Agatha Christie - Ordeal by Innocence

He said to Kirsten Lindstrom: "You feel that, don't you? You still feel it, or you want to feel it? You feel that it was Jacko who killed her, not you… You feel it was under his orders and under his influence you did it. Therefore you want all the blame to be his!"

"I?" said Kirsten Lindstrom. "I? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," said Calgary , "that there was only one person in this house who could in any way fit into the role of Jacko Argyle's accomplice. And that is you, Miss Lindstrom. Jacko had a record behind him, a record of being able to inspire passion in middle-aged women. He employed that power deliberately. He had the gift of making himself believed." He leaned forward. "He made love to you, didn't he?" he said gently. "He made you believe that he cared for you, that he wanted to marry you, that after this was over and he'd got more control of his mother's money, you would be married and go away somewhere. That is right, isn't it?"

Kirsten stared at him. She did not speak. It was as though she were paralysed.

"It was done cruelly and heartlessly and deliberately," said Arthur Calgary. "He came here that night desperate for some money, with the shadow over him of arrest and a jail sentence. Mrs. Argyle refused to give him money. When he was refused by her he applied to you."

"Do you think," said Kirsten Lindstrom, "do you think that I would have taken Mrs. Argyle's money to give him instead of giving him my own?"

"No," said Calgary , "you would have given him your own if you'd had any. But I don't think you had… You had a good income from the annuity which Mrs. Argyle had bought for you, but I think he'd already milked you dry of that. So he was desperate that evening and when Mrs. Argyle had gone up to her husband in the library, you went outside the house where he was waiting and he told you what you had to do. First you must give him the money and then, before the theft could be discovered, Mrs. Argyle had to be killed. Because she would not have covered up the theft. He said it would be easy. You had just to pull out the drawers to make it look as though a burglar had been there and to hit her on the back of the head. It would be painless, he said. She would not feel anything. He himself would establish an alibi, so that you must be careful to do this thing within the right time limits, between seven and seven-thirty."

"It's not true," said Kirsten. She had begun to tremble. "You are mad to say such things."

Yet there was no indignation in her voice. Strangely enough, it was mechanical and weary.

"Even if what you say is true," she said, "do you think I would let him be accused of the murder?"

"Oh yes," said Calgary . "After all, he had told you he would have an alibi. You expected him, perhaps, to be arrested and then to prove his innocence. That was all part of the plan."

"But when he couldn't prove his innocence," said Kirsten. "Would I not have saved him then?"

"Perhaps," said Calgary , "perhaps, but for one fact. The fact that on the morning after the murder Jacko's wife turned up here. You didn't know he was married. The girl had to repeat the statement two or three times before you would believe her. At that moment your world crashed round you. You saw Jacko for what he was — heartless, scheming, without a particle of affection for you. You realised what he had made you do."

Suddenly Kirsten Lindstrom was speaking. The words came rushing out incoherently.

"I loved him… I loved him with all my heart. I was a fool, a credulous middle-aged doting fool. He made me think it — he made me believe it. He said he had never cared for girls. He said –1 cannot tell you all the things he said. I loved him. I tell you I loved him. And then that silly, simpering child came here, that common little thing. I saw it was all wickedness, wickedness… His wickedness, not mine."

"The night I came here," said Calgary , you were afraid, weren't you? You were afraid of what was going to happen. You were afraid for the others. Hester, whom you loved, Leo, whom you were fond of. You saw, perhaps, a little of what this might do to them. But principally you were afraid for yourself. And you see where fear has led you. You have two more deaths on your hands now."

"You are saying I killed Tina and Philip?"

"Of course you killed them," said Calgary . Tina has recovered consciousness."

Kirsten's shoulders dropped in the sagging of despair. "So she has told that I stabbed her. I did not think she even knew. I was mad, of course. I was mad by then, mad with terror. It was coming so close, so close."

"Shall I tell you what Tina said when she regained consciousness?" said Calgary . "She said 'The cup was empty.' I knew what that meant. You pretended to be taking up a cup of coffee to Philip Durrant, but actually you had already stabbed him and were coming out of that room when you heard Tina coming. So you turned round and pretended you were taking the tray in. Later, although she was shocked almost into unconsciousness by his death, she noticed automatically that the cup that had dropped on the floor was an empty cup and there was no stain of coffee left by it."

Hester cried out: "But Kirsten couldn't have stabbed her! Tina walked downstairs and out to Micky. She was quite all right."

"My dear child," said Calgary , people who have been stabbed have walked the length of the street without even knowing what has happened to them! In the state of shock Tina was in she would hardly have felt anything. A pinprick, a slight pain perhaps." He looked again at Kirsten.

"And later," he said, "you slipped that knife into Micky's pocket. That was the meanest thing of all."

Kirsten's hands flew out pleadingly.

"I couldn't help it –1 could not help it… It was coming so near… They were all beginning to find out. Philip was finding out and Tina –1 think Tina must have overheard Jacko talking to me outside the kitchen that evening. They were all beginning to know… I wanted to be safe. I wanted — one can never be safe –" Her hands dropped. "I didn't want to kill Tina. As for Philip –"

Mary Durrant rose. She came across the room slowly but with increasing purpose.

"You killed Philip?" she said. "You killed Philip." Suddenly, like a tigress she sprang at the other woman.

It was Gwenda, quick-witted, who sprang to her feet and caught hold of her. Calgary joined her and together they held her back.

"You — you?" cried Mary Durrant. Kirsten Lindstrom looked at her.

"What business was it of his?" she asked. "Why did he have to snoop round and ask questions? He was never threatened. It was never a matter of life or death for him. It was just — an amusement." She turned and walked slowly towards the door. Without looking at them she went out.

"Stop her," cried Hester. "Oh, we must stop her."

Leo Argyle said: "Let her go, Hester."

"But-she'll kill herself."

"I rather doubt it," said Calgary .

"She has been our faithful friend for so long," said Leo. "Faithful, devoted — and now this!"

"Do you think she'll — give herself up?" said Gwenda.

"It's far more likely," said Calgary , "that she'll go to the nearest station and take a train for London . But she won't, of course, be able to get away with it. She'll be traced and found."

"Our dear Kirsten," said Leo again. His voice shook. "So faithful, so good to us all."

Gwenda caught him by the arm and shook it.

"How can you, Leo, how can you? Think what she did to us all — what she has made us suffer!"

"I know," said Leo, "but she suffered herself, you know, as well. I think it is her suffering we have felt in this house."

"We might have gone on suffering for ever," said Gwenda, "as far as she was concerned! If it hadn't been for Dr. Calgary here." She turned towards him gratefully.