The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [106]
Fitzgerald got up without answering and, crossing to the mantelpiece, leaned his head on his hands.
“Better get this down quickly,” said Sir Wilfrid to the Superintendent. “We haven’t much time. The Admiral had suspected for some time my share in the Hong Kong business. Somehow or other I managed to stave him off. Then Ware ratted on me.”
“Ware?”
“Yes. He’d known all along—though how the devil he found out I never discovered. That’s why he settled here when he retired.”
“He’d been blackmailing you?”
“Well, I suppose you’d call it that; but only a matter of a present of a pound or two now and then, and he never used any threats. He just knew, and I gave him a few pounds occasionally to keep his knowledge to himself. That’s all. But the Admiral got hold of him; and whether he paid more, or appealed to ‘duty’ and ‘honour’ and the rest, I can’t say, but Ware must have ratted. Then the Admiral came down to see me, breathing, as you may imagine, flames and death. He got me in a corner, till I couldn’t persist in my denials any longer. Then he must have seen red, because he simply went for me, cold blind, with the poker. I snatched up the first thing I could (as a matter of fact it was a trench dagger one of my nephews once gave me as a War souvenir), dodged under the poker, and got in first. Then I went down to where Ware was waiting, with the Admiral’s boat, and found that Fitzgerald and Mrs. Mount had just arrived in another boat.”
“One minute, Sir Wilfrid,” interrupted the Superintendent. “What time was that?”
“Oh, I suppose about twenty minutes to twelve. I told them what I’d done and that we must get rid of the body. I’m afraid I’d lost my head a bit, because I wouldn’t listen to them when Ware and Fitzgerald both urged me to come out in the open and ring up the police. It was justifiable homicide, they said, and nothing could happen to me. But I knew that if I did, all that Hong Kong business would come out, and I should lose my pension in any case; and I thought it almost inevitable that I should have to face a charge of murder. In the end Fitzgerald agreed to stand by me, but we had a lot more trouble before we could persuade Ware. Finally he agreed that if he wasn’t to be expected to tell any direct lies except to conceal the fact of his having been out with the Admiral that night at all, he wouldn’t give me away; he would just know nothing. I was too upset to make any arrangements at all; as no doubt he’s told you, Fitzgerald saw to our plans. Ware insisted that the body should not be concealed, everything was to be as plain and above board as it could be; so we went up to the house, had a stiff drink apiece, and put the body in the Vicar’s boat, covered with a bit of tarpaulin. Ware undertook to tow it up-stream and set it adrift before returning the Admiral’s boat to its boat-house. In the meantime Fitzgerald promised to go at once to Rundel Croft and look through the Admiral’s papers, to destroy anything he might have in writing against me, which I understand he did. The next day, feeling unable to stay and face it, I frankly took to my heels and escaped to Paris. Fitzgerald sent me word there that no suspicion seemed to be directed against me, so I came back.”
“And Mrs. Mount?”
In a low voice Sir Wilfrid gave the details. They turned out to be almost exactly as Rudge had surmised, except that he maintained that there again he had never really intended murder. Mrs. Mount, hearing the Hollands actually in the next room, had made a desperate attempt to escape, and in the struggle Sir Wilfrid had mechanically tightened his grasp on her and so driven the knife in. There had been no set plan in his subsequent movements. He had just run in sheer panic from one hiding place to another as opportunity offered.
He had nothing else to say.
Major Twyfitt shook his head. “I shouldn’t have let you say anything, until you’d seen your solicitor.”
“My dear fellow,” returned Sir Wilfrid, almost happily, “don’t bother.