Агата Кристи - Зло под солнцем / Evil Under the Sun

Her voice came quick and uneven. «Excuse me, Madam, but I’m worried about the young lady. About Miss Marshall. I took her some tea just now and I couldn’t get her to wake and she looks so – so queer somehow.»

Christine looked round helplessly. Poirot was at her side in a moment. His hand under her elbow he said quietly:

«We will go up and see.»

They hurried up the stairs and along the passage to Linda’s room. One glance at her was enough to tell them both that something was very wrong. She had an odd colour and her breathing was hardly perceptible. Poirot’s hand went to her pulse. At the same time he noticed an envelope stuck up against the lamp on the bedside table. It was addressed to himself. Captain Marshall came quickly into the room.

He said: «What’s this about Linda? What’s the matter with her?»

A small frightened sob came from Christine Redfern. Hercule Poirot turned from the bed.

He said to Marshall: «Get a doctor – as quick as you possibly can. But I’m afraid – very much afraid – it may be too late.»

He took the letter with his name on it and ripped open the envelope. Inside were a few lines of writing in Linda’s prim schoolgirl hand.

«I think this is the best way out. Ask Father to try and forgive me. I killed Arlena. I thought I should be glad – but I’m not. I am very sorry for everything…»

They were assembled in the lounge – Marshall, the Redferns, Rosamund Darnley and Hercule Poirot. They sat there silent – waiting… The door opened and Dr Neasdon came in. He said curdy:

«I’ve done all I can. She may pull through – but I’m bound to tell you that there’s not much hope.»

He paused. Marshall, his face stiff, his eyes a cold frosty blue, asked:

«How did she get hold of the stuff?»

Neasdon opened the door again and beckoned. The chambermaid came into the room. She had been crying.

Neasdon said: «Just tell us again what you saw?»

Sniffing, the girl said:

«I never thought – I never thought for a minute there was anything wrong – though the young lady did seem rather strange about it.» A slight gesture of impatience from the doctor started her off again. «She was in the other lady’s room. Mrs Redfern’s. Your room, Madam. Over at the washstand and she took up a little bottle. She did give a bit of a jump when I came in and I thought it was queer her taking things from your room, but then of course it might be something she’d lent you. She just said: ‘Oh, this is what I’m looking for – ’ and went out.»

Christine said almost in a whisper: «My sleeping tablets.»

The doctor said brusquely: «How did she know about them?»

Christine said: «I gave her one. The night after it happened. She told me she couldn’t sleep. She – I remember her saying – ‘Will one be enough?’ – and I said, ‘Oh, yes, they were very strong’ – that I’d been cautioned never to take more than two at most.»

Neasdon nodded.

«She made pretty sure,» he said. «Took six of them.»

Christine sobbed again.

«Oh, dear, I feel it’s my fault. I should have kept them locked up.»

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

«It might have been wiser, Mrs Redfern.»

Christine said despairingly: «She’s dying – and it’s my fault…»

Kenneth Marshall stirred in his chair.

He said: «No, you can’t blame yourself. Linda knew what she was doing. She took them deliberately. Perhaps – perhaps it was best.»

He looked down at the crumpled note in his hand – the note that Poirot had silently handed to him.

Rosamund Darnley cried out: «I don’t believe it. I don’t believe Linda killed her. Surely it’s impossible – on the evidence!»

Christine said eagerly: «Yes, she can’t have done it! She must have got overwrought and imagined it all.»

The door opened and Colonel Weston came in.

He said: «What’s all this I hear?»

Dr Neasdon look the note from Marshall’s hand and handed it to the Chief Constable. The latter read it. He exclaimed incredulously:

«What? But this is nonsense – absolute nonsense! It’s impossible.» He repeated with assurance. «Impossible! Isn’t it, Poirot?»

Hercule Poirot moved for the first time.

He said in a slow sad voice: «No, I’m afraid it is not impossible.»

Christine Redfern said: «But I was with her, M. Poirot. I was with her up to a quarter to twelve. I told the police so.»

Poirot said: «Your evidence gave her an alibi – yes. But what was your evidence based on? It was based on Linda Marshall’s own wrist-watch. You did not know of your own knowledge that it was a quarter to twelve when you left her – you only know that she told you so. You said yourself the time seemed to have gone very fast.»

She stared at him stricken.

He said: «Now think, Madame, when you left the beach, did you walk back to the hotel fast or slow?»

«I – well, fairly slowly, I think.»

«Do you remember much about that walk back?»

«Not very much, I’m afraid. I – I was thinking.»

Poirot said: «I am sorry to ask you this, but will you tell just what you were thinking about during that walk?»

Christine flushed.

«I suppose – if it is necessary – I was considering the question of – of leaving here. Just going away without telling my husband. I – I was very unhappy just then, you see.»

Patrick Redfern cried: «Oh, Christine! I know… I know…»

Poirot’s precise voice cut in:

«Exactly. You were concerned over taking a step of some importance. You were, I should say, deaf and blind to your surroundings. You probably walked very slowly and occasionally stopped for some minutes whilst you puzzled things out.»

Christine nodded.

«How clever you are. It was just like that. I woke up from a kind of dream just outside the hotel and hurried in thinking I should be very late but when I saw the clock in the lounge I realized I had plenty of time.»

Hercule Poirot said again: «Exactly.»

He turned to Marshall:

«I must now describe to you certain things I found in your daughter’s room after the murder. In the grate was a large blob of melted wax, some burnt hair, fragments of cardboard and paper and an ordinary household pin. The paper and the cardboard might not be relevant but the other three things were suggestive – particularly when I found tucked away in the bookshelves a volume from the local library here dealing with witchcraft and magic. It opened very easily at a certain page. On that page were described various methods of causing death by moulding in wax a figure supposed to represent the victim. This was then slowly roasted till it melted away – or alternatively you would pierce the wax figure to the heart with a pin. Death of the victim would ensue. I later heard from Mrs Redfern that Linda Marshall had been out early that morning and had bought a packet of candles and had seemed embarrassed when her purchase was revealed. I had no doubt what had happened after that. Linda had made a crude figure of the candle wax – possibly adorning it with a snip of Arlena’s red hair to give the magic force – had then stabbed it to the heart with a pin and finally melted the figure away by lighting strips of cardboard under it.

«It was crude, childish, superstitious, but it revealed one thing: the desire to kill. Was there any possibility that there had been more than a desire? Could Linda Marshall have actually killed her stepmother? At first sight it seemed as though she had a perfect alibi – but in actuality, as I have just pointed out, the time evidence was supplied by Linda herself. She could easily have declared the time to be a quarter of an hour later than it really was.

«It was quite possible once Mrs Redfern had left the beach for Linda to follow her up and then strike across the narrow neck of land to the ladder, hurry down it, meet her stepmother there, strangle her and return up the ladder before the boat containing Miss Brewster and Patrick Redfern came in sight. She could then return to Gull Cove, take her bathe and return to the hotel at her leisure.

«But that entailed two things. She must have definite knowledge that Arlena Marshall would be at Pixy Cove and she must be physically capable of the deed. Well, the first was quite possible – if Linda Marshall had written a note to Arlena herself in some one else’s name. As to the second, Linda has very large strong hands. They are as large as a man’s. As to the strength she is at the age when one is prone to be mentally unbalanced. Mental derangement often is accompanied by unusual strength. There was one other small point. Linda Marshall’s mother had actually been accused and tried for murder.»

Kenneth Marshall lifted his head.

He said fiercely: «She was also acquitted.»

«She was acquitted,» Poirot agreed.

Marshall said: «And I’ll tell you this, M. Poirot. Ruth – my wife – was innocent. That I know with complete and absolute certainty. In the intimacy of our life I could not have been deceived. She was an innocent victim of circumstance.» He paused: «And I don’t believe that Linda killed Arlena. It’s ridiculous – absurd!»

Poirot said: «Do you believe that letter, then, to be a forgery?»

Marshall held out his hand for it and Weston gave it to him. Marshall studied it attentively.

«No,» he said unwillingly. «I believe Linda did write this.»

Poirot said: «Then if she wrote it, there are only two explanations. Either she wrote it in all good faith, knowing herself to be the murderess or – or, I say – she wrote it deliberately to shield someone else, someone whom she feared was suspected.»

Kenneth Marshall said: «You mean me?»

«It is possible, is it not?»

Marshall considered for a moment or two, then he said quietly:

«No, I think this idea is absurd. Linda may have realized that I was regarded with suspicion at first. But she knew definitely by now that that was over and done with – that the police had accepted my alibi and turned their attention elsewhere.»

Poirot said: «And supposing that it was not so much that she thought that you were suspected as that she knew you were guilty.»

Marshall started at him. He gave a short laugh.

«That’s absurd.»

Poirot said: «I wonder. There are, you know, several possibilities about Mrs Marshall’s death. There is the theory that she was being blackmailed, that she went that morning to meet the blackmailer and that the blackmailer killed her. There is the theory that Pixy Cove and Cave were being used for drug-running and that she was killed because she accidentally learned something about that. The is a third possibility – that she was killed by a religious maniac. And there is a fourth possibility – you stood to gain a lot of money by your wife’s death, Captain Marshall?»

«I’ve just told you – »

«Yes, yes – I agree that it is impossible that you could have killed your wife – if you were acting alone. But supposing someone helped you?»

«What the devil do you mean?»

The quiet man was roused at last. He half rose from his chair. His voice was menacing. There was a hard angry light in his eyes.

Poirot said: «I mean that this is not a crime that was committed single-handed. Two people were in it. It is quite true that you could not have typed that letter and at the same time gone to the cove – but there would have been time for you to have jotted down that letter in shorthand – and for someone else to have typed it in your room while you yourself were absent on your murderous errand.»

Hercule Poirot looked towards Rosamund Darnley.