some weeks ago. Easy enough for him to arrange for a cable to be sent off in his name on a certain day—one of those well-known cables asking for money that seemed proof positive that he was many thousands of miles away. Instead of which—’
‘Yes, Anthony?’
‘Instead of which,’ said Anthony, leading up to his climax with intense pleasure, ‘he was sitting at the next table to ours at the Luxembourg with a not so dumb blonde!’
‘Not that awful looking man?’
‘A yellow blotchy complexion and bloodshot eyes are easy things to assume, and they make a lot of difference to a man. Actually, of our party, I was the only person (apart from Ruth Lessing) who had ever seen Victor Drake—and I had never known him under that name! In any case I was sitting with my back to him. I did think I recognized, in the cocktail lounge outside, as we came in, a man I had known in my prison days—Monkey Coleman. But as