Towards Zero - Agatha Christie [74]
“I told myself I was going mad—but I couldn’t help it. I felt I’d do anything in the world to get away! And then Adrian came and told me he loved me, and I thought it would be wonderful to go away with him, and he said….”
She stopped.
“You know what happened? I went off to meet Adrian—he never came…he was killed…I felt as though Nevile had managed it somehow.”
“Perhaps he did,” said Battle.
Audrey turned a startled face to him.
“Oh, do you think so?”
“We’ll never know now. Motor accidents can be arranged. Don’t brood on it, though, Mrs. Strange. As likely as not, it just happened naturally.”
“I—I was all broken up. I went back to the Rectory—Adrian’s home. We were going to have written to his mother, but as she didn’t know about us, I thought I wouldn’t tell her and give her pain. And Nevile came almost at once. He was very nice—and—kind—and all the time I talked to him I was quite sick with fear! He said no one need know about Adrian, that I could divorce him on evidence he would send me and that he was going to remarry afterwards. I felt so thankful. I knew he had thought Kay attractive and I hoped that everything would turn out right and that I should get over this queer obsession of mine. I still thought it must be me.
“But I couldn’t get rid of it—quite. I never felt I’d really escaped. And then I met Nevile in the Park one day and he explained that he did so want me and Kay to be friends and suggested that we should all come here in September. I couldn’t refuse, how could I? After all the kind things he’d done.”
“‘Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly,’” remarked Superintendent Battle.
Audrey shivered.
“Yes, just that….”
“Very clever he was about that,” said Battle. “Protested so loudly to everyone that it was his idea, that everyone at once got the impression that it wasn’t.”
Audrey said:
“And then I got here—and it was like a kind of nightmare. I knew something awful was going to happen—I knew Nevile meant it to happen—and that it was to happen to me. But I didn’t know what it was. I think, you know, that I nearly did go off my head! I was just paralysed with fright—like you are in a dream when something’s going to happen and you can’t move….”
“I’ve always thought,” said Superintendent Battle, “that I’d like to have seen a snake fascinate a bird so that it can’t fly away—but now I’m not so sure.”
Audrey went on:
“Even when Lady Tressilian was killed, I didn’t realize what it meant. I was puzzled. I didn’t even suspect Nevile. I knew he didn’t care about money—it was absurd to think he’d kill her in order to inherit fifty thousand pounds.
“I thought over and over again about Mr. Treves and the story he had told that evening. Even then I didn’t connect it with Nevile. Treves had mentioned some physical peculiarity by which he could recognize the child of long ago. I’ve got a scar on my ear but I don’t think anyone else has any sign that you’d notice.”
Battle said: “Miss Aldin has a lock of white hair. Thomas Royde has a stiff arm which might not have been only the result of an earthquake. Mr. Ted Latimer has rather an odd-shaped skull. And Nevile Strange—” He paused.
“Surely there was no physical peculiarity about Nevile?”
“Oh yes, there was. His left-hand little finger is shorter than his right. That’s very unusual, Mrs. Strange—very unusual indeed.”
“So that was it?”
“That was it.”
“And Nevile hung that sign on the lift?”
“Yes. Nipped down there and back whilst Royde and Latimer were giving the old boy drinks. Clever and simple—doubt if we could ever prove that was murder.”
Audrey shivered again.
“Now, now,” said Battle. “It’s all over now, my dear. Go on talking.”
“You’re very clever…I haven’t talked so much for years!”
“No! That’s what’s been wrong. When did it first dawn on you what Master Nevile’s game was?”
“I don’t know exactly. It came to me all at once. He himself had been cleared and that left all of us. And then, suddenly, I saw him looking at me—a sort of gloating look. And I knew!