Agatha Christie - Why Didn't They Ask Evans Read online

  It was queerer that it should be the chief suspect who should draw her attention to the fact. It made her more inclined than ever to acquit Roger Bassington-ffrench of the charge of murder.

  And yet there was the inexplicable matter of the changed photograph. The evidence against him, she reminded herself, was still exactly what it had been. On the other side was only the personality of the man himself. And everyone always said that murderers were charming people!

  She shook off these reflections and turned to her companion.

  'Why exactly are you telling me this?' she asked frankly.

  'Because I don't know what to do about Sylvia,' he said simply.

  'You think she doesn't know?' 'Of course she doesn't know. Ought I to tell her?' 'It's very difficult ' 'It is difficult. That's why I thought you might be able to help me. Sylvia has taken a great fancy to you. She doesn't care much for any of the people round about, but she liked you at once, she tells me. What ought I to do. Lady Frances? By telling her I shall add a great burden to her life.' 'If she knew she might have some influence,' suggested Frankie.

  'I doubt it. When it's a case of drug-taking, nobody, even the nearest and dearest, has any influence.' 'That's rather a hopeless point of view, isn't it?' 'It's a fact. There are ways, of course. If Henry would only consent to go in for a cure - there's a place actually near here.

  Run by a Dr Nicholson.' 'But he'd never consent, would he?' 'He might. You can catch a morphia taker in a mood of extravagant remorse sometimes when they'd do anything to cure themselves. I'm inclined to think that Henry might be got to that frame of mind more easily if he thought Sylvia didn't know - if her knowing was held over him as a kind of threat. If the cure was successful (they'd call it "nerves", of course) she never need know.' 'Would he have to go away for the cure?' 'The place I mean is about three miles from here, the other side of the village. It's run by a Canadian - Dr Nicholson. A very clever man, I believe. And, fortunately. Henry likes him.

  Hush - here comes Sylvia.' Mrs Bassington-ffrench joined them, observing: 'Have you been very energetic?' 'Three sets,' said Frankie. 'And I was beaten every time.' 'You play a very good game,' said Roger.

  'I'm terribly lazy about tennis,' said Sylvia. 'We must ask the Nicholsons over one day. She's very fond of a game. Why what is it?' She had caught the glance the other two had exchanged.

  'Nothing - only I happened to be talking about the Nicholsons to Lady Frances.' 'You'd better call her Frankie like I do,' said Sylvia. 'Isn't it odd how whenever one talks of any person or thing, somebody else does the same immediately afterwards?' 'They are Canadians, aren't they?' inquired Frankie.

  'He is, certainly. I rather fancy she is English, but I'm not sure. She's a very pretty little thing - quite charming with the most lovely big wistful eyes. Somehow or other, I fancy she isn't terribly happy. It must be a depressing life.' 'He runs a kind of sanatorium, doesn't he?' 'Yes - nerve cases and people who take drugs. He's very successful, I believe. He's rather an impressive man.' 'You like him?' 'No,' said Sylvia abruptly, 'I don't.' And rather vehemently, after a moment or two, she added: 'Not at all.' Later on, she pointed out to Frankie a photograph of a charming large-eyed woman which stood on the piano.

  'That's Moira Nicholson. An appealing face, isn't it? A man who came down here with some friends of ours some time ago was quite struck with it. He wanted an introduction to her, I think.' She laughed.

  'I'll ask them to dinner tomorrow night. I'd like to know what you think of him.' 'Him?' 'Yes. As I told you, I dislike him, and yet he's quite an attractive-looking man.' Something in her tone made Frankie look at her quickly, but Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had turned away and was taking some dead flowers out of a vase.

  'I must collect my ideas,' thought Frankie, as she drew a comb through her thick dark hair when dressing for dinner that night. 'And,' she added resolutely, 'it's time I made a few experiments.' Was, or was not, Roger Bassington-ffrench the villain she and Bobby assumed him to be?

  She and Bobby had agreed that whoever had tried to put the latter out of the way must have easy access to morphia. Now in a way this held good for Roger Bassington-ffrench. If his brother received supplies of morphia by post, it would be easy enough for Roger to abstract a packet and use it for his own purposes.

  'Mem.,' wrote Frankie on a sheet of paper:

  '(1) Find out where Roger was on the 16th - day when Bobby was poisoned.' She thought she saw her way to doing that fairly clearly.

  '(2),' she wrote. 'Produce picture of dead man and observe reactions if any. Also noteifR.B.F. admits being in Marchbolt then.' She felt slightly nervous over the second resolution. It meant coming out into the open. On the other hand, the tragedy had happened in her own part of the world, and to mention it casually would be the most natural thing in the world.

  She crumpled up the sheet of paper and burnt it.

  She managed to introduce the first point fairly naturally at dinner.

  'You know,' she said frankly to Roger. 'I can't help feeling that we've met before. And it wasn't very long ago, either. It wasn't, by any chance, at that party of Lady Shane's at Claridges. On the 16th it was.' 'It couldn't have been on the 16th,' said Sylvia quickly.

  'Roger was here then. I remember, because we had a children's party that day and what I should have done without Roger I simply don't know.' She gave a grateful glance at her brother-in-law and he smiled back at her.

  'I don't feel I've ever met you before,' he said thoughtfully to Frankie, and added: 'I'm sure if I had I'd remember it.' He said it rather nicely.

  'One point settled,' thought Frankie. 'Roger Bassingtonffrench was not in Wales on the day that Bobby was poisoned.' The second point came up fairly easily later. Frankie led the talk to country places, the dullness thereof, and the interest aroused by any local excitement.

  'We had a man fall over the cliff last month,' she remarked.

  'We were all thrilled to the core. I went to the inquest full of excitement, but it was all rather dull, really.' 'Was that a place called Marchbolt?' asked Sylvia suddenly.

  Frankie nodded.

  'Derwent Castle is only about seven miles from Marchbolt,' she explained.

  'Roger, that must have been your man,' cried Sylvia.

  Frankie looked inquiringly at him.

  'I was actually in at the death,' said Roger. 'I stayed with the body till the police came.' 'I thought one of the Vicar's sons did that,' said Frankie.

  'He had to go off to play the organ or something - so I took over.' 'How perfectly extraordinary,' said Frankie. 'I did hear somebody else had been there, too, but I never heard the name.

  So it was you?' There was a general atmosphere of 'How curious. Isn't the world small?' Frankie felt she was doing this rather well.

  'Perhaps that's where you saw me before - in Marchbolt?' suggested Roger.

  'I wasn't there actually at the time of the accident,' said Frankie. 'I came back from London a couple of days afterwards.

  Were you at the inquest?' 'No. I went back to London the morning after the tragedy.' 'He had some absurd idea of buying a house down there,' said Sylvia.

  'Utter nonsense,' said Henry Bassingtonf&ench.

  'Not at all,' said Roger good-humouredly.

  'You know perfectly well, Roger, that as soon as you'd bought it, you'd get a fit of wanderlust and go off abroad again.' 'Oh, I shall settle down some day, Sylvia.' 'When you do you'd better settle down near us,' said Sylvia.

  'Not go off to Wales.' Roger laughed. Then he turned to Frankie.

  'Any points of interest about the accident? It didn't turn out to be suicide or anything?' 'Oh, no, it was all painfully above board and some appalling relations came and identified the man. He was on a walking tour, it seems. Very sad, really, because he was awfully goodlooking.

  Did you see his picture in the papers?' 'I think I did,' said Sylvia vaguely. 'But I don't remember.' 'I've got a cutting upstairs from our local paper.' Frankie was all eagerness. She ran upstairs and c
ame down with the cutting in her hand. She gave it to Sylvia. Roger came and looked over Sylvia's shoulder.

  'Don't you think he's good-looking?' she demanded in a rather school-girl manner.

  'He is, rather,' said Sylvia. 'He looks very like that man, Alan Carstairs, don't you think so, Roger? I believe I remembered saying so at the time.' 'He's got quite a look of him here,' agreed Roger. 'But there wasn't much real resemblance, you know.' 'You can't tell from newspaper pictures, can you?' said Sylvia, as she handed the cutting back.

  Frankie agreed that you couldn't.

  The conversation passed to other matters.

  Frankie went to bed undecided. Everyone seemed to have reacted with perfect naturalness. Roger's house-hunting stunt had been no secret.

  The only thing she had succeeded in getting was a name.

  The name of Alan Carstairs.

  CHAPTER 14 Dr Nicholson

  Frankie attacked Sylvia the following morning.

  She started by saying carelessly: 'What was that man's name you mentioned last night? Alan Carstairs, was it? I feel sure I've heard that name before.'

  'Oh, he was. Distinctly attractive.' 'Funny - his being so like the man who fell over the cliff at Marchbolt,' said Frankie.

  'I wonder if everyone has a double.' They compared instances, citing Adolf Beck and referring lightly to the Lyons Mail. Frankie was careful to make no further references to Alan Carstairs. To show too much interest in him would be fatal.

  In her own mind, however, she felt she was getting on now.

  She was quite convinced that Alan Carstairs had been the victim of the cliff tragedy at Marchbolt. He fulfilled all the conditions. He had no intimate friends or relations in this country and his disappearance was unlikely to be noticed for some time. A man who frequently ran off to East Africa and South America was not likely to be missed at once. Moreover, Frankie noted, although Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had commented on the resemblance in the newspaper reproduction, it had not occurred to her for a moment that it actually was the man.

  That, Frankie thought, was rather an interesting bit of psychology.

  We seldom suspect people who are 'news' of being people we have usually seen or met.

  Very good, then. Alan Carstairs was the dead man. The next step was to learn more about Alan Carstairs. His connection with the Bassington-ffrenches seemed to have been of the slightest. He had been brought down there quite by chance by friends. What was the name? Rivington. Frankie stored it in her memory for future use.

  That certainly was a possible avenue of inquiry. But it would be well to go slowly. Inquiries about Alan Carstairs must be very discreetly made.

  'I don't want to be poisoned or knocked on the head,' thought Frankie with a grimace. 'They were ready enough to bump off Bobby for practically nothing at all ' Her thoughts flew off at a tangent to that tantalizing phrase that had started the whole business.

  Evans! Who was Evans? Where did Evans fit in?

  'A dope gang,' decided Frankie. Perhaps some relation of Carstairs was victimized, and he was determined to bust it up.

  Perhaps he came to England for that purpose. Evans may have been one of the gang who had retired and gone to Wales to live.

  Carstairs had bribed Evans to give the others away and Evans had consented and Carstairs went there to see him, and someone followed him and killed him.

  Was that somebody Roger Bassington-ffrench? It seemed very unlikely. The Caymans, now, were far more what Frankie imagined a gang of dope smugglers would be likely to be.

  And yet - that photograph. If only there was some explanation of that photograph.

  That evening, Dr Nicholson and his wife were expected to dinner. Frankie was finishing dressing when she heard their car drive up to the front door. Her window faced that way and she looked out.

  A tall man was just alighting from the driver's seat of a darkblue Talbot.

  Frankie withdrew her head thoughtfully.

  Carstairs had been a Canadian. Dr Nicholson was a Canadian. And Dr Nicholson had a dark-blue Talbot.

  Absurd to build anything upon that, of course, but wasn't it just faintly suggestive?

  Dr Nicholson was a big man with a manner that suggested great reserves of power. His speech was slow, on the whole he said very little, but contrived somehow to make every word sound significant. He wore strong glasses and behind them his very pale-blue eyes glittered reflectively.

  His wife was a slender creature of perhaps twenty-seven, pretty, indeed beautiful. She seemed, Frankie, thought, slightly nervous and chattered rather feverishly as though to conceal the fact.

  'You had an accident, I hear. Lady Frances,' said Dr Nicholson as he took his seat beside her at the dinner table.

  Frankie explained the catastrophe. She wondered why she should feel so nervous doing so. The doctor's manner was simple and interested. Why should she feel as though she were rehearsing a defence to a charge that had never been made. Was there any earthly reason why the doctor should disbelieve in her accident?

  'That was too bad,' he said, as she finished, having, perhaps, made a more detailed story of it than seemed strictly necessary.

  'But you seem to have made a very good recovery.' 'We won't admit she's cured yet. We're keeping her with us,' said Sylvia.

  The doctor's gaze went to Sylvia. Something like a very faint smile came to his lips but passed almost immediately.

  'I should keep her with you as long as possible,' he said gravely.

  Frankie was sitting between her host and Dr Nicholson.

  Henry Bassington-ffrench was decidedly moody tonight. His hands twitched, he ate next to nothing and he took no part in the conversation.

  Mrs Nicholson, opposite, had a difficult time with him, and turned to Roger with obvious relief. She talked to him in a desultory fashion, but Frankie noticed that her eyes were never long absent from her husband's face.

  Dr Nicholson was talking about life in the country.

  'Do you know what a culture is. Lady Frances?' 'Do you mean book learning?' asked Frankie, rather puzzled.

  'No, no. I was referring to germs. They develop, you know, in specially prepared serum. The country. Lady Frances, is a little like that. There is time and space and infinite leisure suitable conditions, you see, for development.' 'Do you mean bad things?' asked Frankie puzzled.

  'That depends. Lady Frances, on the kind of germ cultivated.' Idiotic conversation, thought Frankie, and why should it make me feel creepy, but it does!

  She said flippantly: 'I expect I'm developing all sorts of dark qualities.' He looked at her and said calmly: 'Oh, no, I don't think so. Lady Frances. I think you would always be on the side of law and order.' Was there a faint emphasis on the word law?

  Suddenly, across the table, Mrs Nicholson said: 'My husband prides himself on summing up character.' Dr Nicholson nodded his head gently.

  'Quite right, Moira. Little things interest me.' He turned to Frankie again. 'I had heard of your accident, you know. One thing about it intrigued me very much.' 'Yes?' said Frankie, her heart beating suddenly.

  'The doctor who was passing - the one who brought you in here.' Yes?' 'He must have had a curious character - to turn his car before going to the rescue.' 'I don't understand.' 'Of course not. You were unconscious. But young Reeves, the message boy, came from Staverley on his bicycle and no car passed him, yet he comes round the corner, finds the smash, and the doctor's car pointing the same way he was going towards London. You see the point? The doctor did not come from the direction of Staveley so he must have come the other way, down the hill. But in that case his car should have been pointing towards Staverley. But it wasn't. Therefore he must have turned it.' 'Unless he had come from Staverley some time before,' said Frankie.

  'Then his car would have been standing there as you came down the hill. Was it?' The pale-blue eyes were looking at her very intently through the thick glasses.

  'I don't remember,' said Frankie. 'I don't think so.' 'You sound like a detecti
ve, Jasper,' said Mrs Nicholson.

  'And all about nothing at all.' 'Little things interest me,' said Nicholson.

  He turned to his hostess, and Frankie drew a breath of relief.

  Why had he catechized her like that? How had he found out all about the accident? 'Little things interest me,' he had said.

  Was that all there was to it?

  Frankie remembered the dark-blue Talbot saloon, and the fact that Carstairs had been a Canadian. It seemed to her that Dr Nicholson was a sinister man.

  She kept out of his way after dinner, attaching herself to the gentle, fragile Mrs Nicholson. She noticed that all the time Mrs Nicholson's eyes still watched her husband. Was it love, Frankie wondered, or fear?