Ordeal by Innocence

by Agatha Christie

  "Neither of you two were in the house, I know," he said. "But perhaps you'll just refresh my memory as to what you were doing that evening?"

  "Does your memory really need refreshing?" asked Micky with his sneer even more pronounced. "I can still say my piece. I was out testing a car. Clutch trouble. I gave it a good long test. From Drymouth up Minchin Hill, along the Moor Road and back through Ipsley. Unfortunately cars are dumb, they can't testify."

  Tina had turned her head at last. She was staring straight at Micky. Her face was still expressionless...

  "And you, Miss Argyle? You work at the library at Redmyn?"

  "Yes. It closes at half past five. I did a little shopping in the High Street. Then I went home. I have a flat - flatlet really - in Morecombe Mansions. I cooked my own supper and enjoyed a quiet evening playing gramophone records."

  "You didn't go out at all?"

  There was a slight pause before she said: "No, I didn't go out."

  "Quite sure about that, Miss Argyle?"

  "Yes. I am sure."

  "You have a car, haven't you?"

  "Yes."

  "She has a bubble," said Micky. "Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble."

  "I have a bubble, yes," said Tina, grave and composed.

  "Where do you keep it?"

  "In the street. I have no garage. There is a side street near the flats. There are cars parked all along it."

  "And you've - nothing helpful you can tell us?"

  Huish hardly knew himself why he was so insistent.

  "I do not think there is anything I could possibly tell you."

  Micky threw her a quick glance.

  Huish sighed.

  "I'm afraid this hasn't helped you much, Superintendent," said Leo.

  "You never know, Mr. Argyle. You realise, I suppose, one of the oddest things about the whole business?"

  "I? I'm not quite sure that I follow you."

  "The money," said Huish. "The money Mrs. Argyle drew from the bank including that fiver with Mrs. Bottleberry, 17 Bangor Road written on the back of it. A strong part of the case was that that fiver and others were found on Jack Argyle when he was arrested. He swore he got the money from Mrs. Argyle, but Mrs. Argyle definitely told you and Miss Vaughan that she didn't give Jacko any money - so how did he get that fifty pounds? He couldn't have come back here -Dr. Calgary's evidence makes that quite clear. So he must have had it with him when he left here. Who gave it to him? Did you?"

  He turned squarely on Kirsten Lindstrom, who flushed indignantly.

  "Me? No, of course not. How could I?"

  "Where was the money kept that Mrs. Argyle had drawn from the bank?"

  "She usually kept it in a drawer of her bureau," said Kirsten.

  "Locked?"

  Kirsten considered.

  "She would probably lock the drawer before she went up to bed."

  Huish looked at Hester.

  "Did you take the money from the drawer and give it to your brother?"

  "I didn't even know he was there. And how could I take it without Mother knowing?"

  "You could have taken it quite easily when your mother went up to the library

  to consult your father," Huish suggested.

  He wondered whether she would see and avoid the trap. She fell straight into it.

  "But Jacko had already left by then. I -" She stopped, dismayed. "I see you do know when your brother left," said Huish. Hester said quickly and vehemently.

  "I -1 - know now -1 didn't then. I was up in my room, I tell you. I didn't hear anything at all. And anyway I wouldn't have wanted to give Jacko any money."

  "And I tell you this," said Kirsten. Her face was red and indignant. "If I had given Jacko money - it would have been my own money! I would not have stolen it!"

  "I'm sure you wouldn't," said Huish. "But you see where that leads us. Mrs. Argyle, in spite of what she told you," he looked at Leo, "must have given him that money herself."

  "I can't believe it. Why not tell me if she had done so?"

  "She wouldn't be the first mother to be softer about her son than she wanted to admit"

  "You're wrong, Huish. My wife never indulged in evasion."

  "I think she did this time," said Gwenda Vaughan. "In fact she must have done as the superintendent says, it's the only answer."

  "After all," said Huish softly. "We've got to look at the whole thing from a different point of view now. At the time of the arrest we thought Jack Argyle was lying. But now we find he spoke the truth about the hitch-hike he had from Calgary, so presumably he was speaking the truth about the money too. He said that his mother gave it to him. Therefore presumably she did."

  There was silence - an uncomfortable silence.

  Huish got up. "Well, thank you. I'm afraid the trail is pretty cold by now, but you never know."

  Leo escorted him to the door. When he came back he said with a sigh, "Well, that's over. For the present."

  "For always," said Kirsten. "They will never know." "What's the good of that to us?" cried Hester.

  "My dear." Her father went over to her. "Calm down, child. Don't be so strung up. Time heals everything."

  "Not some things. What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?" "Hester, come with me." Kirsten put a hand on her shoulder.

  "I don't want anybody." Hester ran out of the room. A moment later they heard the front door bang.

  Kirsten said: "All this! It is not good for her."

  "I don't think it's really true, either," said Philip Durrant thoughtfully.

  "What isn't true?" asked Gwenda.

  "That we shall never know the truth. I feel a kind of pricking in my thumbs."

  His face, faun-like and almost mischievous, lit up with a queer smile.

  "Please, Philip, be careful," said Tina.

  He looked at her in surprise.

  "Little Tina. And what do you know about it all?"

  "I hope," said Tina very clearly and distinctly, "that I do not know anything."

  Chapter 14

  "Don't suppose you got anything?" said the Chief Constable.

  "Nothing definite, sir," said Huish. "And yet - the time wasn't altogether wasted."

  "Let's hear about it all."

  "Well, our main times and premises are the same. Mrs. Argyle was alive just before seven, talked with her husband and Gwenda Vaughan, was seen afterwards downstairs by Hester Argyle. Three people can't be in cahoots. Jacko Argyle is now accounted for, so it means that she could have been killed by her husband, any time between five past seven and half past, by Gwenda Vaughan at five minutes past seven on her way out, by Hester just before that, by Kirsten Lindstrom when she came in later - just before half past seven, say. Durrant's paralysis gives him an alibi, but his wife's alibi depends on his word. She could have gone down and killed her mother if she wanted to between seven and half past if her husband was prepared to back her up. Don't see why she should, though. In fact, as far as I can see, only two people have got a real motive for the crime. Leo Argyle and Gwenda Vaughan."

  "You think it's one of them - or both of them together?"

  "I don't think they were in it together. As I see it, it was an impulsive crime - not a premeditated one. Mrs. Argyle comes into the library, tells them both about Jacko's threats and demands for money. Put it that, later, Leo Argyle goes down to speak to her about Jacko, or about something else. The house is quiet, nobody about. He goes into her sitting-room. There she is, her back to him, sitting at the desk. And there's the poker, still perhaps where Jacko threw it down after threatening her with it. Those quiet, repressed men do break out sometimes. A handkerchief over his hand so as not to leave prints, up with the poker, down with it on her head and it's done. Pull out a drawer or two to suggest a search for money. Then upstairs again till someone finds her. Or put it that Gwenda Vaughan on her way out looks into the room, and the urge comes over her. Jacko will be the perfect scapegoat, and the way to marriage with Leo Argyle is open."

  Major Finney nod
ded thoughtfully.

  "Yes. Could be. And of course they were careful not to announce an engagement too soon. Not till that poor little devil Jacko was safely convicted of murder. Yes, that seems fair enough. Crimes are very monotonous. Husband and third party, or wife and third party - always the same old pattern. But what can we do about it, Huish, eh? What can we do about it?"

  "I don't see, sir," said Huish slowly, "what we can do about it. We may be sure but where's the evidence? Nothing to stand up in court."

  "No - no. But you are sure, Huish? Sure in your own mind?"

  "Not as sure as I'd like to be," said Superintendent Huish, sadly.

  "Ah! Why not?"

  "The kind of man he is - Mr. Argyle, I mean."

  "Not the kind to do murder?"

  "It's not that so much - not the murder part of it. It's the boy. I don't see him deliberately framing the boy."

  "It wasn't his own son, remember. He may not have cared much for the boy - he may even have been resentful - of the affection his wife lavished on him."

  "That may be so. Yet he seems to have been fond of all the children. He looks fond of them."

  "Of course," said Finney, thoughtfully. "He knew the boy wouldn't be hanged. That might make a difference."

  Ah, you may have something there, sir. He may have thought that ten years in prison which is what a life sentence amounts to, might have done the boy no harm."

  "What about the young woman - Gwenda Vaughan?"

  "Ifshedidit," said Huish, "I don't suppose she'd have any qualms about Jacko. Women are ruthless."

  "Anyway, you're reasonably satisfied it's between those two?"

  "Reasonably satisfied, yes."

  "But no more?" the Chief Constable pressed him.

  "No. There's something going on. Undercurrents, as you might say."

  "Explain yourself, Huish."

  "What I'd really like to know is what they think themselves. About each other."

  "Oh, I see, I get you now. You're wondering if they themselves know who it was?"

  "Yes. I can't make up my mind about it. Do they all know? And are they all agreed to keep it dark? I don't think so. I think it's even possible that they may all have different ideas. There's the Swedish woman - she's a mass of nerves. Right on edge. That may be because she did it herself. She's the age when women go slightly off their rocker in one way or another. She may be frightened for herself or for somebody else. I've the impression, I may be wrong, it's for somebody else."

  "Leo?"

  "No, I don't think it's Leo she's upset about. I think it's the young one - Hester."

  "Hester, h'm? Any chance that it might have been Hester?"

  "No ostensible motive. But she's a passionate, perhaps slightly unbalanced type."

  "And Lindstrom probably knows a good deal more about the girl than we do."

  "Yes. Then there's the little dark one who works in the County Library."

  "She wasn't in the house that night, was she?"

  "No. But I think she knows something. Knows who did it, maybe."

  "Guesses? Or knows?"

  "She's worried. I don't think it's only guessing."

  He went on: "And there's the other boy. Micky. He wasn't there, either, but he was out in a car, nobody with him. He says he was testing the car up towards the moor and Minchin Hill. We've only his word for it. He could have driven over, gone into the house, killed her and driven away again. Gwenda Vaughan said something that wasn't in her original statement. She said a car passed her, just at the entrance to the private road. There are fourteen houses in the road, so it might have been going to any one of them and nobody will remember after two years - but it means there's just a possibility that the car was Micky's."

  "Why should he want to kill his adopted mother?"

  "No reason that we know about - but there might be one."

  "Who would know?"

  "They'd all know," said Huish. "But they wouldn't tell us. Not if they knew they were telling us, that is."

  "I perceive your devilish intention," said Major Finney. "Who are you going to work on?"

  "Lindstrom, I think. If I can break down her defences. I also hope to find out if she herself had a grudge against Mrs. Argyle."

  "And there's the paralysed chap," he added. Philip Durrant." "What about him?"

  "Well, I think he's beginning to have a few ideas about it all. I don't suppose he'll want to share them with me, but I may be able to get an inkling of the way his mind is working. He's an intelligent fellow, and I should say pretty observant. He may have noticed one or two rather interesting things."

  "Come out, Tina, and let's get some air."

  "Air?" Tina looked up at Micky doubtfully. "But it's so cold, Micky." She shivered a little.

  "I believe you hate fresh air, Tina. That's why you're able to stand being cooped up in that library all day long."

  Tina smiled.

  "I do not mind being cooped up in winter. It is very nice and warm in the library."

  Micky looked down on her.

  "And there you sit, all cuddled up like a cosy little kitten in front of the fire. But it'll do you good to get out, all the same. Come on, Tina. I want to talk to you. I want to - oh, to get some air into my lungs, forget all this bloody police business."

  Tina got up from her chair with a lazy, graceful movement not unlike that of the kitten to which Micky had just compared her.

  In the hall she wrapped a fur-collared tweed coat round her and they went out together.

  "Aren't you even going to put a coat on, Micky?" "No. I never feel the cold."

  "Brrr," said Tina gently. "How I hate this country in the winter. I would like to go abroad. I would like to be somewhere where the sun was always shining and the air was moist and soft and warm."

  "I've just been offered a job out in the Persian Gulf," said Micky, "with one of the oil companies. The job's looking after motor transport."

  "Are you going?"

  "No, I don't think so... What's the good?"

  They walked round to the back of the house and started down a zig-zag path through trees which led finally to the beach on the river below. Half-way down there was a small summer-house sheltered from the wind. They did not at once sit down but stood in front of it, gazing out over the river.

  "It's beautiful here, isn't it?" said Micky. Tina looked at the view with incurious eyes. "Yes," she said, "yes, perhaps it is."

  "But you don't really know, do you?" said Micky, looking at her affectionately, "you don't realise the beauty, Tina, you never have."

  "I do not remember," said Tina, "in all the years we lived here that you ever enjoyed the beauty of this place. You were always fretting, longing to go back to London."

  "That was different," said Micky shortly. "I didn't belong here."

  "That is what is the matter, isn't it?" said Tina, "you do not belong anywhere."

  "I don't belong anywhere," said Micky in a dazed voice. "Perhaps that's true. My goodness, Tina, what a frightening thought. Do you remember that old song? Kirsten used to sing it to us, I believe. Something about a dove. 0 dear dove, 0 sweet dove, 0 dove with the white, white breast. Do you remember?"

  Tina shook her head.

  "Perhaps she sang it to you, but - no, I do not remember."

  Micky went on, half speaking, half humming.

  "0 maid most dear, I am not here. I have no place, no part, No dwelling more by sea nor shore, But on in thy heart." He looked at Tina. "I suppose that could be true."

  Tina put a small hand on his arm.

  "Come, Micky, sit down here. It is out of the wind. It is not so cold."

  As he obeyed her she went on: "Must you be so unhappy always?"

  "My dear girl, you don't begin to understand the first thing about it."

  "I understand a good deal," said Tina. "Why can't you forget about her, Micky?"

  "Forget about her? Who are you talking about?"

  "Your mother," said Tina.

  "F
orget about her!" said Micky bitterly. "Is there much chance of forgetting after this morning - after the questions! If anyone's been murdered, they don't let you 'forget about her'!"