The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [83]
Twenty-four
Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative
“Look here, Lejeune, there are lots of things I want to know.”
The formalities over, I had got Lejeune to myself. We were sitting together with two large tankards of beer opposite us.
“Yes, Mr. Easterbrook? I gather it was a surprise to you.”
“It certainly was. My mind was set on Venables. You never gave me the least hint.”
“I couldn’t afford to give hints, Mr. Easterbrook. You have to play these things close to your chest. They’re tricky. The truth is we hadn’t a lot to go on. That’s why we had to stage the show in the way we did with Venables’s cooperation. We had to lead Osborne right up the garden path and then turn on him suddenly and hope to break him down. And it worked.”
“Is he mad?” I asked.
“I’d say he’s gone over the edge now. He wasn’t to begin with, of course, but it does something to you, you know. Killing people. It makes you feel powerful and larger than life. It makes you feel you’re God Almighty. But you’re not. You’re only a nasty bit of goods that’s been found out. And when that fact’s presented to you suddenly your ego just can’t stand it. You scream and you rant and you boast of what you’ve done and how clever you are. Well, you saw him.”
I nodded. “So Venables was in on the performance you put up,” I said. “Did he like the idea of cooperating?”
“It amused him, I think,” said Lejeune. “Besides, he was impertinent enough to say that one good turn deserves another.”
“And what did he mean by that cryptic remark?”
“Well, I shouldn’t be telling you this,” said Lejeune, “this is off the record. There was a big outbreak of bank robberies about eight years ago. The same technique every time. And they got away with it! The raids were cleverly planned by someone who took no part in the actual operation. That man got away with a lot of money. We may have had our suspicions who it was, but we couldn’t prove it. He was too clever for us. Especially on the financial angle. And he’s had the sense never to try and repeat his success. I’m not saying more. He was a clever crook but he wasn’t a murderer. No lives were lost.”
My mind went back to Zachariah Osborne. “Did you always suspect Osborne?” I asked. “Right from the beginning?”
“Well, he would draw attention to himself,” said Lejeune. “As I told him, if he’d only sat back and done nothing, we’d never have dreamed that the respectable pharmacist, Mr. Zachariah Osborne, had anything to do with the business. But it’s a funny thing, that’s just what murderers can’t do. There they are, sitting pretty, safe as houses. But they can’t let well alone. I’m sure I don’t know why.”
“The desire for death,” I suggested. “A variant of Thyrza Grey’s theme.”
“The sooner you forget all about Miss Thyrza Grey and the things she told you, the better,” said Lejeune severely. “No,” he said thoughtfully, “I think really it’s loneliness. The knowledge that you’re such a clever chap, but that there’s nobody you can talk to about it.”
“You haven’t told me when you started to suspect him,” I said.
“Well, straightaway he started telling lies. We asked for anyone who’d seen Father Gorman that night to communicate with us. Mr. Osborne communicated and the statement he made was a palpable lie. He’d seen a man following Father Gorman and he described the features of that man, but he couldn’t possibly have seen him across the street on a foggy night. An aquiline nose in profile he might have seen, but not an Adam’s apple. That was going too far. Of course, that lie might have been innocent enough. Mr. Osborne might just want to make himself important. Lots of people are like that. But it made me focus my attention on Mr. Osborne and he was really rather a curious person. At once he started to tell me a lot about himself. Very unwise of him. He gave me a picture of someone who had always wanted to be more important than he was. He’d not been content to go into his father’s old-fashioned business. He’d gone off and tried his fortunes on the stage, but he obviously hadn’t been a success.