Агата Кристи - Десять негритят / And Then There Were None

„I thought you’d soon come to that, sir. Isaac Morris died on the night of August 8th. Took an overdose of sleeping stuff – one of the barbiturates, I understand. There wasn’t anything to show whether it was accident or suicide.“

Legge said slowly: „Care to know what I think, Maine?“

„Perhaps I can guess, sir.“

Legge said heavily: „That death of Morris’ is a damned sight too opportune!“

Inspector Maine nodded. He said:

„I thought you’d say that, sir.“

The Assistant Commissioner brought down his fist with a bang on the table. He cried out:

„The whole thing’s fantastic – impossible. Ten people killed on a bare rock of an island – and we don’t know who did it, or why, or how.“

Maine coughed. He said:

„Well, it’s not quite like that, sir. We do know why, more or less. Some fanatic with a bee in his bonnet about justice. He was out to get people who were beyond the reach of the law. He picked ten people – whether they were really guilty or not doesn’t matter —»

The Commissioner stirred. He said sharply:

«Doesn’t it? It seems to me —»

He stopped. Inspector Maine waited respectfully. With a sigh Legge shook his head.

«Carry on,» he said. «Just for a minute I felt I’d got somewhere. Got, as it were, the clue to the thing. It’s gone now. Go ahead with what you were saying.»

Maine went on: «There were ten people to be – executed, let’s say. They were executed. U. N. Owen accomplished his task. And somehow or other he spirited himself off that island into thin air.»

The A. C. said: «First-class vanishing trick. But you know, Maine, there must be an explanation.»

Maine said: «You’re thinking, sir, that if the man wasn’t on the island, he couldn’l have left the island, and according to the account of the interested parties he never was on the island. Well, then the only explanation possible is that he was actually one of the ten.»

The A. C. nodded.

Maine said earnestly: «We thought of that, sir. We went into it. Now, to begin with, we’re not quite in the dark as to what happened on Soldier Island. Vera Claythorne kept a diary, so did Emily Brent. Old Wargrave made some notes – dry legal cryptic stuff, but quite clear. And Blore made notes too. All those accounts tally. The deaths occurred in this order: Marston, Mrs. Rogers, Macarthur, Rogers, Miss Brent, Wargrave. After his death Vera Claythorne’s diary states that Armstrong left the house in the night and that Blore and Lombard had gone after him. Blore has one more entry in his notebook. Just two words: ‘Armstrong disappeared.»

«Now, sir, it seemed to me, taking everything into account, that we might find here a perfectly good solution. Armstrong was drowned, you remember. Granting that Armstrong was mad, what was to prevent him having killed off all the others and then committed suicide by throwing himself over the cliff, or perhaps while trying to swim to the mainland?»

«That was a good solution – but it won’t do. No, sir, it won’t do. First of all there’s the police surgeon’s evidence. He got to the island early on the morning of August 13th. He couldn’t say much to help us. All he could say was that all the people had been dead at least thirty-six hours and probably a good deal longer. But he was fairly definite about Armstrong. Said he must have been from eight to ten hours in the water before his body was washed up. That works out at this, that Armstrong must have gone into the sea sometime during the night of the 10th-11th – and I’ll explain why. We found the point where the body was washed up – it had been wedged between two rocks and there were bits of cloth, hair, etc. on them. It must have been deposited there at high water on the 11th – that’s to say round about 11 o’clock A. M. After that, the storm subsided, and succeeding high water marks are considerably lower.»

«You might say, I suppose that Armstrong managed to polish off the other three before he went into the sea that night. But there’s another point and one you can’t get over. Armstrong’s body had been dragged above high water mark. We found it well above the reach of any tide. And it was laid out straight on the ground – all neat and tidy. „So that settles one point definitely. Some one was alive on the island after Armstrong was dead.“»

He paused and then went on.

«And that leaves – just what exactly? Here’s the position early on the morning of the 11th. Armstrong has ‘disappeared’ (drowned). That leaves us three people. Lombard, Blore and Vera Claythorne. Lombard was shot. His body was down by the sea – near Armstrong’s. Vera Claythorne was found hanged in her own bedroom. Blore’s body was on the terrace. His head was crushed in by a heavy marble clock that it seems reasonable to suppose fell on him from the window above.»

The A. C. said sharply: «Whose window?»

«Vera Claythorne’s. Now, sir, let’s take each of these cases separately. First Philip Lombard. Let’s say he pushed over that lump of marble onto Blore – then he doped Vera Claythorne and strung her up. Lastly, he went down to the seashore and shot himself.»

«But if so, woo took away the revolver from him? For that revolver was found up in the house just inside the door at the top of the stairs – Wargrave’s room.»

The A. C. said: «Any fingerprints on it?»

«Yes, sir, Vera Claythorne’s.»

«But, man alive, then —»

«I know what you’re going to say, sir. That it was Vera Claythorne. That she shot Lombard, took the revolver back to the house, toppled the marble block onto Blore and then – hanged herself. „And that’s quite all right – up to a point. There’s a chair in her bedroom and on the seat of it there are marks of seaweed same as on her shoes. Looks as though she stood on the chair, adjusted the rope round her neck and kicked away the chair. „But that chair wasn’t found kicked over. It was, like, all the other chairs, neatly put back against the wall. That was done after Vera Claythorne’s death – by some one else.»

«That leaves us with Blore and if you tell me that after shooting Lombard and inducing Vera Claythorne to hang herself he then went out and pulled down a whacking great block of marble on himself by tying a string to it or something like that – well, I simply don’t believe you. Men don’t commit suicide that way – and what’s more Blore wasn’t that kind of man. We knew Blore – and he was not the man that you’d ever accuse of a desire for abstract justice.»

The Assistant Commissioner said: I agree.

Inspector Maine said: «And therefore, sir, there must have been some one else on the island. Some one who tidied up when the whole business was over. But where was he all the time – and where did he go to? The Sticklehaven people are absolutely certain that no one could have left the island before the rescue boat got there. But in that case —» He stopped.

The Assistant Commissioner said: «In that case —»

He sighed. He shook his head. He leaned forward.

«But in that case,» he said, «who killed them?»

From my earliest youth I realized that my nature was a mass of contradictions. I have to begin with, an incurably romantic imagination. The practice of throwing a bottle into the sea with an important document inside was one that never failed to thrill me when reading adventure stories as a child. It thrills me still – and for that reason I have adopted this course – writing my confession, enclosing it in a bottle, sealing the latter, and casting it into the waves. There is, I suppose, a hundred to one chance that my confession may be found – and then (or do I flatter myself!) a hitherto unsolved murder mystery will be explained.