Agatha Christie - The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

At Gossington Hall Dermot Craddock was received by Ella Zielinsky. She was, as usual, brisk and efficient.

'Miss Gregg is waiting for you, Mr Craddock,' she said.

Dermot looked at her with some interest. From the beginning he had found Ella Zielinsky an intriguing personality. He had said to himself, 'A poker face if I ever saw one.' She had answered any questions he had asked with the utmost readiness. She had shown no signs of keeping anything back, but what she really thought or felt or even knew about the business, he still had no idea. There seemed to be no chink in the armour of her bright efficiency. She might know more than she said she did; she might know a good deal. The only thing he was sure of – and he had to admit to himself that he had no reasons to adduce for that surety – was that she was in love with Jason Rudd. It was, as he had said, an occupational disease of secretaries. It probably meant nothing. But the fact did at least suggest a motive and he was sure, quite sure, that she was concealing something. It might be love, it might be hate. It might, quite simply, be guilt. She might have taken her opportunity that afternoon, or she might have deliberately planned what she was going to do. He could see her in the part quite easily, as far as the execution of it went. Her swift but unhurried movements, moving here and there, looking after guests, handing glasses to one or another, taking glasses away, her eyes marking the spot where Marina had put her glass down on the table. And then, perhaps at the very moment when Marina had been greeting the arrivals from the States, with surprise and joyous cries and everybody's eyes turned towards their meeting, she could have quietly and unobtrusively dropped the fatal dose into that glass. It would require audacity, nerve, swiftness. She would have had all those. Whatever she had done, she would not have looked guilty whilst she was doing it. It would have been a simple, brilliant crime, a crime that could hardly fail to be successful. But chance had ruled otherwise. In the rather crowded floorspace someone had jogged Heather Badcock's arm. Her drink had been spilt, and Marina, with her natural impulsive grace, had quickly proffered her own glass, standing there untouched. And so the wrong woman had died.

A lot of pure theory, and probably hooey at that, said Dermot Craddock to himself at the same time as he was making polite remarks to Ella Zielinsky.

'One thing I wanted to ask you, Miss Zielinsky. The catering was done by a Market Basing firm, I understand?'

'Yes.'

'Why was that particular firm chosen?'

'I really don't know,' said Ella. 'That doesn't lie amongst my duties. I know Mr Rudd thought it would be more tactful to employ somebody local rather than to employ a firm from London. The whole thing was really quite a small affair from our point of view.'

'Quite.' He watched her as she stood frowning a little looking down. A good forehead, a determined chin, a figure which could look quite voluptuous if it was allowed to do so, a hard mouth, an acquisitive mouth. The eyes? He looked at them in surprise. The lids were reddened. He wondered. Had she been crying? It looked like it. And yet he could have sworn she was not the type of young woman to cry. She looked up at him, and as though she read his thoughts, she took out her handkerchief and blew her nose heartily.

'You've got a cold,' he said.

'Not a cold. Hay-fever. It's an allergy of some kind, really. I always get at it this time of year.'

There was a low buzz. There were two phones in the room, one on the table and one on another table in the corner. It was the latter one that was beginning to buzz. Ella Zielinsky went over to it and picked up the receiver.

'Yes,' she said, 'he's here. I'll bring him up at once.' She put the receiver down again. ' Marina 's ready for you,' she said.

Marina Gregg received Craddock in a room on the first floor, which was obviously her own private sitting-room opening out of her bedroom. After the accounts of her prostration and her nervous state, Dermot Craddock had expected to find a fluttering invalid. But although Marina was half reclining on a sofa her voice was vigorous and her eyes were bright. She had very little make-up on, but in spite of this she did not look her age, and he was struck very forcibly by the subdued radiance of her beauty. It was the exquisite line of cheek and jawbone, the way the hair fell loosely and naturally to frame her face. The long sea-green eyes, the pencilled eyebrows, owing something to art but more to nature, and the warmth and sweetness of her smile, all had a subtle magic. She said:

'Chief-Inspector Craddock? I've been behaving disgracefully. I do apologize. I just let myself go to pieces after this awful thing. I could have snapped out of it but I didn't. I'm ashamed of myself.' The smile came, rueful, sweet, turning up the corners of the mouth. She extended a hand and he took it.

'It was only natural,' he said, 'that you should feel upset.'

'Well, everyone was upset,' said Marina. 'I'd no business to make out it was worse for me than anyone else.'

'Hadn't you?'

She looked at him for a minute and then nodded. 'Yes,' she said, 'you're very perceptive. Yes, I had.' She looked down and with one long forefinger gently stroked the arm of the sofa. It was a gesture he had noticed in one of her films. It was a meaningless gesture, yet it seemed fraught with significance. It had a kind of musing gentleness.

'I'm a coward,' she said, her eyes still cast down. 'Somebody wanted to kill me and I didn't want to die.'

'Why do you think someone wanted to kill you?'

Her eyes opened wide. 'Because it was my glass – my drink – that had been tampered with. It was just a mistake that that poor stupid woman got it. That's what's so horrible and so tragic. Besides -'

'Yes, Miss Gregg?'

She seemed a little uncertain about saying more.

'You had other reasons perhaps for believing that you were the intended victim?'

She nodded.

'What reasons, Miss Gregg?'

She paused a minute longer before saying, 'Jason says I must tell you all about it.'

'You've confided in him then?'

'Yes… I didn't want to at first – but Dr Gilchrist put it to me that I must. And then I found that he thought so too. He'd thought it all along but – it's rather funny really' – a rueful smile curled her lips again – 'he didn't want to alarm me by telling me. Really!' Marina sat up with a sudden vigorous movement. 'Darling Jinks! Does he think I'm a complete fool?'

'You haven't told me yet, Miss Gregg, why you should think anyone wanted to kill you.'

She was silent for a moment and then with a sudden brusque gesture, she stretched out for her handbag, opened it, took out a piece of paper and thrust it into his hand. He read it. Typed on it was one line of writing:

"Don't think you'll escape next time."

Craddock said sharply, 'When did you get this?'

'It was on my dressing-table when I came back from the bath.'

'So someone in the house -'

'Not necessarily. Someone could have climbed up the balcony outside my window and pushed it through there. I think they meant it to frighten me still more, but actually it didn't. I just felt furiously angry and sent word to you to come and see me.'

Dermot Craddock smiled. 'Possibly a rather unexpected result for whoever sent it. Is this the first kind of message like that you've had?'

Again Marina hesitated. Then she said, 'No, it isn't.'

'Will you tell me about any others?'

'It was three weeks ago, when we first came here. It came to the studio, not here. It was quite ridiculous. It was just a message. Not typewritten that time. In capital letters. It said, "Prepare to die."' She laughed. There was perhaps a very faint tinge of hysteria in the laugh. The mirth was genuine enough. 'It was so silly,' she said. 'Of course one often gets crank messages, threats, things like that. I thought it was probably religious you know. Someone who didn't approve of film actresses. I just tore it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket.'