The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie [74]
‘Putting all personal considerations on one side, he’s amore likely starter than Jim?’ said Enderby.
Emily nodded.
‘Much more likely. He would carry a thing through well—because he would never lose his nerve.’
‘Honestly, Emily, do you think he did it?’
‘I—I don’t know. He fulfils the conditions—the only person who does.’
‘What do you mean by fulfils the conditions?’
‘Well, (1) Motive.’ She ticked off the items on her fingers. ‘The same motive. Twenty thousand pounds. (2) Opportunity. Nobody knows where he was on Friday afternoon, and if he was anywhere that he could say—well—surely he would say it? So we assume that he was actually in the neighbourhood of Hazelmoor on Friday.’
‘They haven’t found anyone who saw him in Exhampton,’ Charles pointed out, ‘and he’s a fairly noticeable person.’
Emily shook her head scornfully.
‘He wasn’t in Exhampton. Don’t you see, Charles, if he committed the murder, he planned it beforehand. It’s only poor innocent Jim who came down like a mug and stayed there. There’s Lydford and Chagford or perhaps Exeter. He might have walked over from Lydford—that’s a main road and the snow wouldn’t have been impassable. It would have been pretty good going.’
‘I suppose we ought to make inquiries all round.’
‘The police are doing that,’ said Emily, ‘and they’ll do it a lot better than we shall. All public things are much better done by the police. It’s private and personal things like listening to Mrs Curtis and picking up a hint from Miss Percehouse and watching the Willetts—that’s where we score.’
‘Or don’t, as the case may be,’ said Charles.
‘To go back to Brian Pearson fulfilling the conditions,’ said Emily. ‘We’ve done two, motive and opportunity, and there’s the third—the one that in a way I think is the most important of all.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, I have felt from the beginning that we couldn’t ignore that queer business of the table-turning. I have tried to look at it as logically and clear-sightedly as possible. There are just three solutions of it. (1) That it was supernatural. Well, of course, that may be so, but personally I am ruling it out. (2) That it was deliberate—someone did it on purpose, but as one can’t arrive at any conceivable reason, we can rule that out also. (3) Accidental. Someone gave himself away without meaning to do so—indeed quite against his will. An unconscious piece of self-revelation. If so, someone among those six people either knew definitely that Captain Trevelyan was going to be killed at a certain time that afternoon, or that someone was having an interview with him from which violence might result. None of those six people could have been the actual murderer, but one of them must have been in collusion with the murderer. There’s no link between Major Burnaby and anybody else, or Mr Rycroft and anybody else, or Ronald Garfield and anybody else, but when we come to the Willetts it’s different. There’s a link between Violet Willett and Brian Pearson. Those two are on very intimate terms and that girl was all on the jump after the murder.’
‘You think she knew?’ said Charles.
‘She or her mother—one or other of them.’
‘There’s one person you haven’t mentioned,’ said Charles. ‘Mr Duke.’
‘I know,’ said Emily. ‘It’s queer. He’s the one person we know absolutely nothing about. I’ve tried to see him twice and failed. There seems no connection between him and Captain Trevelyan, or between him and any of Captain Trevelyan’s relations, there’s absolutely nothing to connect him with the case in any way, and yet—’
‘Well?’ said Charles Enderby as Emily paused.
‘And yet we met Inspector Narracott coming out of his cottage. What does Inspector Narracott know about him that we don’t? I wish I knew.’
‘You think—’
‘Supposing Duke is a suspicious character and the police know it. Supposing Captain Trevelyan had found out something about Duke. He was particular about his tenants, remember,