The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [72]
She said again: ‘What is it?’
He held a sheet of paper out to her. ‘It’s the analysis of that coffee. The coffee that Marina complained about and wouldn’t drink.’
‘You sent it to be analysed?’ She was startled. ‘But you poured it away down the sink. I saw you.’
His wide mouth curled up in a smile. ‘I’m pretty good at sleight of hand, Ella,’ he said. ‘You didn’t know that, did you? Yes, I poured most of it away but I kept a little and I took it along to be analysed.’
She looked down at the paper in her hand.
‘Arsenic.’ She sounded incredulous.
‘Yes, arsenic.’
‘So Marina was right about it tasting bitter?’
‘She wasn’t right about that. Arsenic has no taste. But her instinct was quite right.’
‘And we thought she was just being hysterical!’
‘She is hysterical! Who wouldn’t be? She has a woman drop dead at her feet practically. She gets threatening notes — one after another — there’s not been anything today, has there?’
Ella shook her head.
‘Who plants the damned things? Oh well, I suppose it’s easy enough — all these open windows. Anyone could slip in.’
‘You mean we ought to keep the house barred and locked? But it’s such hot weather. There’s a man posted in the grounds, after all.’
‘Yes, and I don’t want to frighten her more than she’s frightened already. Threatening notes don’t matter two hoots. But arsenic, Ella, arsenic’s different…’
‘Nobody could tamper with food here in the house.’
‘Couldn’t they, Ella? Couldn’t they?’
‘Not without being seen. No unauthorized person —’
He interrupted.
‘People will do things for money, Ella.’
‘Hardly murder!’
‘Even that. And they mightn’t realize it was murder…The servants…’
‘I’m sure the servants are all right.’
‘Giuseppe now. I doubt if I’d trust Giuseppe very far if it came to the question of money…He’s been with us some time, of course, but —’
‘Must you torture yourself like this, Jason?’
He flung himself down in the chair. He leaned forward, his long arms hanging down between his knees.
‘What to do?’ he said slowly and softly. ‘My God, what to do?’
Ella did not speak. She sat there watching him.
‘She was happy here,’ said Jason. He was speaking more to himself than to Ella. He stared down between his knees at the carpet. If he had looked up, the expression on her face might perhaps have surprised him.
‘She was happy,’ he said again. ‘She hoped to be happy and she was happy. She was saying so that day, the day Mrs What’s-her-name —’
‘Bantry?’
‘Yes. The day Mrs Bantry came to tea. She said it was “so peaceful”. She said that at last she’d found a place where she could settle down and be happy and feel secure. My goodness, secure!’
‘Happy ever after?’ Ella’s voice held a slight tone of irony. ‘Yes, put like that, it sounds just like a fairy story.’
‘At any rate she believed it.’
‘But you didn’t,’ said Ella. ‘You never thought it would be like that?’
Jason Rudd smiled. ‘No. I didn’t go the whole hog. But I did think for a while, a year — two years — there might be a period of calm and content. It might have made a new woman of her. It might have given her confidence in herself. She can be happy, you know. When she is happy she’s like a child. Just like a child. And now — this had to happen to her.’
Ella moved restlessly. ‘Things have to happen to all of us,’ she said brusquely. ‘That’s the way life is. You just have to take it. Some of us can, some of us can’t. She’s the kind that can’t.’
She sneezed.
‘Your hay-fever bad again?’
‘Yes. By the way, Giuseppe’s gone to London.’
Jason looked faintly surprised.
‘To London? Why?’
‘Some kind of family trouble. He’s got relations in Soho, and one of them’s desperately ill. He went to Marina about it and she said it was all right, so I gave him the day off. He’ll be back sometime tonight. You don’t mind do you?’
‘No,’ said Jason, ‘I don’t mind…’
He got up and walked up and down.
‘If I could take her away…now…at once.’
‘Scrap the picture? But just think.’
His voice rose.
‘I can’t think of anything but Marina. Don’t you understand? She’s in danger. That’s all I can think about.’
She opened