The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [42]
Dermot nodded.
‘These theatrical and picture people have the most curious lapses in their intelligence. Sometimes it seems to me that the more of an artistic genius you are, the less common sense you have in everyday life.’
‘That may well be.’
‘What with all the bottles, cachets, powders, capsules, and little boxes that they carry about with them; what with popping in a tranquillizer here and a tonic there and a pep pill somewhere else, don’t you think it would be easy enough that the whole thing might get mixed up?’
‘I don’t see how it could apply in this case.’
‘Well, I think it could. Somebody, one of the guests, may have wanted a sedative, or a reviver, and whipped out his or her little container which they carry around and possibly because they hadn’t remembered the dose because they hadn’t had one for some time, might have put too much in a glass. Then their mind was distracted and they went off somewhere, and let’s say this Mrs What’s-her-name comes along, thinks it’s her glass, picks it up and drinks it. That’s surely a more feasible idea than anything else?’
‘You don’t think that all those possibilities haven’t been gone into, do you?’
‘No, I suppose not. But there were a lot of people there and a lot of glasses standing about with drinks in them. It happens often enough, you know, that you pick up the wrong glass and drink out of it.’
‘Then you don’t think that Heather Badcock was deliberately poisoned? You think that she drank out of somebody else’s glass?’
‘I can’t imagine anything more likely to happen.’
‘In that case,’ said Dermot speaking carefully, ‘it would have had to be Marina Gregg’s glass. You realise that? Marina handed her her own glass.’
‘Or what she thought was her own glass,’ Ella Zielinsky corrected him. ‘You haven’t talked to Marina yet, have you? She’s extremely vague. She’d pick up any glass that looked as though it were hers, and drink it. I’ve seen her do it again and again.’
‘She takes Calmo?’
‘Oh yes, we all do.’
‘You too, Miss Zielinsky?’
‘I’m driven to it sometimes,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘These things are rather imitative, you know.’
‘I shall be glad,’ said Dermot, ‘when I am able to talk to Miss Gregg. She — er — seems to be prostrated for a very long time.’
‘That’s just throwing a temperament,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘She just dramatizes herself a good deal, you know. She’d never take murder in her stride.’
‘As you manage to do, Miss Zielinsky?’
‘When everybody about you is in a continual state of agitation,’ said Ella dryly, ‘it develops in you a desire to go to the opposite extreme.’
‘You learn to take a pride in not turning a hair when some shocking tragedy occurs?’
She considered. ‘It’s not a really nice trait, perhaps. But I think if you didn’t develop that sense you’d probably go round the bend yourself.’
‘Was Miss Gregg — is Miss Gregg a difficult person to work for?’
It was something of a personal question but Dermot Craddock regarded it as a kind of test. If Ella Zielinsky raised her eyebrows and tacitly demanded what this had to do with the murder of Mrs Badcock, he would be forced to admit that it had nothing to do with it. But he wondered if Ella Zielinsky might perhaps enjoy telling him what she thought of Marina Gregg.
‘She’s a great artist. She’s got a personal magnetism that comes over on the screen in the most extraordinary way. Because of that one feels it’s rather a privilege to work with her. Taken purely personally, of course, she’s hell!’
‘Ah,’ said Dermot.
‘She’s no kind of moderation, you see. She’s up in the air or down in the dumps and everything is always terrifically exaggerated, and she changes her mind and there are an enormous lot of things that one must never mention or allude to because they upset her.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, naturally, mental breakdown, or