Whodunnit Mrs Christie

by Robert Challis

smoke without fire. Mrs. Buckley. I've found with criminals that there's almost always a pattern to their offences. They repeat the form of wrongdoing they've learnt throughout their career. Once a forger, always a forger. Mrs. Buckley, did you burn a forged Will?

  Agnes: (Desperately) No, no.

  Rayner: Mrs. Buckley, did you suspect that your husband might do something like that? You went into Lady Bayfield's room, found the forged Will, your husband's handiwork, discovered the body - assumed the worst, set out to suppress the evidence - and you've told us a web of lies over since.

  Agnes: No, no, it’s not true. He might be a forger, but he could never kill anyone. I know he couldn't.

  Rayner: Constable, I think it's time we confronted Mr. Buckley.

  Agnes: No, no. He couldn't have done it. (Desperately) I did it. I killed her.

  Rayner: Constable, please accompany Mrs. Buckley, and ask Mr. Buckley to come in.

  Constable: Should I caution her Sir, and prepare the charge sheet?

  Rayner: No you damn fool, just do what you're told. (Exit Constable and Agnes, right)

  Agatha: Too much heat, Inspector?

  Rayner: I don't think so. Ted's demanding a lawyer. I need something to get him talking.

  (Enter Constable and Ted, right)

  Ted: What have you done to Agnes?

  Rayner: Sit down, Ted.

  Ted: No I won't sit down.

  Rayner: Mr. Buckley, your wife has just confessed to the murder of Lady Bayfield.

  Ted: You've got to be joking! Killed her sister? Agnes couldn't even kill a fly.

  Rayner: That's what I was thinking. She's a hopeless liar, too. I think she's trying to protect someone.

  Ted: (Pleased) Of course she is. She's lying for me, that fool woman. You have to hand it to her, though. Not too many women would do that for their husband. (Thoughtfully) And after all she's been through. I haven't been the best of husbands.

  Rayner: So you admit you killed lady Bayfield?

  Ted: I admit no such thing. Agnes thought I'd done it. The Will, the forged Will, I left it on Lady Bayfield's desk. Agnes heard me talking about forging a Will - I frightened her - she went in and checked - and found it there on the desk, Lady Bayfield dead, and jumped to conclusions.

  Rayner: You were in Lady Bayfield's room just before your wife. Was Lady Bayfield dead then?

  Ted: I suppose she must have been. I didn't check. I assumed she was asleep, or pretending. To be honest, I was rather keen to look at the new Will to see how it dealt with us.

  Rayner: Murder aside for the moment. You've just admitted to forgery. That's a very serious offence.

  Ted: (Suddenly alarmed) But Lady Bayfield asked me to. She knew I used to work in the fraud squad. I told her I wouldn't mind trying my hand at it.

  Rayner: Can you prove that she asked you?

  Ted: No, dammit. She made sure no one else knew - that was part of the game.

  Rayner: Then you were the phoney murderer?

  Ted: No I was a red herring - a sub-plot you might say.

  Rayner: Then who was the phoney murderer?

  Ted: I've been thinking about that. I think the fake murderer and the real murderer are one and the same person.

  Rayner: (drily) We've already reached the same conclusion. Constable, could you ask Mrs. Buckley back? (Constable exits right) We'd better set your wife's mind at rest.

  Ted: (surprised) Is that all then?

  Rayner: For the time being.

  Ted: You mean you're accepting my explanation?

  Rayner: I have my own reasons for believing you. Anyway, you're too canny to make up such a ridiculous story.

  (Constable and Agnes enter from right)

  Ted: (Going to bookcase) By the way, you'd better have this. (Takes Will out of book and takes it to Rayner) I imagine the original is with her solicitor.

  Rayner: (PuttingWill on coffee table) Mrs. Buckley, you'll be pleased to know that as far as I can see at present, you and your husband are no longer suspected of any wrongdoing. I'm sorry for the way I questioned you, but I wanted to eliminate the false trails as quickly as possible, so we can get to the heart of the matter.

  Agnes: You mean that Ted didn't... didn't do anything wrong?

  Rayner:- And just a word of advice for you, Mrs. Buckley, if you should be so unfortunate as to be involved in a police investigation again, tell the truth from the start. It makes things much simpler in the long run.

  (Ted and Agnes exit right)

  Rayner: Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Constable, call Mrs. Hodges.

  (Constable exits right)

  Agatha: The fingerprint evidence is fairly damning.

  Rayner: Not so much the glass by lady Bayfield's bed, (taking out of his pocket the bottle in the plastic bag) but this small medicine bottle found in the bushes in the garden. One set of prints only. In line of sight of the Hodges' bedroom window and no other.

  Agatha: And the pillow.

  Rayner: Fool of a thing to do, you know, to take the pillow from their own bed into Lady Bayfield's room - but of course they had no way of knowing that it was marked and identifiable.

  Agatha: Then, unable to retrieve the pillow left under Lady Bayfield's bed, replacing the one in their room with the first to hand from the linen closet.

  Rayner: One that happened to be marked M - a spare for Lady Bayfield's room. A pity that all murder cases can't be solved on such a simple piece of evidence. All that remains is to find out if Mr. Hodges is the culprit, or his wife.

  Agatha: Or the two of them working together?

  Rayner: Anything's possible.

  (Enter Constable with Sarah from right)

  Rayner: Please take a seat, Mrs. Hodges. (She sits at the table, right chair) The events of this weekend must have been quite a shock to you.

  Sarah: Yes, it's terrible.

  Rayner: (Sitting in chair left) You were very close to Lady Bayfield.

  Sarah: She seemed to like me.

  Rayner: And you?

  Sarah: I felt sorry for her. I think she was a very lonely lady. These weekends meant so much to her, and everyone spent their time backbiting her.

  Rayner: You kept yourself out of these murder games.

  Sarah: It was all so depressing. The same thing time after time - the same stupid game.

  Rayner: Did she ever ask you to be the murderer?

  Sarah: Often. She thought I was the last person anyone would suspect.

  Rayner: Did she ask you this time?

  Sarah: No

  Rayner: Why do you think she liked to play the game?

  Sarah: I've often thought about that. She was almost always the victim. A psychiatrist could make all sorts of conclusions about that. She was always testing, trying to find what people really thought of her. At times she almost seemed to be daring people to say or do what they really felt like.

  Rayner: But you wouldn't play the game. (Rising from his seat)

  Sarah: Maybe that was why she liked me.

  Rayner: (Turning on her) Where did you go just after Thomas announced her fake murder?

  Sarah: I just wanted to get away from everyone. I went for a walk in the grounds.

  Rayner: Then what?

  Sarah: I came back inside.

  Rayner: But no one saw you come in.

  Sarah: I used the servants' entrance. (Pause) I was trying to avoid the others. I didn't feel like company.

  Rayner: And when you got to your room, where was your husband?

  Sarah: He was fast asleep in the bed. I sat on the bed thinking for a while, then I came down here to find out when dinner would be.

  Rayner: Going here and there, changing your mind. It all seems quite directionless.

  Sarah: That's how these weekends take me.

  Rayner: Why do you keep coming here then?

  Sarah: Greg's determined to come.

  Rayner: Doesn't want to miss his chance in the Will?

  Sarah: Greg's not a greedy man. All he wants to
do is write his stories. The inheritance will allow him to do that.

  Rayner: Without having to find a more stable way of earning a living?

  Sarah: I suppose that's about the size of it.

  Rayner: Any other reason he insists on visiting here?

  Sarah: I don't know what you mean.

  Rayner: I understand there are some problems in your marriage.

  Sarah: I'd rather not discuss my personal life.

  Rayner: Unfortunately, we are investigating a major crime. I'm afraid that matters previously regarded as personal become highly relevant.

  Sarah: I don't see why.

  Rayner: Mrs. Hodges, has your husband been faithful to you? (Sarah turns away. Pause) Has he?

  Sarah: In his way.

  Rayner: What does that mean?

  Sarah: He's like a child. He needs me. I know he does. It's her. She's turned his head. She's poisoned his mind against me, made him think of me as a millstone around his neck. She's the one who's got him thinking of divorce. He'd never have thought of it on his own. It's, just not him. He's weak. If I could just get her influence away from him...

  Rayner: He'd come back to you?

  Sarah: He would, I'm certain of it.

  Rayner: Mrs. Hodges, are you aware that the she you're talking about is Janet Drewer.

  Sarah: (Passionately) Of course I am. I'm not blind, and I'm not a fool.

  Rayner: Why haven't you confronted her?

  Sarah: Maybe I should have. At first I'd hoped he'd tire of her. Then I was afraid to bring matters to a head, so I pretended I didn't know.

  Rayner: Did you know that Lady Bayfield had changed her Will in your favour, I mean before you came here this weekend?

  Sarah: Well it's hardly in my favour. We get the same share as before.

  Rayner: But you did know about it?

  Sarah: Yes.

  Rayner: Under the new Will, if the two of you were to divorce, you'd go away with half of that inheritance.

  Sarah: As his wife, it's no less than I deserve.

  Rayner: But if she'd died under the old Will, he could have divorced you and