Towards Zero - Agatha Christie [71]
“As I said, I’ve got an experiment to make. Mr. MacWhirter is waiting down at the ferry. We’re to join him there in ten minutes’ time. We shall be going out in a motor launch, so the ladies had better wrap up warmly. In ten minutes, please.”
He might have been a stage manager ordering a company on to the stage. He took no notice at all of their puzzled faces.
ZERO HOUR
I
It was chilly on the water and Kay hugged the little fur jacket she was wearing closer round her.
The launch chugged down the river below Gull’s Point, and then swung round into the little bay that divided Gull’s Point from the frowning mass of Stark Head.
Once or twice a question began to be asked, but each time Superintendent Battle held up a large hand rather like a cardboard ham, intimating that the time had not come yet. So the silence was unbroken save for the rushing of the water past them. Kay and Ted stood together looking down into the water. Nevile was slumped down, his legs stuck out. Mary Aldin and Thomas Royde sat up in the bows. And one and all glanced from time to time curiously at the tall aloof figure of MacWhirter by the stern. He looked at none of them, but stood with his back turned and his shoulders hunched up.
Not until they were under the frowning shadow of Stark Head did Battle throttle down the engine and begin to speak his piece. He spoke without self-consciousness and in a tone that was more reflective than anything else.
“This has been a very odd case—one of the oddest I’ve ever known, and I’d like to say something on the subject of murder generally. What I’m going to say is not original—actually I overheard young Mr. Daniels, the KC, say something of the kind, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d got it from someone else—he’s a trick of doing that!
“It’s this! When you read the account of a murder—or say, a fiction story based on murder, you usually begin with the murder itself. That’s all wrong. The murder begins a long time beforehand. A murder is the culmination of a lot of different circumstances, all converging at a given moment at a given point. People are brought into it from different parts of the globe and for unforeseen reasons. Mr. Royde is here from Malaya. Mr. MacWhirter is here because he wanted to revisit a spot where he once tried to commit suicide. The murder itself is the end of the story. It’s Zero Hour.”
He paused.
“It’s Zero Hour now.”
Five faces were turned to him—only five, for MacWhirter did not turn his head. Five puzzled faces.
Mary Aldin said:
“You mean that Lady Tressilian’s death was the culmination of a long train of circumstances?”
“No, Miss Aldin, not Lady Tressilian’s death. Lady Tressilian’s death was only incidental to the main object of the murderer. The murder I am talking of is the murder of Audrey Strange.”
He listened to the sharp indrawing of breath. He wondered if, suddenly, someone was afraid….
“This crime was planned quite a long time ago—probably as early as last winter. It was planned down to the smallest detail. It had one object, and one object only: that Audrey Strange should be hanged by the neck till she was dead….
“It was cunningly planned by someone who thought themselves very clever. Murderers are usually vain. There was first the superficial unsatisfactory evidence against Nevile Strange which we were meant to see through. But having been presented with one lot of faked evidence, it was not considered likely that we should consider a second edition of the same thing. And yet, if you come to look at it, all the evidence against Audrey Strange could be faked. The weapon taken from her fireplace, her gloves—the left-hand glove dipped in blood—hidden in the ivy outside her window. The powder she uses dusted on the inside of a coat collar, and a few hairs placed there too. Her own fingerprint, occurring quite naturally on a roll of adhesive plaster taken from her room. Even the left-handed nature of the blow.
“And there was the final damning evidence of Mrs. Strange herself—I don’t believe there’s one of you (except the one who