Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [86]
‘But I don’t see now how he did it?’
Colonel Race took up the tale.
‘In the easiest way in the world. During the cabaret he went out to telephone, passing our table. Drake had been an actor and he had been something more important—a waiter. To assume the make-up and play the part of Pedro Morales was child’s play to an actor, but to move deftly round a table, with the step and gait of a waiter, filling up the champagne glasses, needed the definite knowledge and technique of a man who had actually been a waiter. A clumsy action or movement would have drawn your attention to him, but as a bona fide waiter none of you noticed or saw him. You were looking at the Cabaret, not noticing that portion of the restaurant’s furnishings—the waiter!’
Iris said in a hesitating voice:
‘And Ruth?’
Anthony said:
‘It was Ruth, of course, who put the cyanide paper in your bag—probably in the cloak-room at the beginning of the evening. The same technique she had adopted a year ago—with Rosemary.’
‘I always thought it odd,’ said Iris, ‘that George hadn’t told Ruth about those letters. He consulted her about everything.’
Anthony gave a short laugh.
‘Of course he told her—first thing. She knew he would. That’s why she wrote them. Then she arranged all his “plan” for him—having first got him well worked up. And so she had the stage set—all nicely arranged for suicide No. 2—and if George chose to believe that you had killed Ròsemary and were committing suicide out of remorse or panic—well, that wouldn’t make any difference to Ruth!’
‘And to think I liked her—liked her very much! And actually wanted her to marry George.’
‘She’d probably have made him a very good wife, if she hadn’t come across Victor,’ said Anthony. ‘Moral: every murderess was a nice girl once.’
Iris shivered. ‘All that for money!’
‘You innocent, money is what these things are done for! Victor certainly did it for money. Ruth partly for money, partly for Victor, and partly, I think, because she hated Rosemary. Yes, she’d travelled a long way by the time she deliberately tried to run you down in a car, and still further when she left Lucilla in the drawing-room, banged the front door and then ran up to your bedroom. What did she seem like? Excited at all?’
Iris considered.
‘I don’t think so. She just tapped on the door, came in and said everything was fixed up and she hoped I was feeling all right. I said yes, I was just a bit tired. And then she picked up my big rubber-covered torch and said what a nice torch that was and after that I don’t seem to remember anything.’
‘No, dear,’ said Anthony. ‘Because she hit you a nice little crack, not too hard, on the back of the neck with your nice torch. Then she arranged you artistically by the gas fire, shut the windows tight, turned on the gas, went out, locking the door and passing the key underneath it, pushed the woolly mat close up against the crack so as to shut out any draught and tripped gently down the stairs. Kemp and I just got into the bathroom in time. I raced on up to you and Kemp followed Miss Ruth Lessing unbeknownst to where she had left that car parked—you know, I felt at the time there was something fishy and uncharacteristic about the way Ruth tried to force it on our minds that she had come by bus and tube!’
Iris gave a shudder.
‘It’s horrible—to think anyone was as determined to kill me as all that. Did she hate me too by then?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. But Miss Ruth Lessing is a very efficient young woman. She’d already been an accessory in two murders and she didn’t fancy having risked her neck for nothing. I’ve no doubt Lucilla Drake bleated out your decision to marry me at a moment’s notice, and in that case there was no time to lose. Once married, I should be your next of kin and not Lucilla.’
‘Poor Lucilla. I’m so terribly sorry for her.’
‘I think