Agatha Christie - The Unexpected Guest

'Be careful,' said Laura, going across to the little window in the alcove and looking out. 'He may be listening to us.'

'Who is he?' asked Farrar. 'Do you know him?'

Laura came back to the centre of the room. 'No. No, I don't know him,' she told Farrar. 'He – he had an accident with his car, and he came here last night. Just after –'

Julian Farrar touched her hand which rested on the back of the sofa. 'It's all right, Laura. You know that I'll do everything I can.'

'Julian – fingerprints,' Laura gasped.

'What fingerprints?'

'On that table. On that table there, and on the pane of glass. Are they – yours?'

Farrar removed his hand from hers, indicating that Starkwedder was again walking along the terrace outside. Without turning to the window, Laura moved away from him, saying loudly, 'It's very kind of you, Julian, and I'm sure there will be a lot of business things you can help us with.'

Starkwedder was pacing about, outside on the terrace. When he had moved out of sight, Laura turned to face Julian Farrar again. 'Are those fingerprints yours, Julian? Think.'

Farrar considered for a moment. Then, 'On the table – yes – they might have been.'

'Oh God!' Laura cried. 'What shall we do?'

Starkwedder could now be glimpsed again, walking back and forth along the terrace just outside the windows. Laura puffed at her cigarette, 'The police think it's a man called MacGregor – ' she told Julian. She gave him a desperate look, pausing to allow him an opportunity to make some comment.

'Well, that's all right, then,' he replied. 'They'll probably go on thinking so.'

'But suppose –' Laura began.

Farrar interrupted her. 'I must go,' he said. I've got an appointment.' He rose. 'It's all right, Laura,' he said, patting her shoulder. 'Don't worry. I'll see that you're all right.'

The look on Laura's face was one of an incomprehension verging on desperation. Apparently oblivious of it, Farrar walked across to the french windows. As he pushed a window open, Starkwedder was approaching with the obvious intention of entering the room. Farrar politely moved aside, to avoid colliding with him.

'Oh, are you off now?' Starkwedder asked him.

'Yes,' said Farrar. 'Things are rather busy these days. Election coming on, you know, in a week's time.'

'Oh, I see,' Starkwedder replied. 'Excuse my ignorance, but what are you? Tory?'

'I'm a Liberal,' said Farrar. He sounded slightly indignant.

'Oh, are they still at it?' Starkwedder asked, brightly.

Julian Farrar drew a sharp breath, and left the room without another word. When he had gone, not quite slamming the door behind him, Starkwedder looked at Laura almost fiercely. Then, 'I see,' he said, his anger rising. 'Or at least I'm beginning to see.'

'What do you mean?' Laura asked him.

'That's the boyfriend, isn't it?' He came closer to her. 'Well, come on now, is it?'

'Since you ask,' Laura replied, defiantly, 'yes, it is!'

Starkwedder looked at her for a moment without speaking. Then, 'There are quite a few things you didn't tell me last night, aren't there?' he said angrily. 'That's why you snatched up his lighter in such a hurry and said it was yours.' He walked away a few paces and then turned to face her again. 'And how long has this been going on between you and him?'

'For quite some time now,' Laura said quietly.

'But you didn't ever decide to leave Warwick and go away together?'

'No,' Laura answered. 'There's Julian's career, for one thing. It might ruin him politically.'

Starkwedder sat himself down ill-temperedly at one end of the sofa. 'Oh, surely not, these days,' he snapped. 'Don't they all take adultery in their stride?'

'These would have been special circumstances,' Laura tried to explain. 'He was a friend of Richard's, and with Richard being a cripple –'

'Oh yes, I see. It certainly wouldn't have been good publicity!' Starkwedder retorted.

Laura came over to the sofa and stood looking down at him. 'I suppose you think I ought to have told you this last night?' she observed, icily.

Starkwedder looked away from her. 'You were under no obligation,' he muttered.

Laura seemed to relent. 'I didn't think it mattered –' she began. 'I mean – all I could think of was my having shot Richard.'

Starkwedder seemed to warm to her again, as he murmured, 'Yes, yes, I see.' After a pause, he added, 'I couldn't think of anything else, either.' He paused again, and then looked up at her. 'Do you want to try a little experiment?' he asked. 'Where were you standing when you shot Richard?'

'Where was I standing?' Laura echoed. She sounded perplexed.

'That's what I said.'

After a moment's thought, Laura replied, 'Oh –over there.' She nodded vaguely towards the french windows.

'Go and stand where you were standing,' Starkwedder instructed her.

Laura rose and began to move nervously about the room. 'I – I can't remember,' she told him. 'Don't ask me to remember.' She sounded scared now. 'I – I was upset. I –'

Starkwedder interrupted her. 'Your husband said something to you,' he reminded her. 'Something that made you snatch up the gun.'

Rising from the sofa, he went to the table by the armchair and put his cigarette out. 'Well, come on, let's act it out,' he continued. 'There's the table, there's the gun.' He took Laura's cigarette from her, and put it in the ashtray. 'Now then, you were quarrelling. You picked up the gun – pick it up –'

'I don't want to!' Laura cried.

'Don't be a little fool,' Starkwedder growled. 'It's not loaded. Come on, pick it up. Pick it up.'

Laura picked up the gun, hesitantly.

'You snatched it up,' he reminded her. 'You didn't pick it up gingerly like that. You snatched it up, and you shot him. Show me how you did it.'

Holding the gun awkwardly, Laura backed away from him. 'I – I –' she began.

'Go on. Show me,' Starkwedder shouted at her.

Laura tried to aim the gun. 'Go on, shoot!' he repeated, still shouting. 'It isn't loaded.'

When she still hesitated, he snatched the gun from her in triumph. 'I thought so,' he exclaimed. 'You've never fired a revolver in your life. You don't know how to do it.' Looking at the gun, he continued, 'You don't even know enough to release the safety catch.'

He dropped the gun on the footstool* then walked to the back of the sofa, and turned to face her. After a pause, he said quietly, 'You didn't shoot your husband.'

'I did,' Laura insisted.

'Oh no, you didn't,' Starkwedder repeated with conviction.

Sounding frightened, Laura asked, 'Then why should I say I did?'

Starkwedder took a deep breath and then exhaled. Coming round the sofa, he threw himself down on it heavily. 'The answer to that seems pretty obvious to me. Because it was Julian Farrar who shot him,' he retorted.

'No!' Laura exclaimed, almost shouting.

'Yes!'

'No!' she repeated.

'I say yes,' he insisted.

'If it was Julian,' Laura asked him, 'why on earth should I say I did it?'

Starkwedder looked at her levelly. 'Because,' he said, 'you thought – and thought quite rightly – that I'd cover up for you. Oh yes, you were certainly right about that.' He lounged back into the sofa before continuing, 'Yes, you played me along very prettily. But I'm through, do you hear? I'm through. I'm damned if I'm going to tell a pack of lies to save Major Julian Farrar's skin.'

There was a pause. For a few moments Laura said nothing. Then she smiled and calmly walked over to the table by the armchair to pick up her cigarette. Turning back to Starkwedder, she said, 'Oh yes, you are! You'll have to! You can't back out now! You've told your story to the police. You can't change it.'

'What?' Starkwedder gasped, taken aback.

Laura sat in the armchair. 'Whatever you know, or think you know,' she pointed out to him, 'you've got to stick to your story. You're an accessory after the fact – you said so yourself.' She drew on her cigarette.