At Bertram's Hotel - Christie Agatha - Страница 35

"Did it come by post?"

"No. No, it couldn't have come by post. It was just there in my room. Someone must have put it there."

"I see. Bribed one of the servants, I suppose. I am to take it that you didn't let the Contessa whoever-it-was in on this?"

A faint smile appeared on Elvira's face. "No. No. We certainly didn't. Anyway we opened the box and they were lovely chocolates. Different kinds, you know, but there were some violet creams. That's the sort of chocolate that has a crystallized violet on top. My favourite. So of course I ate one or two of those first. And then afterwards, in the night, I felt terribly ill. I didn't think it was the chocolates, I just thought it was something perhaps that I'd eaten at dinner."

"Anybody else ill?"

"No. Only me. Well, I was very sick and all that, but I felt all right by the end of the next day. Then a day or two later I ate another of the same chocolates, and the same thing happened. So I talked to Bridget about it. Bridget was my special friend. And we looked at the chocolates, and we found that the violet creams had got a sort of hole in the bottom that had been filled up again, so we thought that someone had put some poison in and they'd only put it in the violet creams so that I would be the one who ate them."

"Nobody else was ill?"

"No."

"So presumably nobody else ate the violet creams?"

"No. I don't think they could have. You see, it was my present and they knew I liked the violet ones, so they'd leave them for me."

"The chap took a risk, whoever he was," said Father. "The whole place might have been poisoned."

"It's absurd," said Lady Sedgwick sharply. "Utterly absurd! I never heard of anything so crude."

Chief Inspector Davy made a slight gesture with his hand. "Please," he said, then he went on to Elvira. "Now I find that very interesting, Miss Blake. And you still didn't tell the Contessa?"

"Oh no, we didn't. She'd have made a terrible fuss."

"What did you do with the chocolates?"

"We threw them away," said Elvira. "They were lovely chocolates," she added, with a tone of slight grief.

"You didn't try and find out who sent them?"

Elvira looked embarrassed. "Well, you see, I thought it might have been Guido."

"Yes?" said Chief Inspector Davy cheerfully. "And who is Guido?"

"Oh, Guido…" Elvira paused. She looked at her mother.

"Don't be stupid," said Bess Sedgwick. "Tell Chief Inspector Davy about Guido, whoever he is. Every girl of your age has a Guido in her life. You met him out there, I suppose?"

"Yes. When we were taken to the opera. He spoke to me there. He was nice. Very attractive. I used to see him sometimes when we went to classes. He used to pass me notes."

"And I suppose," said Bess Sedgwick, "that you told a lot of lies, and made plans with some friends and you managed to get out and meet him? Is that it?"

Elvira looked relieved by this short cut to confession. "Yes. Bridget and I sometimes went out together. Sometimes Guido managed to-"

"What was Guido's other name?"

"I don't know," said Elvira. "He never told me."

Chief Inspector Davy smiled at her. "You mean you're not going to tell? Never mind. I dare say we'll be able to find out quite all right without your help, if it should really matter. But why should you think that this young man who was presumably fond of you, should want to kill you?"

"Oh, because he used to threaten things like that. I mean, we used to have rows now and then. He'd bring some of his friends with him, and I'd pretend to like them better than him, and then he'd get very, very wild and angry. He said I'd better be careful what I did. I couldn't give him up just like that! That if I wasn't faithful to him he'd kill me! I just thought he was being melodramatic and theatrical." Elvira smiled suddenly and unexpectedly. "But it was all rather fun. I didn't think it was real or serious."

"Well," said Chief Inspector Davy, "I don't think it does seem very likely that a young man such as you describe would really poison chocolates and send them to you."

"Well, I don't think so really either," said Elvira, "but it must have been him because I can't see that there's anyone else. It worried me. And then, when I came back here, I got a note-" She stopped.

"What sort of a note?"

"It just came in an envelope and was printed. It said: Be on your guard. Somebody wants to kill you."

Chief Inspector Davy's eyebrows went up. "Indeed? Very curious. Yes, very curious. And it worried you. You were frightened?"

"Yes. I began to-to wonder who could possibly want me out of the way. That's why I tried to find out if I was really very rich."

"Go on."

"And the other day in London something else happened. I was in the tube and there were a lot of people on the platform. I thought someone tried to push me onto the track."

"My dear child!" said Bess Sedgwick. "Don't romance."

Again Father made that slight gesture of his hand.

"Yes," said Elvira apologetically. "I expect I have been imagining it all but-I don't know-I mean, after what happened this evening it seems, doesn't it, as though it might all be true?" She turned suddenly to Bess Sedgwick, speaking with urgency. "Mother! You might know. Does anyone want to kill me? Could there be anyone? Have I got an enemy?"

"Of course you've not got an enemy," said Bess Sedgwick impatiently. "Don't be an idiot. Nobody wants to kill you. Why should they?"

"Then who shot at me tonight?"

"In that fog," said Bess Sedgwick, "you might have been mistaken for someone else. That's possible, don't you think?" she said, turning to Father.

"Yes, I think it might be quite possible," said Chief Inspector Davy.

Bess Sedgwick was looking at him very intently. He almost fancied the motion of her lips saying "later."

"Well," he said cheerfully, "we'd better get down to some more facts now. Where had you come from tonight? What were you doing walking along Pond Street on such a foggy evening?"

"I came up for an art class at the Tate this morning. Then I went to lunch with my friend Bridget. She lives in Onslow Square. We went to a film and when we came out, there was this fog-quite thick and getting worse, and I thought perhaps I'd better not drive home."

"You drive a car, do you?"

"Yes. I took my driving test last summer. Only, I'm not a very good driver and I hate driving in fog. So Bridget's mother said I could stay the night, so I rang up Cousin Mildred-that's where I live in Kent-"

Father nodded.

"-and I said I was going to stay up overnight. She said that was very wise."

"And what happened next?" asked Father.

"And then the fog seemed lighter suddenly. You know how patchy fogs are. So I said I would drive down to Kent after all. I said good-bye to Bridget and started off. But then it began to come down again. I didn't like it very much. I ran into a very thick patch of it and I lost my way and I didn't know where I was. Then after a bit I realized I was at Hyde Park Corner and I thought: I really can't go down to Kent in this. At first, I thought I'd go back to Bridget's but then I remembered how I'd lost my way already. And then I realized that I was quite close to this nice hotel where Uncle Derek took me, when I came back from Italy and I thought: I'll go there and I'm sure they can find me a room. That was fairly easy, I found a place to leave the car and then I walked back up the street towards the hotel."

"Did you meet anyone or did you hear anyone walking near you?"

"It's funny you saying that, because I did think I heard someone walking behind me. Of course, there must be lots of people walking about in London. Only in a fog like this, it gives you a nervous feeling. I waited and listened but I didn't hear any footsteps and I thought I'd imagined them. I was quite close to the hotel by then."