Unexpected Guest - Agatha Christie [4]
‘What, just because I came in through that window? If I hadn’t–’
‘But you did!’ Laura interrupted him.
‘Yes, I did,’ he agreed. ‘And consequently you’re for it. Is that what you think?’
She made no reply. ‘Here,’ he said as he handed her a cigarette and took one himself. ‘Now, let’s go back a little. You’ve hated your husband for a long time, and tonight he said something that just pushed you over the edge. You snatched up the gun that was lying beside–’ He stopped suddenly, staring at the gun on the table. ‘Why was he sitting here with a gun beside him, anyway? It’s hardly usual.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Laura. ‘He used to shoot at cats.’
Starkwedder looked at her, surprised. ‘Cats?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I suppose I shall have to do some explaining,’ said Laura resignedly.
Chapter 3
Starkwedder looked at her with a somewhat bemused expression. ‘Well?’ he prompted.
Laura took a deep breath. Then, staring straight ahead of her, she began to speak. ‘Richard used to be a big-game hunter,’ she said. ‘That was where we first met–in Kenya. He was a different sort of person then. Or perhaps his good qualities showed, and not his bad ones. He did have good qualities, you know. Generosity and courage. Supreme courage. He was a very attractive man to women.’
She looked up suddenly, seeming to be aware of Starkwedder for the first time. Returning her gaze, he lit her cigarette with his lighter, and then his own. ‘Go on,’ he urged her.
‘We married soon after we met,’ Laura continued. ‘Then, two years later, he had a terrible accident–he was mauled by a lion. He was lucky to escape alive, but he’s been a semi-cripple ever since, unable to walk properly.’ She leaned back, apparently more relaxed, and Starkwedder moved to a footstool, facing her.
Laura took a puff at her cigarette and then exhaled the smoke. ‘They say misfortune improves your character,’ she said. ‘It didn’t improve his. Instead, it developed all his bad points. Vindictiveness, a streak of sadism, drinking too much. He made life pretty impossible for everyone in this house, and we all put up with it because–oh, you know what one says. “So sad for poor Richard being an invalid.” We shouldn’t have put up with it, of course. I see that, now. It simply encouraged him to feel that he was different from other people, and that he could do as he chose without being called to account for it.’
She rose and went across to the table by the armchair to flick ash in the ashtray. ‘All his life,’ she continued, ‘shooting had been the thing Richard liked doing best. So, when we came to live in this house, every night after everyone else had gone to bed, he’d sit here’–she gestured towards the wheelchair–‘and Angell, his–well, valet and general factotum I suppose you’d call him–Angell would bring the brandy and one of Richard’s guns, and put them beside him. Then he’d have the french windows wide open, and he’d sit in here looking out, watching for the gleam of a cat’s eyes, or a stray rabbit, or a dog for that matter. Of course, there haven’t been so many rabbits lately. That disease–what d’you call it?–myxomatosis or whatever–has been killing them off. But he shot quite a lot of cats.’ She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘He shot them in the daytime, too. And birds.’
‘Didn’t the neighbours ever complain?’ Starkwedder asked her.
‘Oh, of course they did,’ Laura replied as she returned to sit on the sofa. ‘We’ve only lived here for a couple of years, you know. Before that, we lived on the east coast, in Norfolk. One or two household pets were victims of Richard’s there, and we had a lot of complaints. That’s really why we came to live here. It’s very isolated, this house. We’ve only got one neighbour for miles around. But there are plenty of squirrels and birds and stray cats.’
She paused for a moment, and then continued. ‘The main trouble in Norfolk was really because a woman came to call at the house one day, collecting subscriptions for the village fête. Richard