Towards Zero

by Agatha Christie

  “Mm,” said Thomas. “I’ve been through all that.”

  “But why should he do it? What was the point?”

  “I suppose,” said Royde, “it was a kind of warning. Not to try anything on.”

  “You mean that Mr. Treves knew then that Camilla was going to be murdered?”

  “No-o. I think that’s too fantastic. It may have been just a general warning.”

  “What I’ve been wondering is, do you think we ought to tell the police?”

  To that Thomas again gave his thoughtful consideration.

  “I think not,” he said at last. “I don’t see that it’s relevant in any way. It’s not as though Treves were alive and could tell them anything.”

  “No,” said Mary. “He’s dead!” She gave a quick shiver. “It’s so odd, Thomas, the way he died.”

  “Heart attack. He had a bad heart.”

  “I mean that curious business about the lift being out of order. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it very much myself,” said Thomas Royde.

  XI

  Superintendent Battle looked round the bedroom. The bed had been made. Otherwise the room was unchanged. It had been neat when they first looked round it. It was neat now.

  “That’s it,” said Superintendent Battle, pointing to the old-fashioned steel fender. “Do you see anything odd about that fender?”

  “Must take some cleaning,” said Jim Leach. “It’s well kept. Nothing odd about it that I can see, except—yes, the left-hand knob is brighter than the right-hand one.”

  “That’s what put Hercule Poirot into my head,” said Battle. “You know his fad about things not being quite symmetrical—gets him all worked up. I suppose I thought unconsciously ‘That would worry old Poirot,’ and then I began talking about him. Get your fingerprint kit, Jones, we’ll have a look at those two knobs.”

  Jones reported presently.

  “There are prints on the right-hand knob, sir, none on the left.”

  “It’s the left one we want, then. Those other prints are the housemaid’s when she last cleaned it. That left-hand one has been cleaned twice.”

  “There was a bit of screwed-up emery paper in this waste paper basket,” volunteered Jones. “I didn’t think it meant anything.”

  “Because you didn’t know what you were looking for, then. Gently now, I’ll bet anything you like that knob unscrews—yes, I thought so.”

  Presently Jones held the knob up.

  “It’s a good weight,” he said, weighing it in his hands.

  Leach, bending over it, said:

  “There’s something dark—on the screw.”

  “Blood, as likely as not,” said Battle. “Cleaned the knob itself and wiped it and that little stain on the screw wasn’t noticed. I’ll bet anything you like that’s the weapon that caved the old lady’s skull in. But there’s more to find. It’s up to you, Jones, to search the house again. This time, you’ll know exactly what you’re looking for.”

  He gave a few swift detailed instructions. Going to the window he put his head out.

  “There’s something yellow tucked into the ivy. That may be another piece of the puzzle. I rather think it is.”

  XII

  Crossing the hall, Superintendent Battle was waylaid by Mary Aldin.

  “Can I speak to you a minute, Superintendent?”

  “Certainly, Miss Aldin. Shall we come in here?”

  He threw open the dining room door. Lunch had been cleared away by Hurstall.

  “I want to ask you something, Superintendent. Surely you don’t, you can’t still think that this—this awful crime was done by one of us? It must have been someone from outside! Some maniac!”

  “You may not be far wrong there, Miss Aldin. Maniac is a word that describes this criminal very well if I’m not mistaken. But not an outsider.”

  Her eyes opened very wide.

  “Do you mean that someone in this house is—is mad?”

  “You’re thinking,” said the Superintendent, “of someone foaming at the mouth and rolling their eyes. Mania isn’t like that. Some of the most dangerous criminal lunatics have looked as sane as you or I. It’s a question, usually, of having an obsession. One idea, preying on the mind, gradually distorting it. Pathetic, reasonable people who come up to you and explain how they’re being persecuted and how everyone is spying on them—and you sometimes feel it must all be true.”

  “I’m sure nobody here has any ideas of being persecuted.”

  “I only gave that as an instance. There are other forms of insanity. But I believe whoever committed this crime was under the domination of one fixed idea—an idea on which they had brooded until literally nothing else mattered or had any importance.”

  Mary shivered. She said:

  “There’s something I think you ought to know.”

  Concisely and clearly she told him of Mr. Treves’ visit to dinner and of the story he had told. Superintendent Battle was deeply interested.

  “He said he could recognize this person? Man or woman—by the way?”

  “I took it that it was a boy the story was about—but it’s true Mr. Treves didn’t actually say so—in fact I remember now—he distinctly stated he would not give any particulars as to sex or age.”

  “Did he? Rather significant, perhaps. And he said there was a definite physical peculiarity by which he could be sure of knowing this child anywhere?”

  “Yes.”

  “A scar, perhaps—has anybody here got a scar?”

  He noticed the faint hesitation before Mary Aldin replied:

  “Not that I have noticed.”

  “Come now, Miss Aldin,” he smiled. “You have noticed something. If so, don’t you think that I shall be able to notice it, too?”

  She shook her head.

  “I—I haven’t noticed anything of the kind.”

  But he saw that she was startled and upset. His words had obviously suggested a very unpleasant train of thought to her. He wished he knew just what it was, but his experience made him aware that to press her at this minute would not yield any result.

  He brought the conversation back to old Mr. Treves.

  Mary told him of the tragic sequel to the evening.

  Battle questioned her at some length. Then he said quietly:

  “That’s a new one on me. Never came across that before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never come across a murder committed by the simple expedient of hanging a placard on a lift.”

  She looked horrified.

  “You don’t really think—?”

  “That it was murder? Of course it was! Quick, resourceful murder. It might not have come off, of course—but it did come off.”

  “Just because Mr. Treves knew—?”

  “Yes. Because he would have been able to direct our attention to one particular person in this house. As it is, we’ve started in the dark. But we’ve got a glimmer of light now, and every minute the case is getting clearer. I’ll tell you this, Miss Aldin—this murder was very carefully planned beforehand down to the smallest detail. And I want to impress one thing on your mind—don’t let anybody know that you’ve told me what you have. That is important. Don’t tell anyone, mind.”

  Mary nodded. She was still looking dazed.

  Superintendent Battle went out of the room and proceeded to do what he had been about to do when Mary Aldin intercepted him. He was a methodical man. He wanted certain information, and a new and promising hare did not distract him from the orderly performance of his duties, however tempting this new hare might be.

  He tapped on the library door, and Nevile Strange’s voice called “Come in.”

  Battle was introduced to Mr. Trelawny, a tall distinguished-looking man with a keen dark eye.

  “Sorry if I am butting in,” said Superintendent Battle apologetically. “But there’s something I haven’t got clear. You, Mr. Strange, inherit half the late Sir Matthew’s estate, but who inheri
ts the other half?”

  Nevile looked surprised.

  “I told you. My wife.”

  “Yes. But—” Battle coughed in a deprecating manner, “which wife, Mr. Strange?”

  “Oh, I see. Yes, I expressed myself badly. The money goes to Audrey, who was my wife at the time the will was made. That’s right, Mr. Trelawny?”

  The lawyer assented.

  “The bequest is quite clearly worded. The estate is to be divided between Sir Matthew’s ward, Nevile Henry Strange, and his wife, Audrey Elizabeth Strange, née Standish. The subsequent divorce makes no difference whatever.”

  “That’s clear, then,” said Battle. “I take it Mrs. Audrey Strange is fully aware of these facts?”

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Trelawny.

  “And the present Mrs. Strange?”

  “Kay?” Nevile looked slightly surprised. “Oh, I suppose so. At least—I’ve never talked much about it with her—”

  “I think you’ll find,” said Battle, “that she’s under a misapprehension. She thinks that the money on Lady Tressilian’s death comes to you and your present wife. At least, that’s what she gave me to understand this morning. That’s why I came along to find out how the position really lay.”

  “How extraordinary,” said Nevile. “Still, I suppose it might have happened quite easily. She has said once or twice, now that I think about it, ‘We come into that money when Camilla dies,’ but I suppose I assumed that she was just associating herself with me in my share of it.”

  “It’s extraordinary,” said Battle, “the amount of misunderstandings there are even between two people who discuss a thing quite often—both of them assuming different things and neither of them discovering the discrepancy.”

  “I suppose so,” said Nevile, not sounding very interested. “It doesn’t matter much in this case, anyway. It’s not as though we’re short of money at all. I’m very glad for Audrey. She has been very hard up and this will make a big difference to her.”

  Battle said bluntly: “But surely, sir, at the time of the divorce, she was entitled to an allowance from you?”

  Nevile flushed. He said in a constrained voice:

  “There is such a thing as—as pride, Superintendent. Audrey has always persistently refused to touch a penny of the allowance I wished to make her.”

  “A very generous allowance,” put in Mr. Trelawny. “But Mrs. Audrey Strange has always returned it and refused to accept it.”

  “Very interesting,” said Battle, and went out before anyone could ask him to elaborate that comment.

  He went out and found his nephew.

  “On its face value,” he said, “there’s a nice monetary motive for nearly everybody in this case. Nevile Strange and Audrey Strange get a cool fifty thousand each. Kay Strange thinks she’s entitled to fifty thousand. Mary Aldin gets an income that frees her from having to earn her living. Thomas Royde, I’m bound to say, doesn’t gain. But we can include Hurstall and even Barrett if we admit that she’d take the risk of finishing herself off to avoid suspicion. Yes, as I say, there are no lack of money motives. And yet, if I’m right, money doesn’t enter into this at all. If there’s such a thing as murder for pure hate, this is it. And if no one comes along and throws a spanner into the works, I’m going to get the person who did it!”

  XIII

  Angus MacWhirter sat on the terrace of the Easterhead Bay Hotel and stared across the river to the frowning height of Stark Head opposite.

  He was engaged at the moment in a careful stocktaking of his thoughts and emotions.

  He hardly knew what it was that had made him choose to spend his last few days of leisure where he now was. Yet something had drawn him there. Perhaps the wish to test himself—to see if there remained in his heart any of the old despair.

  Mona? How little he cared now. She was married to the other man. He had passed her in the street one day without feeling any emotion. He could remember his grief and bitterness when she left him, but they were past now and gone.

  He was recalled from these thoughts by an impact of wet dog and the frenzied appeal of a newly made friend, Miss Diana Brinton, aged thirteen.

  “Oh come away, Don. Come away. Isn’t it awful? He’s rolled on some fish or something down on the beach. You can smell him yards away. The fish was awfully dead, you know!”

  MacWhirter’s nose confirmed this assumption.

  “In a sort of crevice on the rocks,” said Miss Brinton. “I took him into the sea and tried to wash it off, but it doesn’t seem to have done much good.”

  MacWhirter agreed. Don, a wirehaired terrier of amiable and loving disposition, was looking hurt by the tendency of his friends to keep him firmly at arm’s length.

  “Sea water’s no good,” said MacWhirter. “Hot water and soap’s the only thing.”

  “I know. But that’s not so jolly easy in a Hotel. We haven’t got a private bath.”

  In the end MacWhirter and Diana surreptitiously entered by the side door with Don on a lead, and smuggling him up to MacWhirter’s bathroom, a thorough cleansing took place and both MacWhirter and Diana got very wet. Don was very sad when it was all over. That disgusting smell of soap again—just when he had found a really nice perfume such as any other dog would envy. Oh well, it was always the same with humans—they had no decent sense of smell.

  The little incident had left MacWhirter in a more cheerful mood. He took the bus into Saltington, where he had left a suit to be cleaned.

  The girl in charge of the 24-Hour Cleaners looked at him vacantly.

  “MacWhirter, did you say? I’m afraid it isn’t ready yet.”

  “It should be.” He had been promised that suit the day before, and even that would have been 48 and not 24 hours. A woman might have said all this. MacWhirter merely scowled.

  “There’s not been time yet,” said the girl, smiling indifferently.

  “Nonsense.”

  The girl stopped smiling. She snapped,

  “Anyway, it’s not done,” she said.

  “Then I’ll take it away as it is,” said MacWhirter.

  “Nothing’s been done to it,” the girl warned him.

  “I’ll take it away.”

  “I dare say we might get it done by tomorrow—as a special favour.”

  “I’m not in the habit of asking for special favours. Just give me the suit, please.”

  Giving him a bad-tempered look, the girl went into the back room. She returned with a clumsily done up parcel which she pushed across the counter.

  MacWhirter took it and went out.

  He felt, quite ridiculously, as though he had won a victory. Actually it merely meant that he would have to have the suit cleaned elsewhere!

  He threw the parcel on his bed when he returned to the Hotel and looked at it with annoyance. Perhaps he could get it sponged and pressed in the Hotel. It was not really too bad—perhaps it didn’t actually need cleaning?

  He undid the parcel and gave vent to an expression of annoyance. Really, the 24-Hour Cleaners were too inefficient for words. This wasn’t his suit. It wasn’t even the same colour. It had been a dark blue suit he had left with them. Impertinent, inefficient muddlers.

  He glanced irritably at the label. It had the name MacWhirter all right. Another MacWhirter? Or some stupid interchange of labels?

  Staring down vexedly at the crumpled heap, he suddenly sniffed.

  Surely he knew that smell—a particularly unpleasant smell…connected somehow with a dog. Yes, that was it. Diana and her dog. Absolutely and literally stinking fish!

  He bent down and examined the suit. There it was, a discoloured patch on the shoulder of the coat. On the shoulder—

  Now that, thought MacWhirter, is really very curious….

  Anyway, next day, he would have a few grim words with the girl at the 24-Hour Cleaners. Gross mismanagement!

  XIV

  After dinner he strolled out of the Hotel and down the road to the Ferry. It was a clear night, but cold, with
a sharp foretaste of winter. Summer was over.

  MacWhirter crossed in the ferry to the Saltcreek side. It was the second time that he was revisiting Stark Head. The place had a fascination for him. He walked slowly up the hill, passing the Balmoral Court Hotel and then a big house set on the point of a cliff. Gull’s Point—he read the name on the painted door. Of course, that was where the old lady had been murdered. There had been a lot of talk in the Hotel about it, his chambermaid had insisted on telling him all about it and the newspapers had given it a prominence which had annoyed MacWhirter, who preferred to read of worldwide affairs and who was not interested in crime.

  He went on, downhill again to skirt a small beach and some old-fashioned fishing cottages that had been modernized. Then up again till the road ended and petered out into the track that led up on Stark Head.

  It was grim and forbidding on Stark Head. MacWhirter stood on the cliff edge looking down to the sea. So he had stood on that other night. He tried to recapture some of the feeling he had had then—the desperation, anger, weariness—the longing to be out of it all. But there was nothing to recapture. All that had gone. There was instead a cold anger. Caught on that tree, rescued by coastguards, fussed over like a naughty child in hospital, a series of indignities and affronts. Why couldn’t he have been let alone? He would rather, a thousand times rather, be out of it all. He still felt that. The only thing he had lost was the necessary impetus.

  How it had hurt him then to think of Mona! He could think of her quite calmly now. She had always been rather a fool. Easily taken by anyone who flattered her or played up to her idea of herself. Very pretty. Yes, very pretty—but no mind, not the kind of woman he had once dreamed about.

  But that was beauty, of course—some vague fancied picture of a woman flying through the night with white draperies streaming out behind her…Something like the figurehead of a ship—only not so solid…not nearly so solid….

  And then, with dramatic suddenness, the incredible happened! Out of the night came a flying figure. One minute she was not there, the next minute she was—a white figure running—running—to the cliff’s edge. A figure, beautiful and desperate, driven to destruction by pursuing Furies! Running with a terrible desperation…He knew that desperation. He knew what it meant….