Agatha Christie - Why Didn't They Ask Evans

For a moment, the bold simplicity of the question quite took their breath away. Both Frankie and Bobby started to speak at once: 'That's impossible -' began Bobby, just as Frankie said: 'That would never do.' Then they both stopped dead as the possibilities of the idea sank in.

'You see,' said Moira eagerly, 'I do see what you mean. It does seem as though Roger must have taken that photograph, but I don't believe for one moment that he pushed Alan over.

Why should he? He didn't even know him. They'd only met once - at lunch down here. They'd never come across each other in any way. There's no motive.' 'Then who did push him over?' asked Frankie bluntly.

A shadow crossed Moira's face.

'I don't know,' she said constrainedly.

'Look here,' said Bobby. 'Do you mind if I tell Frankie what you told me. About what you're afraid of.' Moira turned her head away.

'If you like. But it sounds so melodramatic and hysterical. I can't believe it myself this minute.' And indeed the bald statement, made unemotionally in the open air of the quiet English countryside, did seem curiously lacking in reality.

Moira got up abruptly.

'I really feel I've been terribly silly,' she said, her lip trembling. 'Please don't pay any attention to what I said, Mr Jones. It was just - nerves. Anyway, I must be going now.

Goodbye.' She moved rapidly away. Bobby sprang up to follow her, but Frankie pushed him firmly back.

'Stay there, idiot, leave this to me.' She went rapidly off after Moira. She returned a few minutes later.

'Well?' queried Bobby anxiously.

"That's all right. I calmed her down. It was a bit hard on her having her private fears blurted out in front of her to a third person. I made her promise we'd have a meeting - all three of us - again soon. Now that you're not hampered by her being there, tell us all about it.' Bobby did so. Frankie listened attentively. Then she said: 'It fits in with two things. First of all, I came back just now to find Nicholson holding both Sylvia Bassingtonffrench's hands - and didn't he look daggers at me! If looks could kill I feel sure he'd have made me a corpse then and there.' 'What's the second thing?' asked Bobby.

'Oh, just an incident. Sylvia described how Moira's photograph had made a great impression on some stranger who had come to the house. Depend upon it, that was Carstairs. He recognized the photograph, Mrs Bassington-ffrench tells him that it is a portrait of a Mrs Nicholson, and that explains how he came to find out where she was. But you know, Bobby, I don't see yet where Nicholson comes in. Why should he want to do away with Alan Carstairs?' 'You think it was him and not Bassington-ffrench? Rather a coincidence if he and Bassington-ffrench should both be in Marchbolt on the same day.' 'Well, coincidences do happen. But if it was Nicholson, I don't yet see the motive. Was Carstairs on the track of Nicholson as the head of a dope gang? Or is your new lady friend the motive for the murder?' 'It might be both,' suggested Bobby. 'He may know that Carstairs and his wife had an interview, and he may have believed that his wife gave him away somehow.' 'Now, that is a possibility,' said Frankie. 'But the first thing is to make sure about Roger Bassington-ffrench. The only thing we've got against him is the photograph business. If he can clear that up satisfactorily -' 'You're going to tackle him on the subject? Frankie, is that wise? If he is the villain of the piece, as we decided he must be, it means that we're going to show him our hand.' 'Not quite - not the way I shall do it. After all, in every other way he's been perfectly straightforward and above board.

We've taken that to be super-cunning - but suppose it just happens to be innocence? //he can explain the photograph and I shall be watching him when he does explain - and if there's the least sign of hesitation of guilt I shall see it - as I say, if he can explain the photograph - then he may be a very valuable ally.' 'How do you mean, Frankie?' 'My dear, your little friend may be an emotional scaremonger who likes to exaggerate, but supposing she isn't - that all she says is gospel truth - that her husband wants to get rid of her and marry Sylvia. Don't you realize that, in that case, Henry Bassington-ffrench is in mortal danger too. At all costs we've got to prevent him being sent to the Grange. And at present Roger Bassington-ffrench is on Nicholson's side.' 'Good for you, Frankie,' said Bobby quietly. 'Go ahead with your plan.' Frankie got up to go, but before departing she paused for a moment.

'Isn't it odd?' she said. 'We seem, somehow, to have got in between the covers of a book. We're in the middle of someone else's story. It's a frightfully queer feeling.' 'I know what you mean,' said Bobby. 'There is something rather uncanny about it. I should call it a play rather than a book. It's as though we'd walked on to the stage in the middle of the second act and we haven't really got parts in the play at all, but we have to pretend, and what makes it so frightfully hard is that we haven't the faintest idea what the first act was about.' Frankie nodded eagerly.

'I'm not even so sure it's the second act - I think it's more like the third. Bobby, I'm sure we've got to go back a long way... And we've got to be quick because I fancy the play is frightfully near the final curtain.' 'With corpses strewn everywhere,' said Bobby. 'And what brought us into the show was a regular cue - five words - quite meaningless as far as we are concerned.' "'Why didn't they ask Evans?" Isn't it odd, Bobby, that though we've found out a good deal and more and more characters come into the thing, we never get any nearer to the mysterious Evans?' 'I've got an idea about Evans. I've a feeling that Evans doesn't really matter at all - that although he's been the starting point as it were, yet in himself he's probably quite inessential.

It will be like that story of Wells where a prince built a marvellous palace or temple round the tomb of his beloved.

And when it was finished there was just one little thing that jarred. So he said: "Take it away." And the thing was actually the tomb itself.' 'Sometimes,' said Frankie, 'I don't believe there is an Evans.' Saying which, she nodded to Bobby and retraced her steps towards the house.

Frankie stared at him. Suddenly she remembered that in Bobby's first account of the tragedy he had mentioned putting a handkerchief over the face of the dead man.

'You never thought of looking?' went on Frankie.

'No. Why should I?' 'Of course,' thought Frankie, 'if/y found a photograph of somebody I knew in a dead person's pocket, I should simply have had to look at the person's face. How beautifully incurious men are!' 'Poor little thing,' she said. 'I'm so terribly sorry for her.' 'Who do you mean - Moira Nicholson? Why are you so sorry for her?' 'Because she's frightened,' said Frankie slowly.

'She always looks half scared to death. What is she frightened of?' 'Her husband.' 'I don't know that I'd care to be up against Jasper Nicholson myself,' admitted Roger.

'She's sure he's trying to murder her,' said Frankie abruptly.

'Oh, my dear!' He looked at her incredulously.

'Sit down,' said Frankie. 'I'm going to tell you a lot of things.

I've got to prove to you that Dr Nicholson is a dangerous criminal.' 'A criminal?' Roger's tone was frankly incredulous.

'Wait till you've heard the whole story.' She gave him a clear and careful narrative of all that had occurred since the day Bobby and Dr Thomas had found the body. She only kept back the fact that her accident had not been genuine, but she let it appear that she had lingered at Merroway Court through her intense desire to get to the bottom of the mystery.

She could complain of no lack of interest on the part of her listener. Roger seemed quite fascinated by the story.