The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [71]
‘Wait, wait, explain that a little more clearly.’
‘It seems to me nowadays,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that people are always adding things to what they eat and drink. In my young days it was considered to be very bad manners to take medicines with one’s meals. It was on a par with blowing your nose at the dinner table. It just wasn’t done. If you had to take pills or capsules, or a spoonful of something, you went out of the room to do so. That’s not the case now. When staying with my nephew Raymond, I observed some of his guests seemed to arrive with quite a quantity of little bottles of pills and tablets. They take them with food, or before food, or after food. They keep aspirins and such things in their handbags and take them the whole time — with cups of tea or with their after-dinner coffee. You understand what I mean?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Dr Haydock, ‘I’ve got your meaning now and it’s interesting. You mean that someone —’ He stopped. ‘Let’s have it in your own words.’
‘I meant,’ said Miss Marple, ‘that it would be quite possible, audacious but possible, for someone to pick up that glass which as soon as it was in his or her hand, of course, would be assumed to be his or her own drink and to add whatever was added quite openly. In that case, you see, people wouldn’t think twice of it.’
‘He — or she — couldn’t be sure of that, though,’ Haydock pointed out.
‘No,’ agreed Miss Marple, ‘it would be a gamble, a risk — but it could happen. And then,’ she went on, ‘there’s the third possibility.’
‘Possibility One, a moron,’ said the doctor. ‘Possibility Two, a gambler — what’s Possibility Three?’
‘Somebody saw what happened, and has held their tongue deliberately.’
Haydock frowned. ‘For what reason?’ he asked. ‘Are you suggesting blackmail? If so —’
‘If so,’ said Miss Marple, ‘it’s a very dangerous thing to do.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ He looked sharply at the placid old lady with the white fleecy garment on her lap. ‘Is the third possibility the one you consider the most probable one?’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I wouldn’t go so far as that. I have, at the moment, insufficient grounds. Unless,’ she added carefully, ‘someone else gets killed.’
‘Do you think someone else is going to get killed?’
‘I hope not,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I trust and pray not. But it so often happens, Doctor Haydock. That’s the sad and frightening thing. It so often happens.’
Chapter 17
Ella put down the telephone receiver, smiled to herself and came out of the public telephone box. She was pleased with herself.
‘Chief-Inspector God Almighty Craddock!’ she said to herself. ‘I’m twice as good as he is at the job. Variations on the theme of: “Fly, all is discovered!” ’
She pictured to herself with a good deal of pleasure the reactions recently suffered by the person at the other end of the line. That faint menacing whisper coming through the receiver. ‘I saw you…’
She laughed silently, the corners of her mouth curving up in a feline cruel line. A student of psychology might have watched her with some interest. Never until the last few days had she had this feeling of power. She was hardly aware herself of how much the heady intoxication of it affected her…
‘Damn that old woman,’ thought Ella. She could feel Mrs Bantry’s eyes following her as she walked up the drive.
A phrase came into her head for no particular reason.
The pitcher goes to the well once too often…
Nonsense. Nobody could suspect that it was she who had whispered those menacing words…
She sneezed.
‘Damn this hay-fever,’ said Ella Zielinsky.
When she came into her office, Jason Rudd was standing by the window.
He wheeled round.
‘I couldn’t think where you were.’
‘I had to go and speak to the gardener. There were —’ she broke off as she caught sight of his face.
She asked sharply: ‘What is it?’
His eyes seemed set deeper in his face than ever. All the gaiety of the clown was gone. This was a man under strain. She had seen him under strain before but never looking