Ordeal by Innocence

by Agatha Christie

  Leo Argyle stirred in his chair and spoke for the first time. "What exactly do you mean by success?"

  "I apologise," said Calgary quickly. "That is not a word that can rightly be used. Your son was accused of a crime he did not commit, was tried for it, condemned - and died in prison. Justice has come too late for him. But such justice as can be done, almost certainly will be done, and will be seen to be done. The Home Secretary will probably advise the Queen that a free pardon should be granted."

  Hester laughed.

  "A free pardon - for something he didn't do?"

  "I know. The terminology always seems unrealistic. But I understand that the custom is for a question to be asked in the House, the reply to which will make it clear that Jack Argyle did not commit the crime for which he was sentenced, and the newspapers will report that fact freely."

  He stopped. Nobody spoke. It had been, he supposed, a great shock to them. But after all, a happy one.

  He rose to his feet.

  "I'm afraid," he said uncertainly, "that there is nothing more that I can say... To repeat how sorry I am, how unhappy about it all, to ask your forgiveness - all that you must already know only too well. The tragedy that ended his life, has darkened my own. But at least" - he spoke with pleading - "surely it means something - to know that he didn't do this awful thing - that his name - your name - will be cleared in the eyes of the world?"

  If he hoped for a reply he did not get one.

  Leo Argyle sat slumped in his chair. Gwenda's eyes were on Leo's face. Hester sat staring ahead of her, her eyes wide and tragic. Miss Lindstrom grunted something under her breath and shook her head.

  Calgary stood helplessly by the door, looking back at them.

  It was Gwenda Vaughan who took charge of the situation. She came up to him and laid a hand on his arm, saying in a low voice: "You'd better go now, Dr. Calgary. It's been too much of a shock. They must have time to take it in."

  He nodded and went out. On the landing Miss Lindstrom joined him. "I will let you out," she said.

  He was conscious, looking back before the door closed behind him, of Gwenda Vaughan slipping to her knees by Leo Argyle's chair. It surprised him a little.

  Facing him, on the landing, Miss Lindstrom stood like a Guardsman and spoke harshly.

  "You cannot bring him back to life. So why bring it all back into their minds? Till now, they were resigned. Now they will suffer. It is better, always, to leave well alone."

  She spoke with displeasure.

  "His memory must be cleared," said Arthur Calgary.

  "Fine sentiments! They are all very well. Butyou do not really think of what it all means. Men, they never think." She stamped her foot. "I love them all. I came here, to help Mrs. Argyle, in 1940 when she started here a war nursery - for children whose homes had been bombed. Nothing was too good for those children. Everything was done for them. That is nearly eighteen years ago. And still, even after she is dead, I stay here - to look after them - to keep the house clean and comfortable, to see they get good food. I love them all - yes, I love them... and Jacko he was no good! Oh yes, I loved him too. But - he was no good!"

  She turned abruptly away. It seemed she had forgotten her offer to show him out. Calgary descended the stairs slowly. As he was fumbling with the front door which had a safety lock he did not understand, he heard light footsteps on the stairs. Hester came flying down them.

  She unlatched the door and opened it. They stood looking at each other. He understood less than ever why she faced him with that tragic reproachful stare.

  She said, only just breathing the words: "Why did you come? Oh, why ever did you come?"

  He looked at her helplessly.

  "I don't understand you. Don't you want your brother's name cleared? Don't you want him to have justice?"

  "Oh, justice!" She threw the word at him. He repeated: "I don't understand..."

  "Going on so about justice! What does it matter to Jacko now? He's dead. It's not Jacko who matters. It's the others."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's not the guilty who matter. It's the innocent."

  She caught his arm, digging her fingers into it.

  "It's we who matter. Don't you see what you've done to us all?"

  He stared at her.

  Out of the darkness outside, a man's figure loomed up.

  "Dr. Calgary?" he said. "Your taxi's here, sir. To drive you to Drymouth."

  "Oh - er - thank you."

  Calgary turned once more to Hester, but she had withdrawn into the house.

  The front door banged.

  Chapter 3

  Hester went slowly up the stairs pushing back the hair from her high forehead. Kirsten Lindstrom met her at the top of the stairs.

  "Has he gone?" "Yes, he's gone."

  "You have had a shock, Hester." Kirsten Lindstrom laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Come with me. I will give you a little brandy. All this, it has been too much."

  "I don't think I want any brandy, Kirsty."

  "Perhaps you do not want it, but it will be good for you."

  Unresisting, the young girl allowed herself to be steered along the passage and into Kirsten Lindstrom's own small sitting-room. She took the brandy that was offered her and sipped it slowly. Kirsten Lindstrom said in an exasperated voice: "It has all been too sudden. There should have been warning. Why did not Mr. Marshall write first?"

  "I suppose Dr. Calgary wouldn't let him. He wanted to come and tell us himself." "Come and tell us himself, indeed! What does he think the news will do to us?"

  "I suppose," said Hester, in an odd, toneless voice, "he thought we should be pleased."

  "Pleased or not pleased, it was bound to be a shock. He should not have done it."

  "But it was brave of him, in a way," said Hester. The colour came up in her face. "I mean, it can't have been an easy thing to do. To come and tell a family of people that a member of it who was condemned for murder and died in prison was really innocent. Yes, I think it was brave of him - but I wish he hadn't all the same," she added.

  "That - we all wish that," said Miss Lindstrom briskly.

  Hester looked at her with her interest suddenly aroused from her own preoccupation.

  "So you feel that too, Kirsty? I thought perhaps it was only me."

  "I am not a fool," said Miss Lindstrom sharply. "I can envisage certain possibilities that your Dr. Calgary does not seem to have thought about."

  Hester rose. "I must go to Father," she said.

  Kirsten Lindstrom agreed.

  "Yes. He will have had time now to think what is best to be done."

  As Hester went into the library Gwenda Vaughan was busy with the telephone. Her father beckoned to her and Hester went over and sat on the arm of his chair.

  "We're trying to get through to Mary and to Micky,' he said. "They ought to be told at once of this."

  "Hallo," said Gwenda Vaughan. "Is that Mrs. Durrant? Mary? Gwenda Vaughan here. Your father wants to speak to you."

  Leo went over and took up the receiver.

  "Mary? How are you? How is Philip?... Good. Something rather extraordinary has happened... I thought you ought to be told of it at once. A Dr. Calgary has just been to see us. He brought a letter from Andrew Marshall with him. It's about Jacko. It seems - really a very extraordinary thing altogether - it seems that that story Jacko told at the trial, of having been given a lift into Drymouth in somebody's car, is perfectly true. This Dr. Calgary was the man who gave him the lift.."

  He broke off, as he listened to what his daughter was saying at the other end. "Yes, well, Mary, I won't go into all the details now as to why he didn't come forward at the time. He had an accident - concussion. The whole thing seems to be perfectly well authenticated. I rang up to say that I think we should all have a meeting here together as soon as possible. Perhaps we could get Marshall to come down and talk the matter over with us. We ought, I think, to have the best legal advice. Could you and Philip?... Yes... Yes, I know
. But I really think, my dear, that it's important... Yes... well ring me up later, if you like. I must try and get hold of Micky." He replaced the receiver.

  Gwenda Vaughan came towards the telephone.

  "Shall I try and get Micky now?"

  Hester said: "If this is going to take a little time, could I ring up first, please, Gwenda? I want to ring up Donald."

  "Of course," said Leo. "You are going out with him this evening, aren't you?"

  "I was," said Hester.

  Her father gave her a sharp glance.

  "Has this upset you very much, darling?"

  "I don't know," said Hester. "I don't know quite what I feel."

  Gwenda made way for her at the telephone and Hester dialled a number.

  "Could I speak to Dr. Craig, please? Yes. Yes. Hester Argyle speaking."

  There was a moment or two of delay and then she said: "Is that you, Donald?... I rang up to say that I don't think I can come with you to the lecture tonight... No, I'm not ill - it's not that, it's just - well, just that we've - we've had some rather queer news."

  Again Dr. Craig spoke.

  Hester turned her head towards her father. She laid her hand over the receiver and said to him: "It isn't a secret, is it?"

  "No," said Leo slowly. "No, it isn't exactly a secret but - well, I should just ask Donald to keep it to himself for the present, perhaps. You know how turnouts get around, get magnified."

  "Yes, I know." She spoke again into the receiver. "In a way I suppose it's what you'd call good news, Donald, but - it's rather upsetting. I'd rather not talk about it over the telephone... No, no, don't come here... Please - not. Not this evening. Tomorrow some time. It's about - Jacko. Yes - yes - my brother - it's just that we've found out that he didn't kill my mother after all... But please don't say anything, Donald, or talk to anyone. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow... No, Donald, no... I just can't see anyone this evening - not even you. Please. And don't say anything." She put down the receiver, and motioned to Gwenda to take over.

  Gwenda asked for a Drymouth number. Leo said gently: "Why don't you go to the lecture with Donald, Hester? It will take your mind off things."

  "I don't want to, Father. I couldn't."

  Leo said: "You spoke - you gave him the impression that it wasn't good news. But you know, Hester, that's not so. We were startled. But we're all very happy about very glad... What else could we be?"

  "That's what we're going to say, is it?" said Hester. Leo said warningly: "My dear child -"

  "But it's not true, is it?" said Hester. "It's not good news. It's just terribly upsetting."

  Gwenda said: "Micky's on the line."

  Again Leo came and took the receiver from her. He spoke to his son very much as he had spoken to his daughter. But his news was received rather differently from the way it had been received by Mary Durrant.

  Here there was no protest, surprise or disbelief. Instead there was quick acceptance.

  "What the hell!" said Micky's voice. "After all this time? The missing witness! Well, well, Jacko's luck was out that night."

  Leo spoke again. Micky listened.

  "Yes," he said, "I agree with you. We'd better get together as quickly as possible, and get Marshall to advise us, too."

  He gave a sudden quick laugh, the laugh that Leo remembered so well from the small boy who had played in the garden outside the window.

  "What's the betting?" he said. "Which of us did it?"

  Leo dropped the receiver down and left the telephone abruptly.

  "What did he say?" Gwenda asked.

  Leo told her.

  "It seems to me a silly sort of joke to make," said Gwenda.

  Leo shot a quick glance at her. "Perhaps," he said gently, "it wasn't altogether a joke."

  II

  Mary Durrant crossed the room and picked up some fallen petals from a vase of chrysanthemums. She put them carefully into the waste-paper basket. She was a tall, serene-looking young woman of twenty-seven who, although her face was unlined, yet looked older than her years, probably from a sedate maturity that seemed part of her make-up. She had good looks, without a trace of glamour. Regular features, a good skin, eyes of a vivid blue, and fair hair combed off her face and arranged in a large bun at the back of her neck; a style which at the moment happened to be fashionable although that was not her reason for wearing it so. She was a woman who always kept to her own style. Her appearance was like her house; neat, well kept. Any kind of dust or disorder worried her.

  The man in the invalid chair watching her as she put the fallen petals carefully away, smiled a slightly twisted smile.

  "Same tidy creature," he said. "A place for everything and everything in its place." He laughed, with a faint malicious note in the laugh. But Mary Durrant was quite undisturbed.

  "I do like things to be tidy," she agreed. "You know, Phil, you wouldn't like it yourself if the house was like a shambles."

  Her husband said with a faint trace of bitterness: "Well, at any rate I haven't got the chance of making it into one."

  Soon after their marriage, Philip Durrant had fallen a victim to polio of the paralytic type. To Mary, who adored him, he had become her child as well as her husband.

  He himself felt at times slightly embarrassed by her possessive love. His wife had not got the imagination to understand that her pleasure in his dependence upon her sometimes irked him.

  He went on now rather quickly, as though fearing some word of commiseration or sympathy from her.

  "I must say your father's news beggars description! After all this time! How can you be so calm about it?"

  "I suppose I can hardly take it in... It's so extraordinary. At first I simply couldn't believe what father was saying. If it had been Hester, now, I should have thought she'd imagined the whole thing. You know what Hester's like."

  Philip Durrant's face lost a little of its bitterness. He said softly: "A vehement passionate creature, setting out in life to look for trouble and certain to find it."

  Mary waved away the analysis. Other people's characters did not interest her.

  She said doubtfully: "I suppose it's true? You don't think this man may have imagined it all?"

  "The absent-minded scientist? It would be nice to think so," said Philip, "but it seems that Andrew Marshall has taken the matter seriously. And Marshall, Marshall & Marshall are a very hard-headed legal proposition, let me tell you!"

  Mary Durrant said, frowning: "What will it actually mean, Phil?"

  Philip said: "It means that Jacko will be completely exonerated. That is, if the authorities are satisfied - and I gather that there is going to be no question of anything else."

  "Oh, well," said Mary, with a slight sigh, "I suppose it's all very nice." Philip Durrant laughed again, the same twisted, rather bitter laughter. "Polly!" he said, "you'll be the death of me."

  Only her husband had ever called Mary Durrant Polly. It was a name ludicrously inappropriate to her statuesque appearance. She looked at Philip in faint surprise.

  "I don't see what I've said to amuse you so much."

  "You were so gracious about it!" said Philip. "Like Lady Somebody at the Sale of Work praising the Village Institute's handiwork."

  Mary said, puzzled: "But it is very nice! You can't pretend it's been satisfactory to have had a murderer in the family."

  "Not really in the family."

  "Well, it's practically the same thing. I mean, it was all very worrying, and made one most uncomfortable. Everybody was so agog and curious. I hated it all."

  "You took it very well," said Philip. "Froze them with that icy blue gaze of yours. Made them pipe down and look ashamed of themselves. It's wonderful the way you manage never to show emotion."

  "I disliked it all very much. It was all most unpleasant," said Mary Durrant, "but at any rate he died and it was over. And now - now, I suppose, it will all be raked up again. So tiresome."

  "Yes," said Philip Durrant thoughtfully. He shifted his shoulders slightly,
a faint expression of pain on his face. His wife came to him quickly.

  "Are you cramped? Wait. Let me just move this cushion. There. That better?"

  "You ought to have been a hospital nurse," said Philip.

  "I've not the least wish to nurse a lot of people. Only you."

  It was said very simply but there was a depth of feeling behind the bare words.