The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [41]
‘Yes, I agree. There must be something beyond petty dislikes or envies. Is there anyone whom your wife has injured, say, in the past?’
Jason Rudd did not rebut this easily. Instead he frowned.
‘Honestly, I don’t think so,’ he said at last, ‘and I may say I’ve given a lot of thought to that point.’
‘Anything in the nature of a love affair, an association with some man?’
‘There have of course been affairs of that kind. It may be considered, I suppose, that Marina has occasionally treated some man badly. But there is nothing to cause any lasting ill-will. I’m sure of it.’
‘What about women? Any woman who has had a lasting grudge against Miss Gregg?’
‘Well,’ said Jason Rudd, ‘you can never tell with women. I can’t think of any particular one offhand.’
‘Who’d benefit financially by your wife’s death?’
‘Her will benefits various people but not to any large extent. I suppose the people who’d benefit, as you put it, financially, would be myself as her husband, from another angle, possibly the star who might replace her in this film. Though, of course, the film might be abandoned altogether. These things are very uncertain.’
‘Well, we need not go into all that now,’ said Dermot.
‘And I have your assurance that Marina will not be told that she is in possible danger?’
‘We shall have to go into that matter,’ said Dermot. ‘I want to impress upon you that you are taking quite a considerable risk there. However, the matter will not arise for some days since your wife is still under medical care. Now there is one more thing I would like you to do. I would like you to write down for me as accurately as you can every single person who was in that recess at the top of the stairs, or whom you saw coming up the stairs at the time of the murder.’
‘I’ll do my best, but I’m rather doubtful. You’d do far better to consult my secretary, Ella Zielinsky. She has a most accurate memory and also lists of the local lads who were there. If you’d like to see her now —’
‘I would like to talk to Miss Ella Zielinsky very much,’ said Dermot.
Chapter 11
I
Surveying Dermot Craddock unemotionally through her large horn-rimmed spectacles, Ella Zielinsky seemed to him almost too good to be true. With quiet businesslike alacrity she whipped out of a drawer a typewritten sheet and passed it across to him.
‘I think I can be fairly sure that there are no omissions,’ she said. ‘But it is just possible that I may have included one or two names — local names they will be — who were not actually there. That is to say who may have left earlier or who may not have been found and brought up. Actually, I’m pretty sure that it is correct.’
‘A very efficient piece of work if I may say so,’ said Dermot.
‘Thank you.’
‘I suppose — I am quite an ignoramus in such things — that you have to attain a high standard of efficiency in your job?’
‘One has to have things pretty well taped, yes.’
‘What else does your job comprise? Are you a kind of liaison officer, so to speak, between the studios and Gossington Hall?’
‘No. I’ve nothing to do with the studios, actually, though of course I naturally take messages from there on the telephone or send them. My job is to look after Miss Gregg’s social life, her public and private engagements, and to supervise in some degree the running of the house.’
‘You like the job?’
‘It’s extremely well paid and I find it reasonably interesting. I didn’t however bargain for murder,’ she added dryly.
‘Did it seem very incredible to you?’
‘So much so that I am going to ask you if you are really sure it is murder?’
‘Six times the close of di-ethyl-mexine etc. etc., could hardly be anything else.’
‘It might have been an accident of some kind.’
‘And how would you suggest such an accident could have occurred?’
‘More easily than you’d imagine, since