The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [48]
Fourteen
Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative
I
“So now we’re quite sure,” said Ginger.
“We were sure before.”
“Yes—reasonably so. But this does clinch it.”
I was silent for a moment or two. I was visualising Mrs. Tuckerton journeying to Birmingham. Entering the Municipal Square Buildings—meeting Mr. Bradley. Her nervous apprehension… his reassuring bonhomie. His skilful underlining of the lack of risk. (He would have had to underline that very hard with Mrs. Tuckerton.) I could see her going away, not committing herself. Letting the idea take root in her mind. Perhaps she went to see her stepdaughter, or her stepdaughter came home for a weekend. There could have been talk, hints of marriage. And all the time the thought of the MONEY—not just a little money, not a miserly pittance—but lots of money, big money, money that enabled you to do everything you had ever wanted! And all going to this degenerate, ill-mannered girl, slouching about in the coffee bars of Chelsea in her jeans and her sloppy jumpers, with her undesirable degenerate friends. Why should a girl like that, a girl who was no good and would never be any good, have all that beautiful money?
And so—another visit to Birmingham. More caution, more reassurance. Finally, a discussion on terms. I smiled involuntarily. Mr. Bradley would not have had it all his own way. She would have been a hard bargainer. But in the end, the terms had been agreed, some document duly signed, and then what?
That was where imagination stopped. That was what we didn’t know.
I came out of my meditation to see Ginger watching me.
She asked: “Got it all worked out?”
“How did you know what I was doing?”
“I’m beginning to know the way your mind works. You were working it out, weren’t you, following her—to Birmingham and all the rest of it?”
“Yes. But I was brought up short. At the moment when she had settled things in Birmingham—What happens next?”
We looked at each other.
“Sooner or later,” said Ginger, “someone has got to find out exactly what happens at the Pale Horse.”
“How?”
“I don’t know… It won’t be easy. Nobody who’s actually been there, who’s actually done it, will ever tell. At the same time, they’re the only people who can tell. It’s difficult… I wonder….”
“We could go to the police?” I suggested.
“Yes. After all, we’ve got something fairly definite now. Enough to act upon, do you think?”
I shook my head doubtfully.
“Evidence of intent. But is that enough? It’s this death wish nonsense. Oh,” I forestalled her interruption, “it mayn’t be nonsense—but it would sound like it in court. We’ve no idea, even, of what the actual procedure is.”
“Well, then, we’ve got to know. But how?”
“One would have to see—or hear—with one’s own eyes and ears. But there’s absolutely no place one could hide oneself in that great barn of a room—and I suppose that’s where it—whatever ‘it’ is—must take place.”
Ginger sat up very straight, gave her head a kind of toss, rather like an energetic terrier, and said:
“There’s only one way to find out what does really happen. You’ve got to be a genuine client.”
I stared at her.
“A genuine client?”
“Yes. You or I, it doesn’t matter which, has got to want somebody put out of the way. One of us has got to go to Bradley and fix it up.”
“I don’t like it,” I said sharply.
“Why?”
“Well—it opens up dangerous possibilities.”
“For us?”
“Perhaps. But I was really thinking about the—victim. We’ve got to have a victim—we’ve got to give him a name. It can’t be just invention. They might check up—in fact, they’d almost certainly check up, don’t you agree?”
Ginger thought a minute and then nodded.
“Yes. The victim’s got to be a real person with a real address.”
“That’s what I don’t like,” I said.
“And we’ve got to have a real reason for getting rid of him.”
We were silent for a moment, considering this aspect of the situation.
“The person, whoever it was, would have to agree,” I said slowly. “It’s a lot to ask.”
“The whole setup has got to be good,” said Ginger, thinking it out. “But there’s one thing, you were absolutely