The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie [69]
‘What a dreadful person you are,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘You always seem to know. Yes, I was thinking of something. But I don’t really know whether I ought to say it or not.’
‘You must say it,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Whatever your scruples, it mustn’t be kept back.’
‘Well, it was just this,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘One evening—in fact the very evening before the tragedy—I happened to go out on the terrace before dinner. The window in the drawing-room was open. And as it chanced I saw Jerry Lorimer and Maud Wye. He was—well—kissing her. Of course I didn’t know whether it was just a sort of chance affair, or whether—well, I mean, one can’t tell. I knew Sir Ambrose never had really liked Jerry Lorimer—so perhaps he knew he was that kind of young man. But one thing I am sure of: that girl, Maud Wye, was really fond of him. You’d only to see her looking at him when she was off guard. And I think, too, they were really better suited than he and Sylvia were.’
‘I am going to ask a question quickly, before Miss Marple can,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I want to know whether, after the tragedy, Jerry Lorimer married Maud Wye?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘He did. Six months afterwards.’
‘Oh! Scheherezade, Scheherezade,’ said Sir Henry. ‘To think of the way you told us this story at first! Bare bones indeed—and to think of the amount of flesh we’re finding on them now.’
‘Don’t speak so ghoulishly,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘And don’t use the word flesh. Vegetarians always do. They say, “I never eat flesh” in a way that puts you right off your little beefsteak. Mr Curle was a vegetarian. He used to eat some peculiar stuff that looked like bran for breakfast. Those elderly stooping men with beards are often faddy. They have patent kinds of underwear, too.’
‘What on earth, Dolly,’ said her husband, ‘do you know about Mr Curle’s underwear?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Bantry with dignity. ‘I was just making a guess.’
‘I’ll amend my former statement,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I’ll say instead that the dramatis personae in your problem are very interesting. I’m beginning to see them all—eh, Miss Marple?’
‘Human nature is always interesting, Sir Henry. And it’s curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way.’
‘Two women and a man,’ said Sir Henry. ‘The old eternal human triangle. Is that the base of our problem here? I rather fancy it is.’
Dr Lloyd cleared his throat.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said rather diffidently. ‘Do you say, Mrs Bantry, that you yourself were ill?’
‘Was I not! So was Arthur! So was everyone!’
‘That’s just it—everyone,’ said the doctor. ‘You see what I mean? In Sir Henry’s story which he told us just now, one man shot another—he didn’t have to shoot the whole room full.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Jane. ‘Who shot who?’
‘I’m saying that whoever planned this thing went about it very curiously, either with a blind belief in chance, or else with an absolutely reckless disregard for human life. I can hardly believe there is a man capable of deliberately poisoning eight people with the object of removing one amongst them.’
‘I see your point,’ said Sir Henry, thoughtfully. ‘I confess I ought to have thought of that.’
‘And mightn’t he have poisoned himself too?’ asked Jane.
‘Was anyone absent from dinner that night?’ asked Miss Marple.
Mrs Bantry shook her head.
‘Everyone was there.’
‘Except Mr Lorimer, I suppose, my dear. He wasn’t staying in the house, was he?’
‘No; but he was dining there that evening,’ said Mrs Bantry.
‘Oh!’ said Miss Marple in a changed voice. ‘That makes all the difference in the world.’
She frowned vexedly to herself.
‘I’ve been very stupid,’ she murmured. ‘Very stupid indeed.’
‘I confess your point worries me, Lloyd,’ said Sir Henry.
‘How ensure that the girl, and the girl only, should get a fatal dose?’
‘You can’t,’ said the doctor. ‘That brings me to the point I’m going to make. Supposing the girl was not the intended victim after all?’
‘What?’
‘In all cases of food poisoning, the result is very uncertain. Several people share a dish. What happens? One or two are slightly