The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie [77]
‘I don’t think he could have walked back again. Remember the snow started to fall about half past six. Anyway, you’re not accusing Elmer, are you?’
‘No,’ said Emily, ‘though, of course, he might be a homicidal maniac.’
‘Hush,’ said Charles. ‘You’ll hurt his feelings if he hears you.’
‘At any rate,’ said Emily, ‘you can’t say definitely that he couldn’t have murdered Captain Trevelyan.’
‘Almost,’ said Charles. ‘He couldn’t walk to Exhampton and back without all Sittaford knowing about it and saying it was queer.’
‘It certainly is a place where everyone knows everything,’ agreed Emily.
‘Exactly,’ said Charles, ‘and that’s why I say that everyone in Sittaford is out of it. The only ones that weren’t at the Willetts—Miss Percehouse and Captain Wyatt are invalids. They couldn’t go ploughing through snowstorms. And dear old Curtis and Mrs C. If any of them did it, they must have gone comfortably to Exhampton for the week-end and come back when it was all over.’
Emily laughed.
‘You couldn’t be absent from Sittaford for the week-end without its being noticed, certainly,’ she said.
‘Curtis would notice the silence if Mrs C was,’ said Enderby.
‘Of course,’ said Emily, ‘the person it ought to be is Abdul. It would be in a book. He’d be a Lascar really, and Captain Trevelyan would have thrown his favourite brother overboard in a mutiny—something like that.’
‘I decline to believe,’ said Charles, ‘that that wretched depressed-looking native ever murdered anybody.
‘I know,’ he said suddenly.
‘What?’ said Emily eagerly.
‘The blacksmith’s wife. The one who’s expecting her eighth. The intrepid woman despite her condition walked all the way to Exhampton and batted him one with the sandbag.’
‘And why, pray?’
‘Because, of course, although the blacksmith was the father of the preceding seven, Captain Trevelyan was the father of her coming che-ild.’
‘Charles,’ said Emily. ‘Don’t be indelicate.
‘And anyway,’ she added, ‘it would be the blacksmith who did it, not her. A really good case there. Think how that brawny arm could wield a sandbag! And his wife would never notice his absence with seven children to look after. She wouldn’t have time to notice a mere man.’
‘This is degenerating into mere idiocy,’ said Charles.
‘It is rather,’ agreed Emily. ‘Counting losers hasn’t been a great success.’
‘What about you?’ said Charles.
‘Me?’
‘Where were you when the crime was committed?’
‘How extraordinary! I never thought of that. I was in London, of course. But I don’t know that I could prove it. I was alone in my flat.’
‘There you are,’ said Charles. ‘Motive and everything. Your young man coming into twenty thousand pounds, what more do you want?’
‘You are clever, Charles,’ said Emily. ‘I can see that really I’m a most suspicious character. I never thought of it before.’
Chapter 27
Narracott Acts
Two mornings later Emily was seated in Inspector Narracott’s office. She had come over from Sittaford that morning.
Inspector Narracott looked at her appraisingly. He admired Emily’s pluck, her courageous determination not to give in and her resolute cheerfulness. She was a fighter, and Inspector Narracott admired fighters. It was his private opinion that she was a great deal too good for Jim Pearson, even if that young man was innocent of the murder.
‘It’s generally understood in books,’ he said, ‘that the police are intent on having a victim and don’t in the least care if that victim is innocent or not as long as they have enough evidence to convict him. That’s not the truth, Miss Trefusis, it’s only the guilty man we want.’
‘Do you honestly believe Jim to be guilty, Inspector Narracott?’
‘I can’t give you an official answer to that, Miss Trefusis. But I’ll tell you this—that we are examining not only the evidence against him but the evidence against other people very carefully.’
‘You mean against his brother—Brian?’
‘A very unsatisfactory gentleman, Mr Brian Pearson. Refused to answer questions or to give any information about himself, but I think—’ Inspector Narracott’s slow Devonshire smile widened,