The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [92]
She turned to Jason Rudd.
‘I think I am correct in saying, Mr Rudd, that your wife had a child who was born mentally afflicted and that she has never really recovered from the shock. She had always wanted a child and when at last the child came, this was the tragedy that happened. A tragedy she has never forgotten, that she has not allowed herself to forget and which ate into her as a kind of deep sore, an obsession.’
‘It’s quite true,’ said Jason Rudd. ‘Marina developed German measles early on in her pregnancy and was told by the doctor that the mental affliction of her child was due to that cause. It was not a case of inherited insanity or anything of that kind. He was trying to be helpful but I don’t think it helped her much. She never knew how, or when or from whom she had contracted the disease.’
‘Quite so,’ said Miss Marple, ‘she never knew until one afternoon here when a perfectly strange woman came up those stairs and told her the fact — told her, what was more — with a great deal of pleasure! With an air of being proud of what she’d done! She thought she’d been resourceful and brave and shown a lot of spirit in getting up from her bed, covering her face with make-up, and going along to meet the actress on whom she had such a crush and obtaining her autograph. It’s a thing she has boasted of all through her life. Heather Badcock meant no harm. She never did mean harm but there is no doubt that people like Heather Badcock (and like my old friend Alison Wilde), are capable of doing a lot of harm because they lack — not kindness, they have kindness — but any real consideration for the way their actions may affect other people. She thought always of what an action meant to her, never sparing a thought to what it might mean to somebody else.’
Miss Marple nodded her head gently.
‘So she died, you see, for a simple reason out of her own past. You must imagine what that moment meant to Marina Gregg. I think Mr Rudd understands it very well. I think she had nursed all those years a kind of hatred for the unknown person who had been the cause of her tragedy. And here suddenly she meets that person face to face. And a person who is gay, jolly and pleased with herself. It was too much for her. If she had had time to think, to calm down, to be persuaded to relax — but she gave herself no time. Here was this woman who had destroyed her happiness and destroyed the sanity and health of her child. She wanted to punish her. She wanted to kill her. And unfortunately the means were to hand. She carried with her that well-known specific, Calmo. A somewhat dangerous drug because you had to be careful of the exact dosage. It was very easy to do. She put the stuff into her own glass. If by any chance anyone noticed what she was doing they were probably so used to her pepping herself up or soothing herself down in any handy liquid that they’d hardly notice it. It’s possible that one person did see her, but I rather doubt it. I think that Miss Zielinsky did no more than guess. Marina Gregg put her glass down on the table and presently she managed to jog Heather Badcock’s arm so that Heather Badcock spilt her own drink all down her new dress. And that’s where the element of puzzle has come into