The Mystery of the Blue Train - Agatha Christie [67]
Katherine stared very straight in front of her. She had a cretonne sunshade with her, and with its point she traced little designs in the gravel at her feet.
“I have asked you a question about Major Knighton, now I will ask you another. Do you like Mr. Derek Kettering?”
“I hardly know him,” said Katherine.
“That is not an answer, that.”
“I think it is.”
He looked at her, struck by something in her tone. Then he nodded his head gravely and slowly.
“Perhaps you are right, Mademoiselle. See you, I who speak to you have seen much of the world, and I know that there are two things which are true. A good man may be ruined by his love for a bad woman—but the other way holds good also. A bad man may equally be ruined by his love for a good woman.”
Katherine looked up sharply.
“When you say ruined—”
“I mean from his point of view. One must be wholehearted in crime as in everything else.”
“You are trying to warn me,” said Katherine in a low voice. “Against whom?”
“I cannot look into your heart, Mademoiselle; I do not think you would let me if I could. I will just say this. There are men who have a strange fascination for women.”
“The Comte de la Roche,” said Katherine, with a smile.
“There are others—more dangerous than the Comte de la Roche. They have qualities that appeal—recklessness, daring, audacity. You are fascinated, Mademoiselle; I see that, but I think that it is no more than that. I hope so. This man of whom I speak, the emotion he feels is genuine enough, but all the same—”
“Yes?”
He got up and stood looking down at her. Then he spoke in a low, distinct voice:
“You could, perhaps, love a thief, Mademoiselle, but not a murderer.”
He wheeled sharply away on that and left her sitting there.
He heard the little gasp she gave and paid no attention. He had said what he meant to say. He left her there to digest that last unmistakable phrase.
Derek Kettering, coming out of the Casino into the sunshine, saw her sitting alone on the bench and joined her.
“I have been gambling,” he said, with a light laugh, “gambling unsuccessfully. I have lost everything—everything, that is, that I have with me.”
Katherine looked at him with a troubled face. She was aware at once of something new in his manner, some hidden excitement that betrayed itself in a hundred different infinitesimal signs.
“I should think you were always a gambler. The spirit of gambling appeals to you.”
“Every day and in every way a gambler? You are about right. Don’t you find something stimulating in it? To risk all on one throw—there is nothing like it.”
Calm and stolid as she believed herself to be, Katherine felt a faint answering thrill.
“I want to talk to you,” went on Derek, “and who knows when I may have another opportunity? There is an idea going about that I murdered my wife—no, please don’t interrupt. It is absurd, of course.” He paused for a minute or two, then went on, speaking more deliberately. “In dealing with the police and Local Authorities here I have had to pretend to—well—a certain decency. I prefer not to pretend with you. I meant to marry money. I was on the lookout for money when I first met Ruth Van Aldin. She had the look of a slim Madonna about her, and—I—well—I made all sorts of good resolutions—and was bitterly disillusioned. My wife was in love with another man when she married me. She never cared for me in the least. Oh, I am not complaining; the thing was a perfectly respectable bargain. She wanted Leconbury and I wanted money. The trouble arose simply through Ruth’s American blood. Without caring a pin for me, she would have liked me to be continually dancing attendance. Time and again she as good as told me that she had bought me and that I belonged to her. The result was that I behaved abominably to her. My father-in-law will tell you that, and he is quite right. At the time of Ruth’s death, I was faced with absolute disaster.” He laughed suddenly. “One is faced with absolute disaster