Ordeal by Innocence

by Agatha Christie

  "I thought," said Hester, "we were more than friends... And he thought so too. But you see, now that all this has come up..."

  "Yes?" said Calgary.

  "He thinks I did it," said Hester. Her words came with a rush. "Or perhaps he doesn't think I did it but he's not sure. He can't be sure. He thinks -1 can see he thinks - that I'm the most likely person. Perhaps I am. Perhaps we all think that about each other. And I thought, somebody has got to help us in the terrible mess we're in, and I thought of you because of the dream. You see, I was lost and I couldn't find Don. He'd left me and there was a great big sort of ravine thing -an abyss. Yes, that's the word. An abyss. It sounds so deep, doesn't it? So deep and so - so unbridgeable. And you were there on the other side and you held out your hands and said 'I want to help you.'" She drew a deep breath. "So I came to you. I ran away and I came here because you've got to help us. If you don't help us, I don't know what's going to happen. You must help us. You brought all this. You'll say, perhaps, that it's nothing to do with you. That having once told us -told us the truth about what happened - that it's no business of yours. You'll say

  "No," said Calgary, interrupting her. "I shall not say anything of the kind. It is my business, Hester. I agree with you. When you start a thing you have to go on with it. I feel that every bit as much as you do."

  "Oh!" Colour flamed up into Hester's face. Suddenly, as was the way with her, she looked beautiful. "So I'm not alone," she said. "There is someone."

  "Yes, my dear, there is someone - for what he's worth. So far I haven't been worth very much, but I'm trying and I've never stopped trying to help." He sat down and drew his chair nearer to her.

  "Now tell me all about it," he said. "Has it been very bad?"

  "It's one of us, you see," said Hester. "We all know that. Mr. Marshall came and we pretended it must have been someone who got in, but he knew it wasn't. It's one of us."

  "And your young man - what's-his-name?" "Don. Donald Craig. He's a doctor."

  "Don thinks it's you?"

  "He's afraid it's me," said Hester. She twisted her hands in a dramatic gesture. She looked at him. "Perhaps you think it's me, too?"

  "Oh, no," said Calgary. "Oh no, I know quite well that you're innocent." "You say that as though you were really quite sure." "I am quite sure," said Calgary. "But why? How can you be so sure?"

  "Because of what you said to me when I left the house after telling all of you. Do you remember? What you said to me about innocence. You couldn't have said that - you couldn't have felt that way - unless you were innocent."

  "Oh," cried Hester. "Oh - the relief! To know there's someone who really feels like that!"

  "So now," said Calgary, "we can discuss it calmly, can't we?" "Yes," said Hester. "It feels - it feels quite different now."

  "Just as a matter of interest," said Calgary, "and keeping firmly in mind thatyou know what I feel about it, why should anyone for one moment think that you would kill your adopted mother?"

  "I might have done," said Hester. "I often felt like it. One does sometimes feel just mad with rage. One feels so futile, so - so helpless. Mother was always so calm and so superior and knew everything, and was right about everything. Sometimes I would think, 'Oh! I would like to kill her.'" She looked at him. "Do you understand? Didn't you ever feel like that when you were young?"

  The last words gave Calgary a sudden pang, the same pang perhaps that he had felt when Micky in the hotel at Drymouth had said to him, "You look older." When he was young? Did it seem so very long ago to Hester? He cast his mind back. He remembered himself at nine years old consulting with another small boy in the gardens of his prep school, wondering ingenuously what would be the best way to dispose of Mr. Warborough, their form master. He remembered the helplessness of rage that had consumed him when Mr. Warborough had been particularly sarcastic in his comments. That, he thought, was what Hester had felt too. But whatever he and young - what was his name now? - Porch, yes,

  Porch had been the boy's name - although he and young Porch had consulted and planned, they had never taken any active steps to bring about the demise of Mr. Warborough.

  "You know," he said to Hester, "you ought to have got over those sort of feelings a good many years ago. I can understand them, of course."

  "It was just that Mother had that effect upon me," said Hester. "I'm beginning to see now, you know, that it was my own fault. I feel that if only she'd lived a little longer, just lived till I was a little older, a little more settled, that - that we'd have been friends in a curious way. That I'd have been glad of her help and her advice. But - but as it was I couldn't bear it; because, you see, it made me feel so ineffectual, so stupid. Everything I did went wrong and I could see for myself that the things I did were foolish things. That I'd only done them because I wanted to rebel, wanted to prove that I was myself. And I wasn't anybody. I was fluid. Yes, that's the word," said Hester. "It's exactly the word. Fluid. Never taking a shape for long. Just trying on shapes - shapes - shapes of other people that I admired. I thought, you see, if I ran away and went on the stage and had an affair with someone, that -"

  "That you would feel yourself, or at any rate, feel somebody?

  "Yes," said Hester. "Yes, that's just it. And of course really I see now that I was just behaving like a silly child. But you don't know how I wish, Dr. Calgary, that Mother was alive now. Because it's so unfair - unfair on her, I mean. She did so much for us and gave us so much. We didn't give her anything back. And now it's too late."

  She paused. "That's why," she said, with a sudden renewal of vigour, "I've determined to stop being silly and childish. And you'll help me, won't you?"

  "I've already said I'll do anything in the world to help you."

  She gave him a quick, rather lovely smile.

  "Tell me," he said, "exactly what has been happening."

  "Just what I thought would happen," said Hester. "We've all been looking at each other and wondering and we don't know. Father looks at Gwenda and thinks perhaps it was her. She looks at father and isn't sure. I don't think they're going to get married now. It's spoilt everything. And Tina thinks Micky had something to do with it. I don't know why because he wasn't there that evening. And Kirsten thinks I did it and tries to protect me. And Mary - that's my older sister who you didn't meet - Mary thinks Kirsten did it."

  "And who do you think did it, Hester?"

  "Me?" Hester sounded startled.

  "Yes, you," said Calgary. "I think, you know, it's rather important to know that."

  Hester spread out her hands. "I don't know," she wailed. "I just don't know. I'm it's an awful thing to say - but I'm frightened of everybody. It's as though behind each face there was another face. A - sinister sort of face that I don't know. I don't feel sure that Father's Father, and Kirsten keeps saying that I shouldn't trust anybody - not even her. And I look at Mary and I feel I don't know anything about her. And Gwenda - I've always liked Gwenda. I've been glad that Father was going to marry Gwenda. But now I'm not sure about Gwenda any more. I see her as somebody different, ruthless and - and revengeful. I don't know what anybody's like. There's an awful feeling of unhappiness."

  "Yes," said Calgary, "I can well imagine that."

  "There's so much unhappiness," said Hester, "that I can't help feeling perhaps there's the murderer's unhappiness too. And that might be the worst of all. Do you think that's likely?"

  "It's possible, I suppose," said Calgary, "and yet I doubt - of course I'm not an expert -1 doubt if a murderer is ever really unhappy."

  "But why not? I should think it would be the most terrible thing to be, to know you'd killed someone."

  "Yes," said Calgary, "it is a terrible thing and therefore I think a murderer must be one of two kinds of people. Either a person to whom it has not been terrible to kill anyone, the kind of person who says to himself, 'Well, of course it was a pity to have to do that but it was necessary for my own well being. After all, it's not my fault. I just - well, just had to do it'
Or else -"

  "Yes?" said Hester, "what's the other kind of murderer?"

  "I'm only guessing, mind you, I don't know, but I think if you were what you call the other kind of murderer, you wouldn't be able to live with your unhappiness over what you'd done. You'd either have to confess it or else you'd have to rewrite the story for yourself, as it were. Putting the blame on someone else, saying 'I should never have done such a thing unless such and such a thing had happened! I'm not really a murderer because I didn't mean to do it. It just happened, and so really it was fate and not myself.' Do you understand a little what I am trying to say?"

  "Yes," said Hester, "and I think it's very interesting." She half-closed her eyes. "I'm just trying to think."

  "Yes, Hester," said Calgary, "think. Think as hard as you can because if I'm ever going to be able to help you I've got to see things through your mind."

  "Micky hated Mother," said Hester slowly. "He always did... I don't know why. Tina, I think, loved her. Gwenda didn't like her. Kirsten was always loyal to Mother though she didn't always think that Mother was right in all the things she did. Father -" She paused for a long time.

  "Yes?" Calgary prompted her.

  "Father's gone a long way away again," said Hester. "After Mother died, you know, he was quite different. Not so - what shall I call it - remote. He's been more human, more alive. But now he's gone back to some - some sort of shadowy place where you can't get at him. I don't know what he felt about Mother, really. I suppose he loved her when he married her. They never quarrelled, but I don't know what he felt about her. Oh -" her hands flew out again - "one doesn't know what anyone feels, does one, really? I mean, what goes on behind their faces, behind their nice everyday words? They may be ravaged with hate or love or despair, and one wouldn't know! It's frightening Oh, Dr. Calgary, it's frightening!"

  He took both her hands in his.

  "You're not a child any longer," he said. "Only children are frightened. You're grown-up, Hester. You're a woman."

  He released her hands and said in a matter-of-fact tone: "Is there anywhere you can stay in London?"

  Hester looked slightly bewildered.

  "I suppose so. I don't know. Mother usually stayed at Curtis's."

  "Well, that's a very nice, quiet hotel. I should go there and book a room if I were you."

  "I'll do anything you tell me to do," said Hester.

  "Good girl," said Calgary. "What's the time?"

  He looked up at the clock. "Hallo, it's about seven o'clock already. Supposing you go and book yourself a room, and I'll come along about quarter to eight to take you out to dinner. How would that suit you?"

  "It sounds wonderful," said Hester. "Do you really mean it?" "Yes," said Calgary, "I really mean it."

  "But after that? What's going to happen next? I can't go on staying, can I, at Curtis's for ever?"

  "Your horizon always seems bounded by infinity," said Calgary.

  "Are you laughing at me?" she asked him doubtfully.

  "Just a little," he said, and smiled.

  Her expression wavered and then she, too, smiled.

  "I suppose really," she said confidentially, "I've been dramatising myself again."

  "It's rather a habit of yours, I suspect," said Calgary.

  "That's why I thought I should do well on the stage," said Hester. "But I didn't. I was no good at all. Oh, I was a lousy actress."

  "You'll get all the drama you want out of ordinary life, I should say," said Calgary. "Now I'm going to put you in a taxi, my dear, and you go off to Curtis's. And wash your face and brush your hair," he went on. "Have you got any luggage with you?"

  "Oh, yes. I've got a sort of overnight bag."

  "Good." He smiled at her. "Don't worry, Hester," he said again. "We'll think of something."

  Chapter 19

  "I want to talk to you, Kirsty," said Philip. "Yes, of course, Philip."

  Kirsten Lindstrom paused in her task. She had just brought in some washing which she was putting away in the chest of drawers.

  "I want to talk to you about all this business," said Philip. "You don't mind, do you?"

  "There is too much talk already," said Kirsten. "That is my view."

  "But it would be as well, wouldn't it," said Philip, "to come to some conclusion among ourselves. You know what's going on at present, don't you?"

  "Things are going wrong everywhere," said Kirsten.

  "Do you think Leo and Gwenda will ever get married now?"

  "Why not?"

  "Several reasons," said Philip. "First of all, perhaps, because Leo Argyle being an intelligent man, realises that a marriage between him and Gwenda will give the police what they want. A perfectly good motive for the murder of his wife. Or, alternatively, because Leo suspects that Gwenda is the murderer. And being a sensitive man, he doesn't really like taking as a second wife the woman who killed his first wife. What did you say to that?" he added.

  "Nothing," said Kirsten, "what should I say?" "Playing it very close to your chest, aren't you, Kirsty?" "I don't understand you." "Who are you covering up for, Kirsten?"

  "I am not 'covering up,' as you call it, for anyone. I think there should be less talk and I think people should not stay on in this house. It is not good for them. I think you, Philip, should go home with your wife to your own home."

  "Oh, you do, do you? Why, in particular?"

  "You are asking questions," said Kirsten. "You are trying to find out things. And your wife does not want you to do it. She is wiser than you are. You might find out something you did not want to find out, or that she did not want you to find out. You should go home, Philip. You should go home very soon."

  "I don't want to go home," said Philip. He spoke rather like a petulant small boy.

  That is what children say," said Kirsten. "They say I don't want to do this and I don't want to do that, but those who know more of life, who see better what is happening, have to coax them to do what they do not want to do."

  "So this is your idea of coaxing, is it?" said Philip. "Giving me orders."

  "No, I do not give you orders. I only advise you." She sighed. "I would advise all of them the same way. Micky should go back to his work as Tina has gone back to her library. I am glad Hester has gone. She should be somewhere where she is not continually reminded of all this."

  "Yes," said Philip. "I agree with you there. You're right about Hester. But what about you yourself, Kirsten? Oughtn't you to go away too?"

  "Yes," said Kirsten with a sigh. "I ought to go away."

  "Why don't you?"

  "You would not understand. It is too late for me to go away."

  Philip looked at her thoughtfully. Then he said: "There are so many variations, aren't there - variations on a single theme. Leo thinks Gwenda did it, Gwenda thinks Leo did it. Tina knows something that makes her suspect who did it. Micky knows who did it but doesn't care. Mary thinks Hester did it." He paused and then went on, "But the truth is, Kirsty, that those are only variations on a theme as I said. We know who did it quite well, don't we, Kirsty. You and I?"

  She shot a quick, horrified glance at him.

  "I thought as much," said Philip exultantly.

  "What do you mean?" said Kirsten. "What are you trying to say?"

  "I don't really know who did it," said Philip. "But you do. You don't only think you know who did it, you actually do know. I'm right, aren't I?"

  Kirsten marched to the door. She opened it, then turned back and spoke.

  "It is not a polite thing to say, but I will say it. You are a fool, Philip. What you are trying to do is dangerous. You understand one kind of danger. You have been a pilot. You have faced death up there in the sky. Can you not see that if you get anywhere near the truth, you are in just as great danger as you ever were in the war?"

  "And what about you, Kirsty? If you know the truth, aren't you in danger too?"

  "I can take care of myself," said Kirsten grimly. "I can be on my guard. But you, Philip, are in an invalid
chair and helpless. Think of that! Besides," she added, "I do not air my views. I am content to let things be - because I honestly think that that is best for everyone. If everyone would go away and attend to their own business, then there would be no further trouble. If I am asked, I have my official view. I say still that it was Jacko."

  "Jacko?" Philip stared.

  "Why not? Jacko was clever. Jacko could plan a thing and be sure he would not suffer from the consequences. Often he did that as a child. After all, to fake an alibi. Is that not done every day?"

  "He couldn't have faked this one. Dr. Calgary -"

  "Dr. Calgary - Dr. Calgary," said Kirsten with impatience, "because he is well known, because he has a famous name, you say, 'Dr. Calgary' as though he were God! But let me tell you this. When you have had concussion as he had concussion, things may be quite different from the way you remember them. It may have been a different day - a different time - a different place!"