Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors

'I know -' He rubbed his forehead. 'I got things all wrong. There are times when I don't - when I don't get things quite right. I get muddled.'

'And you took the revolver from Mr Walter Hudd's room?' Edgar looked puzzled.

'Did I? Is that where I got it?'

'Don't you remember where you got it?' Edgar said:

'I meant to threaten Mr Serrocold with it. I meant to frighten him. It was kid stuff all over again.'

Inspector Curry said patiently: 'How did you get the revolver?'

'You just said - out of Walter's room.'

'You remember doing that now?'

'I must have got it from his room. I couldn't have got hold of it any other way, could I?'

'I don't know,' said Inspector Curry. 'Somebody might have given it to you?' Edgar was silent - his face a blank.

'Is that how it happened?'

Edgar said passionately: 'I don't remember. I was so worked up. I walked about the garden in a red mist of rage. I thought people were spying on me, watching me, trying to hound me down.

Even that nice white-haired old lady… I can't understand it all now. I feel I must have been mad. I don't remember where I was and what I was doing half the time!'

'Surely you remember who told you Mr Serrocold was your father?' Edgar gave the same blank stare.

'Nobody told me,' he said sullenly. 'It just came to me.' Inspector Curry sighed. He was not satisfied. But he judged he could make no further progress at present.

'Well, watch your step in future,' he said.

'Yes, sir. Yes indeed I will.' As Edgar went, Inspector Curry slowly shook his head.

'These pathological cases are the devil!'

'D'you think he's mad, sir?'

'Much less mad than I'd imagined. Weak-headed, boastful, a liar - yet a certain pleasant simplicity about him. Highly suggestible I should imagine…'

'You think someone did suggest things to him?'

'Oh yes, old Miss Marple was right there. She's a shrewd old bird. But I wish I knew who it was. He won't tell. If we only knew that… Come on, Lake, let's have a thorough reconstruction of the scene in the Hall.'

'That fixes it pretty well.'

Inspector Curry was sitting at the piano. Sergeant

Lake was in a chair by the window overlooking the lake.

Curry went on:

'If I'm half-turned on the piano stool, watching the study door, I can't see you.'

Sergeant Lake rose softly and edged quietly through the door to the library.

'All this side of the room was dark. The only lights that were on were the ones beside the study door. No, Lake, I didn't see you go. Once in the library, you could go out through the other door to the corridor - two minutes to run along to the oak suite, shoot Gulbrandsen and come back through the library to your chair by the window.

'The women by the fire have their backs to you. Mrs Serrocold was sitting here - on the right of the fireplace, near the study door. Everyone agrees she didn't move and she's the only one who's in the line of direct vision.

Miss Marple was here. She was looking past Mrs Serrocold to the study. Mrs Strete was on the left of the fireplace - close to the door out of the Hall to the lobby, and it's a very dark corner. She could have gone and come back. Yes, it's possible.' Curry grinned suddenly.

'And I could go.' He slipped off the music stool and sidled along the wall and out through the door. 'The only person who might notice I wasn't still at the piano would be Gina Hudd. And you remember what Gina said: "Stephen was at the piano to begin with. I don't know where he was later."'

'So you think it's Stephen?'

'I don't know who it is,' said Curry. 'It wasn't Edgar Lawson or Lewis Serrocold or Mrs Serrocold or Miss Jane Marple. But for the rest -' He sighed. 'It's probably the American. Those fused lights were a bit too convenient - a coincidence. And yet, you know, I rather like the chap. Still, that isn't evidence.' He peered thoughtfully at some music on the side of the piano. 'Hindemith? Who's he? Never heard of him.

Shostakovitch! What names these people have.' He got up and then looked down at the old-fashioned music stool. He lifted the top of it.

'Here's the old-fashioned stuff. Handel's Largo, Czerny's Exercises. Dates back to old Gulbrandsen, most of this. "I know a lovely Garden" - Vicar's wife used to sing that when I was a boy ' He stopped - the yellow pages of the song in his hand.

Beneath them, reposing on Chopin's Preludes, was a small automatic pistol.

'Stephen Restarick,' exclaimed Sergeant Lake joyfully.

'Now don't jump to conclusions,' Inspector Curry warned him. 'Ten to one that's what we're meant to think.'

Miss Marple climbed the stairs and tapped on the door of Mrs Serrocold's bedroom.

'May I come in, Carrie Louise?'

'Of course, Jane dear.'

Carrie Louise was sitting in front of the dressing table, brushing her silvery hair. She turned her head over her shoulder.

'Is it the police? I'll be ready in a few minutes.'

'Are you all right?'

'Yes, of course. Jolly insisted on my having my breakfast in bed. And Gina came into the room with it on tiptoe as though I might be at death's door! I don't think people realize that tragedies like Christian's death are much less shock to someone old. Because one knows by then how anything may happen - and how little anything really matters that happens in this world.'

'Ye - es,' said Miss Marple dubiously.

'Don't you feel the same, Jane? I should have thought you would.'

Miss Marple said slowly:

'Christian was murdered.'

'Yes… I see what you mean. You think that does matter?'

'Don't you?'

'Not to Christian,' said Carrie Louise simply. 'It matters, of course, to whoever murdered him.'

'Have you any idea who murdered him?' Mrs Serrocold shook her head in a bewildered fashion.

'No, I've absolutely no idea. I can't even think of a reason. It must have been something to do with his being here before - just over a month ago. Because otherwise I don't think he would have come here suddenly again for no particular reason. Whatever it was must have started off then. I've thought and I've thought, but I can't remember anything unusual.'

'Oh! The same people who are here now - yes, Alex was down from London about then. And - oh yes, Ruth was here.'

'Ruth?'

'Her usual flying visit.'

'Ruth,' said Miss Marple again. Her mind was active.

Christian Gulbrandsen and Ruth? Ruth had come away worried and apprehensive, but had not known why.

Something was wrong was all that Ruth could say.

Christian Gulbrandsen had known or suspected some-thing that Ruth did not. He had known or suspected that someone was trying to poison Carrie Louise. How had Christian Gulbrandsen come to entertain those suspicions?

What had he seen or heard? Was it something that Ruth also had seen or heard but which she had failed to appreciate at its rightful significance? Miss Marple wished that she knew what it could possibly have been.

Her own vague hunch that it (whatever it was) had to do with Edgar Lawson seemed unlikely since Ruth had not mentioned him.

She sighed.

'You're all keeping something from me, aren't you?' asked Carrie Louise.

Miss Marple jumped a little as the quiet voice spoke.

'Why do you say that?'

'Because you are. Not Jolly. But everyone else. Even Lewis. He came in while I was having my breakfast, and he acted very oddly. He drank some of my coffee and even had a bit of toast and marmalade. That's so unlike him, because he always has tea and he doesn't like marmalade, so he must have been thinking of something else - and I suppose he must have forgotten to have his own breakfast. He does forget things like meals, and he looked so concerned and preoccupied.'

'Murder -' began Miss Marple.