The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [64]
‘Satisfied?’ asked Margot Bence.
Craddock gave a deep sigh. ‘Yes, thank you. It’s hard, you know, to make up one’s mind if witnesses are exaggerating, if they are imagining they see things. But that’s not so in this case. There was something to see and she saw it.’ He asked, ‘Can I keep this picture?’
‘Oh, yes you can have the print. I’ve got the negative.’
‘You didn’t send it to the Press?’
Margot Bence shook her head.
‘I rather wonder why you didn’t. After all, it’s rather a dramatic photograph. Some paper might have paid a good price for it.’
‘I wouldn’t care to do that,’ said Margot Bence. ‘If you look into somebody’s soul by accident, you feel a bit embarrassed about cashing in.’
‘Did you know Marina Gregg at all?’
‘No.’
‘You come from the States, don’t you?’
‘I was born in England. I was trained in America though. I came over here, oh, about three years ago.’
Dermot Craddock nodded. He had known the answers to his questions. They had been waiting for him among the other lists of information on his office table. The girl seemed straightforward enough. He asked:
‘Where did you train?’
‘Reingarden Studios. I was with Andrew Quilp for a time. He taught me a lot.’
‘Reingarden Studios and Andrew Quilp.’ Dermot Craddock was suddenly alert. The names struck a chord of remembrance.
‘You lived in Seven Springs, didn’t you?’
She looked amused.
‘You seem to know a lot about me. Have you been checking up?’
‘You’re a very well-known photographer, Miss Bence. There have been articles written about you, you know. Why did you come to England?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Oh, I like a change. Besides, as I tell you, I was born in England although I went to the States as a child.’
‘Quite a young child, I think.’
‘Five years old if you’re interested.’
‘I am interested. I think, Miss Bence, you could tell me a little more than you have done.’
Her face hardened. She stared at him.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Dermot Craddock looked at her and risked it. It wasn’t much to go on. Reingarden Studios and Andrew Quilp and the name of one town. But he felt rather as if old Miss Marple were at his shoulder egging him on.
‘I think you knew Marina Gregg better than you say.’
She laughed. ‘Prove it. You’re imagining things.’
‘Am I? I don’t think I am. And it could be proved, you know, with a little time and care. Come now, Miss Bence, hadn’t you better admit the truth? Admit that Marina Gregg adopted you as a child and that you lived with her for four years.’
She drew her breath in sharply with a hiss.
‘You nosy bastard!’ she said.
It startled him a little, it was such a contrast to her former manner. She got up, shaking her black head of hair.
‘All right, all right, it’s true enough! Yes Marina Gregg took me over to America with her. My mother had eight kids. She lived in a slum somewhere. She was one of hundreds of people, I suppose, who wrote to any film actress that they happen to see or hear about, spilling a hard luck story, begging her to adopt the child a mother couldn’t give advantages to. Oh, it’s such a sickening business, all of it.’
‘There were three of you,’ said Dermot. ‘Three children adopted at different times from different places.’
‘That’s right. Me and Rod and Angus. Angus was older than I was, Rod was practically a baby. We had a wonderful life. Oh, a wonderful life! All the advantages!’ Her voice rose mockingly. ‘Clothes and cars and a wonderful house to live in and people to look after us, good schooling and teaching, and delicious food. Everything piled on! And she herself, our “Mom”. “Mom” in inverted commas, playing her part, crooning over us, being photographed with us!