Агата Кристи - Зло под солнцем / Evil Under the Sun

“I had my mosaic now – each piece beautifully fitted into its place. But unfortunately I had no definite proof. It was all in my mind. It was then that an idea came to me. There was an assurance – a slickness about the crime. I had no doubt that in the future Patrick Redfern would repeat his crime. What about the past? It was remotely possible that this was not his first killing. The method employed, strangulation, was in harmony with his nature – a killer for pleasure as well as for profit. If he was already a murderer I was sure that he would have used the same means. I asked Inspector Colgate for a list of women victims of strangulation. The result filled me with joy. The death of Nellie Parsons found strangled in a lonely copse might or might not be Patrick Redfern’s work – it might merely have suggested choice of locality to him, but in Alice Corrigan’s death I found exactly what I was looking for. In essence the same method. Juggling with time – a murder committed not, as is the usual way, before it is supposed to have happened, but afterwards. A body supposedly discovered at a quarter past four. A husband with an alibi up to twenty-five past four.

“What really happened? It was said that Edward Corrigan arrived at the Pine Ridge, found his wife was not there and went out and walked up and down. Actually of course he ran full speed to the rendezvous, Caesar’s Grove (which you will remember was quite near by), killed her and returned to the café. The girl hiker who reported the crime was a most respectable young lady, games mistress in a well-known girls’ school. Apparently she had no connection with Edward Corrigan. She had to walk some way to report the death. The police surgeon only examined the body at a quarter to six. As in this case the time of death was accepted without question.

“I made one final test. I must know definitely if Mrs Redfern was a liar. I arranged our little excursion to Dartmoor. If anyone had a bad head for heights, they are never comfortable crossing a narrow bridge over running water. Miss Brewster, a genuine sufferer, showed giddiness, but Christine Redfern, unconcerned, ran across without a qualm. It was a small point, but it was a definite test. If she had told one unnecessary lie – then all the other lies were possible. In the meantime Colgate had got the photograph identified by the Surrey police. I played my hand in the only way I thought likely to succeed. Having lulled Patrick Redfern into security, I turned on him and did my utmost to make him lose his self-control. The knowledge that he had been identified with Corrigan caused him to lose his head completely.”

Hercule Poirot stroked his throat reminiscently.

“What I did,” he said with importance, “was exceedingly dangerous – but I do not regret it. I succeeded! I did not suffer in vain.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Mrs Gardener gave a deep sigh.

“Why, M. Poirot,” she said. “It’s just been too wonderful – hearing just exactly how you got your results. It’s every bit as fascinating as a lecture on criminology – in fact it is a lecture on criminology. And to think my magenta wool and that sunbathing conversation actually had something to do with it! That really makes me too excited for words and I’m sure Mr Gardener feels the same, don’t you, Odell?”

“Yes, darling,” said Mr Gardener.

Hercule Poirot said: “Mr Gardener too was of assistance to me. I wanted the opinion of a sensible man about Mrs Marshall. I asked Mr Gardener what he thought of her.”

“Is that so,” said Mrs Gardener. “And what did you say about her, Odell?”

Mr Gardener coughed.

He said: “Well, darling, I never did think very much of her, you know.”

“That’s the kind of thing men always say to their wives,” said Mrs Gardener. “And if you ask me, even M. Poirot here is what I should call a shade on the indulgent side about her, calling her a natural victim and all that. Of course it’s true that she wasn’t a cultured woman at all, and as Captain Marshall isn’t here I don’t mind saying that she always did seem to me kind of dumb. I said so to Mr Gardener, didn’t I, Odell?”

“Yes, darling,” said Mr Gardener.

Linda Marshall sat with Hercule Poirot on Gull Cove.

She said: “Of course I’m glad I didn’t die after all. But you know, M. Poirot, it’s just the same as if I’d killed her, isn’t it? I meant to.”

Hercule Poirot said energetically: “It is not at all the same thing. The wish to kill and the action of killing are two different things. If in your bedroom instead of a little wax figure you had had your stepmother bound and helpless and a dagger in your hand instead of a pin, you would not have pushed it into her heart! Something within you would have said ‘no.’ It is the same with me. I enrage myself at an imbecile. I say, ‘I would like to kick him.’ Instead I kick the table. I say. This table, it is the imbecile, I kick him so.’ And then, if I have not hurt my toe too much, I feel much better and the table it is not usually damaged. But if the imbecile himself was there I should not kick him. To make the wax figure and stick in the pins it is silly, yes, it is childish, yes – but it does something useful too. You took the hate out of yourself and put it into that little figure. And with the pin and the fire you destroyed – not your stepmother – but the hate you bore her. Afterwards, even before you heard of her death, you felt cleansed, did you not – you felt lighter – happier?”

Linda nodded.

She said: “How did you know? That’s just how I did feel.”

Poirot said: “Then do not repeat to yourself the imbecilities. Just make up your mind not to hate your next stepmother.”

Linda said, startled: “Do you think I’m going to have another? Oh, I see, you mean Rosamund. I don’t mind her.” She hesitated a minute. “She’s sensible.”

It was not the adjective that Poirot himself would have selected for Rosamund Darnley, but he realized that it was Linda’s idea of high praise.

Kenneth Marshall said: “Rosamund, did you get some extraordinary idea into your head that I’d killed Arlena?”

Rosamund looked rather shamefaced. She said:

“I suppose I was a damned fool.”

“Or course you were.”

“Yes, but, Ken, you are such an oyster. I never knew what you really felt about Arlena. I didn’t know if you accepted her as she was and were just frightfully decent about her, or whether you – well, just believed in her blindly. And I thought if it was that and you suddenly found out that she was letting you down you might go mad with rage. I’ve heard stories about you. You’re always very quiet but you’re rather frightening sometimes.”

“So you thought I just took her by the throat and throttled the life out of her?”

“Well – yes – that’s just exactly what I did think. And your alibi seemed a bit on the light side. That’s when I suddenly decided to take a hand and make up that silly story about seeing you typing in your room. And when I heard that you said you’d seen me look in – well, that made me quite sure you’d done it. That, and Linda’s queerness.”

Kenneth Marshall said with a sigh: “Don’t you realize that I said I’d seen you in the mirror in order to back up your story. I – I thought you needed it corroborated.”

Rosamund stared at him.

“You don’t mean you thought that I killed your wife?”

Kenneth Marshall shifted uneasily.

He mumbled: “Dash it all, Rosamund, don’t you remember how you nearly killed that boy about that dog once? How you hung on to my throat and wouldn’t let go.”

“But that was years ago.”

“Yes, I know – ”

Rosamund said sharply: “What earthly motive do you think I had to kill Arlena?”