Towards Zero - Agatha Christie [68]
“Do you mind, old fellow? This is all rather private.”
“I’m afraid I don’t care about that. You see, I heard a name outside.” He paused. “Audrey’s name.”
“And what the Hell has Audrey’s name got to do with you?” demanded Nevile, his temper rising.
“Well, what has it to do with you if it comes to that? I haven’t said anything definite to Audrey, but I came here meaning to ask her to marry me, and I think she knows it. What’s more, I mean to marry her.”
Superintendent Battle coughed. Nevile turned to him with a start.
“Sorry, Superintendent. This interruption—”
Battle said:
“It doesn’t matter to me, Mr. Strange. I’ve got one more question to ask you. That dark blue coat you wore at dinner the night of the murder, it’s got fair hairs inside the collar and on the shoulders? Do you know how they got there?”
“I suppose they’re my hairs.”
“Oh no, they’re not yours, sir. They’re a lady’s hairs, and there’s a red hair on the sleeve.”
“I suppose that’s my wife’s—Kay’s. The others, you are suggesting, are Audrey’s. Very likely they are. I caught my cuff button in her hair one night outside on the terrace, I remember.”
“In that case,” murmured Inspector Leach, “the fair hair would be on the cuff.”
“What the devil are you suggesting?” cried Nevile.
“There’s a trace of powder, too, inside the coat collar,” said Battle. “Primavera Naturelle No. 1—a very pleasant-scented powder and expensive—but it’s no good telling me that you use it, Mr. Strange, because I shan’t believe you. And Mrs. Strange uses Orchid Sun Kiss. Mrs. Audrey Strange does use Primavera Naturelle No. 1.”
“What are you suggesting?” repeated Nevile.
Battle leaned forward.
“I’m suggesting that—on some occasion Mrs. Audrey Strange wore that coat. It’s the only reasonable way the hair and the powder could get where it did. Then you’ve seen that glove I produced just now? It’s her glove all right. That was the right hand, here’s the left.” He drew it out of his pocket and put it down on the table. It was crumpled and stained with rusty brown patches.
Nevile said with a note of fear in his voice: “What’s that on it?”
“Blood, Mr. Strange,” said Battle firmly. “And you’ll note this, it’s the left hand. Now Mrs. Audrey Strange is left-handed. I noted that first thing when I saw her sitting with her coffee cup in her right hand and her cigarette in her left at the breakfast table. And the pen tray on her writing table had been shifted to the left-hand side. It all fits in. The knob from her grate, the gloves outside her window, the hair and powder on the coat. Lady Tressilian was struck on the right temple—but the position of the bed made it impossible for anyone to have stood on the other side of it. It follows that to strike Lady Tressilian a blow with the right hand would be a very awkward thing to do—but it’s the natural way to strike for a left-handed person….”
Nevile laughed scornfully.
“Are you suggesting that Audrey—Audrey would make all these elaborate preparations and strike down an old lady whom she had known for years in order to get her hands on that old lady’s money?”
Battle shook his head.
“I’m suggesting nothing of the sort. I’m sorry, Mr. Strange, you’ve got to understand just how things are. This crime, first, last, and all the time was directed against you. Ever since you left her, Audrey Strange has been brooding over the possibilities of revenge. In the end she has become mentally unbalanced. Perhaps she was never mentally very strong. She thought, perhaps, of killing you but that wasn’t enough. She thought at last of getting you hanged for murder. She chose an evening when she knew you had quarrelled with Lady Tressilian. She took the coat from your bedroom and wore it when she struck the old lady down so that it should be bloodstained. She put your niblick on the floor, knowing we would find your fingerprints on it, and smeared blood and hair on the head of the club. It was she who instilled into your mind the idea of coming here when she was here. And the thing that saved you was the one thing she couldn’t count on—the fact that