Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie [76]
Lynn cried out:
‘No, David. No, you’re wrong. None of us would kill her. We wouldn’t do such a thing.’
‘One of you killed her, Lynn Marchmont. And you know that as well as I do!’
‘I swear we didn’t, David. I swear we did nothing of the kind.’
The wildness of his gaze softened a little.
‘Maybe it wasn’t you, Lynn — ’
‘It wasn’t, David, I swear it wasn’t — ’
Hercule Poirot moved forward a step and coughed. David swung round on him.
‘I think,’ said Poirot, ‘that your assumptions are a little over-dramatic. Why jump to the conclusion that your sister was murdered?’
‘You say she wasn’t murdered? Do you call this’ — he indicated the figure on the bed — ‘a natural death? Rosaleen suffered from nerves, yes, but she had no organic weakness. Her heart was sound enough.’
‘Last night,’ said Poirot, ‘before she went to bed, she sat writing here — ’
David strode past him, bent over the sheet of paper.
‘Do not touch it,’ Poirot warned him.
David drew back his hand, and read the words as he stood motionless.
He turned his head sharply and looked searchingly at Poirot.
‘Are you suggesting suicide? Why should Rosaleen commit suicide?’
The voice that answered the question was not Poirot’s. Superintendent Spence’s quiet Oastshire voice spoke from the open doorway:
‘Supposing that last Tuesday night Mrs Cloade wasn’t in London, but in Warmsley Vale? Suppose she went to see the man who had been blackmailing her? Suppose that in a nervous frenzy she killed him?’
David swung round on him. His eyes were hard and angry.
‘My sister was in London on Tuesday night. She was there in the flat when I got in at eleven o’clock.’
‘Yes,’ said Spence, ‘that’s your story, Mr Hunter. And I dare say you’ll stick to it. But I’m not obliged to believe that story. And in any case, isn’t it a little late’ — he gestured towards the bed — ‘the case will never come to court now.’
Chapter 14
‘He won’t admit it,’ said Spence. ‘But I think he knows she did it.’ Sitting in his room at the police station he looked across the table at Poirot. ‘Funny how it was his alibi we were so careful about checking. We never gave much thought to hers. And yet there’s no corroboration at all for her being in the flat in London that night. We’ve only got his word that she was there. We knew all along that only two people had a motive for doing away with Arden — David Hunter and Rosaleen Cloade. I went bald-headed for him and passed her by. Fact is, she seemed such a gentle thing — even a bit half-witted — but I dare say that partly explains it. Very likely David Hunter hustled her up to London for just that reason. He may have realized that she’d lose her head, and he may have known that she’s the kind who gets dangerous when they panic. Another funny thing: I’ve often seen her going about in an orange linen frock — it was a favourite colour of hers. Orange scarves — a striped orange frock, an orange beret. And yet, even when old Mrs Leadbetter described a young woman with her head tied up in an orange scarf I still didn’t tumble to it that it must have been Mrs Gordon herself. I still think the girl wasn’t quite all there — wasn’t wholly responsible. The way you describe her as haunting the R.C. church here sounds as though she was half off her head with remorse and a sense of guilt.’
‘She had a sense of guilt, yes,’ said Poirot.
Spence said thoughtfully, ‘She must have attacked Arden in a kind of frenzy. I don’t suppose he had the least idea of what was coming to him. He wouldn’t be on his guard with a slip of a girl like that.’ He ruminated for a moment or two in silence, then he remarked, ‘There’s still one thing I’m not quite clear about. Who got at Porter? You say it wasn’t Mrs Jeremy? Bet you it was all the same!’
‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘It was not Mrs Jeremy. She assured me of that and I believe her. I have been stupid over that. I should have known who it was. Major Porter himself told me.’
‘He told you?’
‘Oh, indirectly, of course. He did not know that he had done so.’
‘Well, who was it?’
Poirot put his head a little on one side.
‘Is it permitted,