Agatha Christie - Sparkling Cyanide

"Well, Miss Lessing, what do you say? Is it possible, in your opinion, for George to have committed suicide?"

She shook her head.

"No – oh, no."

"But you said he was excited – upset?"

"Yes, but he had been like that for some time. I see why now. And I see why he was so excited about last night's party. He must have had some special idea in his head – he must have hoped that by reproducing the conditions, he would gain some additional knowledge – poor George, he must have been so muddled about it all."

"And what about Rosemary Barton, Miss Lessing? Do you still think her death was suicide?"

She frowned.

"I've never dreamt of it being anything else. It seemed so natural."

"Depression after influenza?"

"Well, rather more than that, perhaps. She was definitely very unhappy. One could see that."

"And guess the cause?"

"Well – yes. At least I did. Of course I may have been wrong. But women like Mrs Barton are very transparent – they don't trouble to hide their feelings. Mercifully I don't think Mr Barton knew anything… Oh, yes, she was very unhappy. And I know she had a bad headache that night besides being run down with 'flu."

"How did you know she had a headache?"

"I heard her telling Lady Alexandra so – in the cloakroom when we were taking off our wraps. She was wishing she had a Cachet Faivre and luckily Lady Alexandra had one with her and gave it to her."

Colonel Race's hand stopped with a glass in mid air.

"And she took it?"

"Yes."

He put his glass down untasted and looked across the table. The girl looked placid and unaware of any significance in what she had said. But it was significant. It meant that Sandra who, from her position at table, would have had the most difficulty in putting anything unseen in Rosemary's glass, had had another opportunity of administering the poison. She could have given it to Rosemary in a cachet. Ordinarily a cachet would take only a few minutes to dissolve, but possible this had been a special kind of cachet, it might have had a lining of gelatine or some other substance. Or Rosemary might possibly not have swallowed it then but later.

He said abruptly: "Did you see her take it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

He saw by her puzzled face that her mind had gone on elsewhere.

"Did you see Rosemary Barton swallow that cachet?"

Ruth looked a little startled.

"I – well, no, I didn't actually see her. She just thanked Lady Alexandra."

So Rosemary might have slipped the cachet in her bag and then, during the cabaret, with a headache increasing, she might have dropped it into her champagne glass and let it dissolve. Assumption – pure assumption – but a possibility.

Ruth said: "Why do you ask me that?"

Her eyes were suddenly alert, full of questions. He watched, so it seemed to him, her intelligence working.

Then she said: "Oh, I see. I see why George took that house down there near the Farradays. And I see why he didn't tell me about those letters. It seemed to me so extraordinary that he hadn't. But of course if he believed them, it meant that one of us, one of those five people round the table must have killed her. It might – it might even have been me!"

Race said in a very gentle voice: "Had you any reason for killing Rosemary Barton?"

He thought at first that she hadn't heard the question. She sat so very still with her eyes cast down.

But suddenly with a sigh, she raised them and looked straight at him.

"It is not the sort of thing one cares to talk about," she said. "But I think you had better know. I was in love with George Barton. I was in love with him before he even met Rosemary. I don't think he ever knew – certainly he didn't care. He was fond of me – very fond of me – but I suppose never in that way. And yet I used to think that I would have made him a good wife – that I could have made him happy. He loved Rosemary, but he wasn't happy with her."

Race said gently: "And you disliked Rosemary?"

"Yes I did. Oh! She was very lovely and very attractive and could be very charming in her way. She never bothered to be charming to me! I disliked her a good deal. I was shocked when she died – and at the way she died, but I wasn't really sorry. I'm afraid I was rather glad."

She paused.

"Please, shall we talk about something else?"

Race responded quickly: "I'd like you to tell me exactly, in detail, everything you can remember about yesterday – from the morning onwards – especially anything George did or said."

Ruth replied promptly, going over the events of the morning – George's annoyance over Victor's importunity, her own telephone calls to South America and the arrangements made and George's pleasure when the matter was settled. She then described her arrival at the Luxembourg and George's flurried excited bearing as host. She carried her narrative up to the final moment of the tragedy. Her account tallied in every respect with those he had already heard.

With a worried frown, Ruth voiced his own perplexity.

"It wasn't suicide – I'm sure it wasn't suicide – but how can it have been murder? I mean, how can it have been done? The answer is, it couldn't, not by one of us! Then was it someone who slipped the poison into George's glass while we were away dancing? But if so, who could it have been? It doesn't seem to make sense."

"The evidence is that no one went near the table while you were dancing."

"Then it really doesn't make sense! Cyanide doesn't get into a glass by itself!"

"Have you absolutely no idea – no suspicion, even, who might have put the cyanide in the glass? Think back over last night. Is there nothing, no small incident, that awakens your suspicions in any degree, however small?"

He saw her face change, saw for a moment uncertainty come into her eyes. There was a tiny, almost infinitesimal pause before she answered "Nothing."

But there had been something. He was sure of that. Something she had seen or heard or noticed that, for some reason or other, she had decided not to tell.

He did not press her. He knew that with a girl of Ruth's type that would be no good. If, for some reason, she had made up her mind to keep silence, she would not, he felt sure, change her mind.

But there had been something. That knowledge cheered him and gave him fresh assurance. It was the first sign of a crevice in the blank wall that confronted him.

He took leave of Ruth after lunch and drove to Elvaston Square thinking of the woman he had just left.

Was it possible that Ruth Lessing was guilty? On the whole, he was prepossessed in her favour. She had seemed entirely frank and straightforward.

Was she capable of murder? Most people were, if you came to it. Capable not of murder in general, but of one particular individual murder. That was what made it so difficult to weed anyone out. There was a certain quality of ruthlessness about that young woman. And she had a motive – or rather a choice of motives. By removing Rosemary she had a very good chance of becoming Mrs George Barton. Whether it was a question of marrying a rich man, or of marrying the man she had loved, the removal of Rosemary was the first essential.

Race was inclined to think that marrying a rich man was not enough. Ruth Lessing was too cool-headed and cautious to risk her neck for mere comfortable living as a rich man's wife. Love? Perhaps. For all her cool and detached manner, he suspected her of being one of those women who can be kindled to unlikely passion by one particular man.

Given love of George and hate of Rosemary, she might have coolly planned and executed Rosemary's death. The fact that it had gone off without a hitch, and that suicide had been universally accepted without demur, proved her inherent capability.