Agatha Christie - Yowards Zero

"I'm well fed and housed," said Mary. "Thousands of women aren't even that. And really, Audrey, I am quite contented. I have" — a smile played for a moment round her lips — "my private distractions."

"Secret vices?" asked Audrey, smiling also.

"Oh, I plan things," said Mary vaguely. "In my mind, you know. And I like experimenting, sometimes — upon people. Just seeing, you know, if I can make them react to what I say in the way I mean."

"You sound almost sadistic, Mary. How little I really know you!"

"Oh, it's all quite harmless. Just a childish little amusement."

Audrey asked curiously: "Have you experimented on me?"

"No. You're the only person I have always found quite incalculable. I never know, you see, what you are thinking."

"Perhaps," said Audrey gravely, "that is just as well."

She shivered and Mary exclaimed: "You're cold."

"Yes. I think I will go and dress. After all, it is September."

Mary Aldin remained alone, staring at the reflection on the water. The tide was going out. She stretched herself out on the sand, closing her eyes.

They had had a good lunch at the hotel. It was still quite full, although it was past the height of the season. A queer mixed-looking lot of people. Oh, well, it had been a day out. Something to break the monotony of day following day. It had been a relief, too, to get away from that sense of tension, that strung-up atmosphere that there had been lately at Gull's Point. It hadn't been Audrey's fault, but Nevile —

Her thoughts broke up abruptly as Ted Latimer plumped himself down on the beach beside her.

"What have you done with Kay?" Mary asked.

Ted replied briefly: "She's been claimed by her legal owner."

Something in his tone made Mary Aldin sit up. She glanced across the stretch of shining golden sands to where Nevile and Kay were walking by the water's edge. Then she glanced quickly at the man beside her.

She had thought of him as nerveless, as queer, as dangerous, even. Now for the first time she got a glimpse of someone young and hurt. She thought: "He was in love with Kay — really in love with her — and then Nevile came and took her away…."

She said gently: "I hope you are enjoying yourself down here."

They were conventional words. Mary Aldin seldom used any words but conventional ones — that was her language. But her tone was an offer — for the first time — of friendliness, Ted Latimer responded to it.

"As much, probably, as I should enjoy myself anywhere."

Mary said: "I'm sorry."

"But you don't care a damn, really! I'm an outsider — and what does it matter what outsiders feel and think?"

She turned her head to look at this bitter and handsome young man.

He returned her look with one of defiance.

She said slowly, as one who makes a discovery: "I see. You don't like us."

He laughed shortly. "Did you expect me to?"

She said thoughtfully: "I suppose, you know, that I did expect just that. One takes, of course, too much for granted. One should be more humble. Yes, it would not have occurred to me that you would not like us. We have tried to make you welcome — as Kay's friend!"

"Yes— as Kay's friend!"

The interruption came with a quick venom.

Mary said with disarming sincerity: "I wish you would tell me — really I wish it — just why you dislike us? What have we done? What is wrong with us?"

Ted Latimer said, with a blistering emphasis on the one word: "Smug!"

"Smug?" Mary queried it without rancour, examining the charge with judicial appraisement.

"Yes," she admitted. "I see that we could seem like that."

"You are like that. You take all the good things of life for granted. You're happy and superior in your little roped-off enclosure shut off from the common herd. You look at people like me as though I were one of the animals outside!"

"I'm sorry," said Mary.

"It's true, isn't it?"

"No, not quite. We are stupid, perhaps, and unimaginative — but not malicious. I myself am conventional and superficially, I dare say, what you call smug. But really, you know, I'm quite human inside. I'm very sorry, this minute, because you are unhappy, and I wish I could do something about it."

"Well — if that's so — it's nice of you."

There was a pause, then Mary said gently: "Have you always been in love with Kay?"

"Pretty well."

"And she?"

"I thought so — until Strange came along."

Mary said gently: "And you're still in love with her?"

"I should think that was obvious."

After a moment or two, Mary said quietly: "Hadn't you better go away from here?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you are only letting yourself in for more unhappiness."

He looked at her and laughed.

"You're a nice creature," he said. "But you don't know much about the animals prowling about outside your little enclosure. Quite a lot of things may happen in the near future."

"What sort of things?" said Mary sharply.

He laughed. "Wait and see."

When Audrey had dressed she went along the beach and out along a jutting point of rocks, joining Thomas Royde, who was sitting there smoking a pipe, exactly opposite to Gull's Point, which stood white and serene on the opposite side of the river.

Thomas turned his head at Audrey's approach, but he did not move. She sat down beside him without speaking. They were silent with the comfortable silence of two people who know each other very well indeed.

"How near it looks!" said Audrey at last breaking the silence.

Thomas looked across at Gull's Point. "Yes, we could swim home."

"Not at this tide. There was a housemaid Camilla had once. She was an enthusiastic bather, used to swim across and back whenever the tide was right. It has to be high or low — but when it's running out it sweeps you right down to the mouth of the river. It did that to her one day — only luckily she kept her head and came ashore all right on Easter Point — only very exhausted."

"It doesn't say anything about its being dangerous here."

"It isn't this side. The current is the other side. It's deep there under the cliffs. There was a would-be suicide last year — threw himself off Stark Head — but he was caught by a tree half-way down the cliff and the coastguards got to him all right."

"Poor devil," said Thomas. "I bet he didn't thank them. Must be sickening to have made up your mind to get out of it all and then be saved. Makes a fellow feel a fool."

"Perhaps he's glad now," suggested Audrey dreamily.

She wondered vaguely where the man was now and what he was doing.

Thomas puffed away at his pipe. By turning his head very slightly he could look at Audrey. He noted her grave, absorbed face as she stared across the water. The long brown lashes that rested on the pure line of the cheek, the small shell-like ear.

That reminded him of something.

"Oh, by the way, I've got your ear-ring — the one you lost last night." His fingers delved into his pocket.

Audrey stretched out a hand. "Oh, good, where did you find it? On the terrace?"

"No. It was near the stairs. You must have lost it as you came down to dinner. I noticed you hadn't got it at dinner."

"I'm glad to have it back."

She took it. Thomas reflected that it was rather a large barbaric ear-ring for so small an ear. The ones she had on to-day were large, too.

He remarked: "You wear your ear-rings even when you bathe. Aren't you afraid of losing them?"

"Oh, these are very cheap things. I hate being without ear-rings because of this." She touched her left ear. Thomas remembered. "Oh, yes, that time old Bouncer bit you?" Audrey nodded.

They were silent, reliving a childish memory. Audrey Standish (as she then was), a long, spindle-legged child, putting her face down on old Bouncer, who had had a sore paw. A nasty bite he had given her. She had had to have a stitch put in it. Not that there was much to show now — just the tiniest little scar.