Agatha Christie - Sparkling Cyanide

She came out with sudden unreasonable demands. Couldn't he go abroad to the South of France and she'd meet him there? Or go to Sicily or Corsica – one of those places where you never saw anyone you knew? Stephen said grimly that there was no such place in the world. At the most unlikely spots you always met some dear old school friend that you'd never seen for years.

And then she had said something that frightened him.

"Well, but it wouldn't matter, would it?"

He was alert, watchful, suddenly cold within.

"What do you mean?"

She was smiling up at him, that same enchanting smile that had once made his heart turn over and his bones ache with longing. Now it made him merely impatient.

"Leopard, darling, I've thought sometimes that we're stupid to go on trying to carry on this hole-and-corner business. It's not worthy, somehow. Let's go away together. Let's stop pretending. George will divorce me and your wife will divorce you and then we can get married."

Just like that! Disaster! Ruin! And she couldn't see it!

"I wouldn't let you do such a thing."

"But darling, I don't care. I'm not really very conventional."

"But I am. But I am," thought Stephen.

"I do feel that love is the most important thing in the world. It doesn't matter what people think of us."

"It would matter to me, my dear. An open scandal of that kind would be the end of my career."

"But would that really matter? There are hundreds of other things that you could do."

"Don't be silly."

"Why have you got to do anything anyway? I've got lots of money, you know. Of my own, I mean, not George's. We could wander about all over the world, going to the most enchanting out-of-the-way places – places, perhaps, where nobody else has ever been. Or to some island in the Pacific – think of it, the hot sun and the blue sea and the coral reefs."

He did think of it. A South Sea Island ! Of all the idiotic ideas. What sort of a man did she think he was – a beachcomber?

He looked at her with eyes from which the last traces of scales had fallen. A lovely creature with brains of a hen! He'd been mad – utterly and completely mad. But he was sane again now. And he'd got to get out of this fix. Unless he was careful she'd ruin his whole life.

He said all the things that hundreds of men had said before him. They must end it all – so he wrote. It was only fair to her. He couldn't risk bringing unhappiness on her. She didn't understand – and so on and so on.

It was all over – he must make her understand that.

But that was just what she refused to understand. It wasn't to be as easy as that.

She adored him, she loved him more than ever, she couldn't live without him! The only honest thing was for her to tell her husband, and for Stephen to tell his wife the truth! He remembered how cold he had felt as he stood holding her letter. The little fool! The silly clinging fool! She'd go and blab the whole thing to George Barton and then George would divorce her and cite him as co-respondent.

And Sandra would per force divorce him too. He hadn't any doubt of that. She had spoken once of a friend, had said with faint surprise, "But of course when she found out he was having an affair with another woman, what else could she do but divorce him?" That was what Sandra would feel. She was proud. She would never share a man.

And then he would be done, finished – the influential Kidderminster backing would be withdrawn. It would be the kind of scandal that he would not be able to live down, even though public opinion was broader-minded than it used to be. But not in a flagrant case like this! Good-bye to his dreams, his ambitions. Everything wrecked, broken – all because of a crazy infatuation for a silly woman. Calf love, that was all it had been. Calf love contracted at the wrong time of life.

He'd lose everything he'd staked. Failure! Ignominy!

He'd lose Sandra…

And suddenly, with a shock of surprise he realised that it was that that he would mind most. He'd lose Sandra. Sandra with her square white forehead and her clear hazel eyes. Sandra, his dear friend and companion, his arrogant, proud, loyal Sandra. No, he couldn't lose Sandra – he couldn't… Anything but that.

The perspiration broke out on his forehead. Somehow he must get out of this mess. Somehow he must make Rosemary listen to reason… But would she? Rosemary and reason didn't go together. Supposing he were to tell her that, after all, he loved his wife?

No. She simply wouldn't believe it. She was such a stupid woman. Empty-headed, clinging, possessive. And she loved him still – that was the mischief of it.

A kind of blind rage rose up in him. How on earth was he to keep her quiet? To shut her mouth? Nothing short of a dose of poison would do that, he thought bitterly.

A wasp was buzzing close at hand. He stared abstractedly. It had got inside a cutglass jampot and was trying to get out.

Like me, he thought, entrapped by sweetness and now – he can't get out, poor devil.

But he, Stephen Farraday, was going to get out somehow. Time, he must play for time. Rosemary was down with 'flu at the moment. He'd sent conventional inquiries – a big sheaf of flowers. It gave him a respite.

Next week Sandra and he were dining with the Bartons – a birthday party for Rosemary.

Rosemary had said, "I shan't do anything until after my birthday – it would be too cruel to George. He's making such a fuss about it. He's such a dear. After it's all over we'll come to an understanding."

Supposing he were to tell her brutally that it was all over, that he no longer cared? He shivered. No, he dare not do that. She might go to George in hysterics. She might even come to Sandra. He could hear her tearful, bewildered voice.

"He says he doesn't care any more, but I know it's not true. He's trying to be loyal – to play the game with you – but I know you'll agree with me that when people love each other honesty is the only way. That's why I'm asking you to give him his freedom."

That was just the sort of nauseating stuff she would pour out. And Sandra, her face proud and disdainful, would say, "He can have his freedom!"

She wouldn't believe – how could she believe? If Rosemary were to bring out those letters – the letters he'd been asinine enough to write to her. Heaven knew what he had said in them. Enough and more than enough to convince Sandra – letters such as he had never written to her –

He must think of something – some way of keeping Rosemary quiet. "It's a pity," he thought grimly, "that we don't live in the days of the Borgias…"

A glass of poisoned champagne was about the only thing that would keep Rosemary quiet.

Yes, he had actually thought that.

Cyanide of potassium in her champagne glass, cyanide of potassium in her evening bag.

Depression after influenza.

And across the table, Sandra's eyes meeting his.

Nearly a year ago – and he couldn't forget.

Sandra Farraday had not forgotten Rosemary Barton.

She was thinking of her at this very minute – thinking of her slumped forward across the table in the restaurant that night.

She remembered her own sharp indrawn breath and how then, looking up, she had found Stephen watching her…

Had he read the truth in her eyes? Had he seen the hate, the mingling of horror and triumph?

Nearly a year ago now – and as fresh in her mind as if it had been yesterday! Rosemary – that's for remembrance. How horribly true that was. It was no good a person being dead if they lived on in your mind. That was what Rosemary had done. In Sandra's mind – and in Stephen's too? She didn't know, but she thought it probable.

The Luxembourg – that hateful place with its excellent food, deft swift service, and luxurious decor and setting. An impossible place to avoid, people were always asking you there.