Towards Zero - Agatha Christie [72]
“I’d got to do my duty. I knew that. We police officers have to act on evidence—not on what we feel and think. But I can tell you that at that minute I prayed for a miracle—because I didn’t see that anything but a miracle was going to help that poor lady.
“Well, I got my miracle. Got it right away!
“Mr. MacWhirter, here, turned up with his story.”
He paused.
“Mr. MacWhirter, will you repeat what you told me up at the house?”
MacWhirter turned. He spoke in short sharp sentences that carried conviction just because of their conciseness.
He told of his rescue from the cliff the preceding January and of his wish to revisit the scene. He went on:
“I went up there on Monday night. I stood there lost in my own thoughts. It must have been, I suppose, in the neighbourhood of eleven o’clock. I looked across at that house on the point—Gull’s Point, as I know it now to be.”
He paused and then went on.
“There was a rope hanging from a window of that house into the sea. I saw a man climbing up that rope….”
Just a moment elapsed before they took it in. Mary Aldin cried out:
“Then it was an outsider after all? It was nothing to do with any of us. It was an ordinary burglar!”
“Not quite so fast,” said Battle. “It was someone who came from the other side of the river, yes, since he swam across. But someone in the house had to have the rope ready for him, therefore someone inside must have been concerned.”
He went on slowly:
“And we know of someone who was on the other side of the river that night—someone who wasn’t seen between ten thirty and a quarter past eleven, and who might have been swimming over and back. Someone who might have had a friend on this side of the water.”
He added: “Eh, Mr. Latimer?”
Ted took a step backward. He cried out shrilly:
“But I can’t swim! Everybody knows I can’t swim. Kay, tell them I can’t swim.”
“Of course Ted can’t swim!” Kay said.
“Is that so?” asked Battle pleasantly.
He moved along the boat as Ted moved in the other direction. There was some clumsy movement and a splash.
“Dear me,” said Superintendent Battle in deep concern. “Mr. Latimer’s gone overboard.”
His hand closed like a vice on Nevile’s arm as the latter was preparing to jump in after him.
“No, no, Mr. Strange. No need for you to get yourself wet. There are two of my men handy—fishing in the dinghy there.” He peered over the side of the boat. “It’s quite true,” he said with interest. “He can’t swim. It’s all right. They’ve got him. I’ll apologize presently, but really there’s only one way to make sure that a person can’t swim and that’s to throw them in and watch. You see, Mr. Strange, I like to be thorough. I had to eliminate Mr. Latimer first. Mr. Royde here has got a groggy arm, he couldn’t do any rope climbing.”
Battle’s voice took on a purring quality.
“So that brings us to you, doesn’t it, Mr. Strange? A good athlete, a mountain climber, a swimmer and all that. You went over on the ten thirty ferry all right but no one can swear to seeing you at the Easterhead Hotel until a quarter past eleven in spite of your story of having been looking for Mr. Latimer then.”
Nevile jerked his arm away. He threw back his head and laughed.
“You suggest that I swam across the river and climbed up a rope—”
“Which you had left ready hanging from your window,” said Battle.
“Killed Lady Tressilian and swam back again? Why should I do such a fantastic thing? And who laid all those clues against me? I suppose I laid them against myself?”
“Exactly,” said Battle. “And not half a bad idea either.”
“And why should I want to kill Camilla Tressilian?”