The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [113]
9. While the “French maid” is with the Vicar Mr. X walks down through the garden, intending to cross the river in the Vicar’s boat. He meets the Admiral, who has just returned in his boat.
10. The Admiral hustles away after dinner at the Vicarage, because he wants to get Elma home, and then go to his “secret meeting.” He tidies up his boat as usual, but finds he has left his pipe at the Vicarage and his cigar-case is empty. He goes and gets his coat, meaning to walk to the bridge; but it is practically as quick to cross to the Vicarage, get his pipe and walk on from there. (According to the Map, the distances are practically identical.)
11. Mr. X and the Admiral talk. Mr. X produces the evening paper with its Chinese news. The Admiral, conscious of the “secret meeting,” is somewhat uncomfortable. They retire to the summer-house. There, there is not only the Vicar’s hat but also the knife. The talk ends in a quarrel and Mr. X stabs the Admiral. The time is about 11 p.m.
12. Mr. X reflects that his arrangements hold good for a murder as much as for anything else. He has even told Sir Wilfrid, as it happens, to use the Admiral’s name when he asks for Holland at his hotel—which may make it appear that the Admiral was alive and in Whynmouth at 11 p.m.
13. He finds the key of the french window, crosses in the Admiral’s boat (leaving the body in the summer-house), collects the papers from the study, locks up again and re-crosses in the Admiral’s boat—by mistake dropping the key. He assumes that he has dropped it in the river, he dares not strike a light to make sure.
14. He waits in the car. When the “French maid” reappears (and he is, of course, quite satisfied that neither she nor the Vicar will talk about the meeting) he tells her to drive gently on alone to Fernton Bridge and thence towards Rundel Croft. When he is sure that the Vicarage is asleep, he carries the dead body down to the Vicar’s boat, leaving the knife with (not in) the body and adding the Vicar’s hat to the cargo. His original intention is to set the boat adrift, but then he realises that the river is probably tidal and that the boat might not drift out to sea. So he decides to leave things as they are. (The body therefore has been “under cover” until nearly one o’clock; and the blood has ceased to flow before the body is put in the boat.) Mr. X crosses again in the Admiral’s boat (which he fastens up wrongly), makes his way through the grounds of Rundel Croft to the car, and so departs with the “French maid.”
15. The non-appearance of the Admiral perturbs both Holland and Sir Wilfrid. They wait a considerable time, and then Sir Wilfrid goes home (next morning, when Mr. X telephones to “enquire” about the meeting, he hurries up to London). Holland decides to have it out with the Admiral then and there. He starts to walk to Rundel Croft, sees a car standing near the entrance and decides to go round via the Vicarage. For the whole business is somewhat fishy and he has no wish to be seen. His anxiety not to attract notice retards his progress. To his horror he finds the body in the Vicar’s boat; it is by now about two o’clock. He realises his danger—he has no alibi; the Admiral may have said he was going to see him by the bridge; there is the question of the will and the marriage. He thinks things out deliberately. The tide will turn, he supposes, fairly soon and start to run up the river—“away from the bridge,” as it were. He must wait for the turn. The waiting is anxious work; he gets more and more jumpy, and more and more anxious to clear off. At about three o’clock the tide is slackening. He cuts the painter—not because he cannot reach to untie the knot, but because to cut it suits his state of mind—it seems quicker