Agatha Christie - Why Didn't They Ask Evans

'Roger was here then. I remember, because we had a children's party that day and what I should have done without Roger I simply don't know.' She gave a grateful glance at her brother-in-law and he smiled back at her.

'I don't feel I've ever met you before,' he said thoughtfully to Frankie, and added: 'I'm sure if I had I'd remember it.' He said it rather nicely.

'One point settled,' thought Frankie. 'Roger Bassingtonffrench was not in Wales on the day that Bobby was poisoned.' The second point came up fairly easily later. Frankie led the talk to country places, the dullness thereof, and the interest aroused by any local excitement.

'We had a man fall over the cliff last month,' she remarked.

'We were all thrilled to the core. I went to the inquest full of excitement, but it was all rather dull, really.' 'Was that a place called Marchbolt?' asked Sylvia suddenly.

Frankie nodded.

'Derwent Castle is only about seven miles from Marchbolt,' she explained.

'Roger, that must have been your man,' cried Sylvia.

Frankie looked inquiringly at him.

'I was actually in at the death,' said Roger. 'I stayed with the body till the police came.' 'I thought one of the Vicar's sons did that,' said Frankie.

'He had to go off to play the organ or something - so I took over.' 'How perfectly extraordinary,' said Frankie. 'I did hear somebody else had been there, too, but I never heard the name.

So it was you?' There was a general atmosphere of 'How curious. Isn't the world small?' Frankie felt she was doing this rather well.

'Perhaps that's where you saw me before - in Marchbolt?' suggested Roger.

'I wasn't there actually at the time of the accident,' said Frankie. 'I came back from London a couple of days afterwards.

Were you at the inquest?' 'No. I went back to London the morning after the tragedy.' 'He had some absurd idea of buying a house down there,' said Sylvia.

'Utter nonsense,' said Henry Bassingtonf&ench.

'Not at all,' said Roger good-humouredly.

'You know perfectly well, Roger, that as soon as you'd bought it, you'd get a fit of wanderlust and go off abroad again.' 'Oh, I shall settle down some day, Sylvia.' 'When you do you'd better settle down near us,' said Sylvia.

'Not go off to Wales.' Roger laughed. Then he turned to Frankie.

'Any points of interest about the accident? It didn't turn out to be suicide or anything?' 'Oh, no, it was all painfully above board and some appalling relations came and identified the man. He was on a walking tour, it seems. Very sad, really, because he was awfully goodlooking.

Did you see his picture in the papers?' 'I think I did,' said Sylvia vaguely. 'But I don't remember.' 'I've got a cutting upstairs from our local paper.' Frankie was all eagerness. She ran upstairs and came down with the cutting in her hand. She gave it to Sylvia. Roger came and looked over Sylvia's shoulder.

'Don't you think he's good-looking?' she demanded in a rather school-girl manner.

'He is, rather,' said Sylvia. 'He looks very like that man, Alan Carstairs, don't you think so, Roger? I believe I remembered saying so at the time.' 'He's got quite a look of him here,' agreed Roger. 'But there wasn't much real resemblance, you know.' 'You can't tell from newspaper pictures, can you?' said Sylvia, as she handed the cutting back.

Frankie agreed that you couldn't.

The conversation passed to other matters.

Frankie went to bed undecided. Everyone seemed to have reacted with perfect naturalness. Roger's house-hunting stunt had been no secret.

The only thing she had succeeded in getting was a name.

The name of Alan Carstairs.

Frankie attacked Sylvia the following morning.

She started by saying carelessly: 'What was that man's name you mentioned last night? Alan Carstairs, was it? I feel sure I've heard that name before.'

'Oh, he was. Distinctly attractive.' 'Funny - his being so like the man who fell over the cliff at Marchbolt,' said Frankie.

'I wonder if everyone has a double.' They compared instances, citing Adolf Beck and referring lightly to the Lyons Mail. Frankie was careful to make no further references to Alan Carstairs. To show too much interest in him would be fatal.

In her own mind, however, she felt she was getting on now.

She was quite convinced that Alan Carstairs had been the victim of the cliff tragedy at Marchbolt. He fulfilled all the conditions. He had no intimate friends or relations in this country and his disappearance was unlikely to be noticed for some time. A man who frequently ran off to East Africa and South America was not likely to be missed at once. Moreover, Frankie noted, although Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had commented on the resemblance in the newspaper reproduction, it had not occurred to her for a moment that it actually was the man.

That, Frankie thought, was rather an interesting bit of psychology.

We seldom suspect people who are 'news' of being people we have usually seen or met.

Very good, then. Alan Carstairs was the dead man. The next step was to learn more about Alan Carstairs. His connection with the Bassington-ffrenches seemed to have been of the slightest. He had been brought down there quite by chance by friends. What was the name? Rivington. Frankie stored it in her memory for future use.

That certainly was a possible avenue of inquiry. But it would be well to go slowly. Inquiries about Alan Carstairs must be very discreetly made.

'I don't want to be poisoned or knocked on the head,' thought Frankie with a grimace. 'They were ready enough to bump off Bobby for practically nothing at all ' Her thoughts flew off at a tangent to that tantalizing phrase that had started the whole business.

Evans! Who was Evans? Where did Evans fit in?

'A dope gang,' decided Frankie. Perhaps some relation of Carstairs was victimized, and he was determined to bust it up.

Perhaps he came to England for that purpose. Evans may have been one of the gang who had retired and gone to Wales to live.

Carstairs had bribed Evans to give the others away and Evans had consented and Carstairs went there to see him, and someone followed him and killed him.

Was that somebody Roger Bassington-ffrench? It seemed very unlikely. The Caymans, now, were far more what Frankie imagined a gang of dope smugglers would be likely to be.

And yet - that photograph. If only there was some explanation of that photograph.

That evening, Dr Nicholson and his wife were expected to dinner. Frankie was finishing dressing when she heard their car drive up to the front door. Her window faced that way and she looked out.

A tall man was just alighting from the driver's seat of a darkblue Talbot.

Frankie withdrew her head thoughtfully.

Carstairs had been a Canadian. Dr Nicholson was a Canadian. And Dr Nicholson had a dark-blue Talbot.

Absurd to build anything upon that, of course, but wasn't it just faintly suggestive?

Dr Nicholson was a big man with a manner that suggested great reserves of power. His speech was slow, on the whole he said very little, but contrived somehow to make every word sound significant. He wore strong glasses and behind them his very pale-blue eyes glittered reflectively.

His wife was a slender creature of perhaps twenty-seven, pretty, indeed beautiful. She seemed, Frankie, thought, slightly nervous and chattered rather feverishly as though to conceal the fact.

'You had an accident, I hear. Lady Frances,' said Dr Nicholson as he took his seat beside her at the dinner table.

Frankie explained the catastrophe. She wondered why she should feel so nervous doing so. The doctor's manner was simple and interested. Why should she feel as though she were rehearsing a defence to a charge that had never been made. Was there any earthly reason why the doctor should disbelieve in her accident?