They Do It With Mirrors - Christie Agatha - Страница 36

'Tomorrow' - Miss Marple hesitated - 'I shall have to try and talk to Inspector Curry - if he'll listen…'

Chapter 21

Inspector Curry said rather impatiently: 'Yes, Miss Marple?' 'Could we, do you think, go into the Great Hall.' Inspector Curry looked faintly surprised, 'Is that your idea of privacy? Surely in here ' He looked round the study.

'It's not privacy I'm thinking of so much. It's something I want to show you. Something Alex Restarick made me see.' Inspector Curry, stifling a sigh, got up and followed Miss Marple.

'Somebody has been talking to you?' he suggested hopefully.

'No,' said Miss Marple. 'It's not a question of what people have said. It's really a question of conjuring tricks.

They do it with mirrors, you know - that sort of thing if you understand me.' Inspector Curry did not understand. He stared and wondered if Miss Marple was quite right in the head.

Miss Marple took up her stand and beckoned the Inspector to stand beside her.

'I want you to think of this place as at stage set, Inspector. As it was on the night Christian 3ulbrandsen was killed. You're here in the audience looking at the people on the stage. Mrs Serrocold and myself and Mrs Strete, and Gina and Stephen - and just likeon the stage there are entrances and exits and the characters go out to different places. Only you don't think when you're in the audience where they are really going to. They go out "to the front door" or "to the kitchen" and when the door opens you see a little bit of painted backcloth. But really of course they go out to the wings - or the back of the stage with carpenters and electricians, and other characters waiting to come on - they go out - to a different world.' 'I don't quite see, Miss Marple ' 'Oh, I know - I daresay it sounds very silly - but if you think of this as a play and the scene is "the Great Hall at Stonygates" - what exactly is behind the scene? - I mean - what is back stage? The terrace - isn't it? - the terrace and a lot of windows opening on to it.

'And that, you see, is how the conjuring trick was done.

It was the trick of the Lady Sawn in Half that made me think of it.' 'The Lady Sawn in Half?.' Inspector Curry was now quite sure that Miss Marple was a mental case.

'A most thrilling conjuring trick. You must have seen it - only not really one girl but two girls. The head of one and the feet of the other. It looks like one person and is really two. And so I thought it could just as well be the other way about. Two people could be really one person.' 'Two people really one?' Inspector Curry looked desperate.

'Yes. Not for long. How long did your constable take in the Park to run to this house and back? Two minutes and forty-five seconds, wasn't it? This would be less than that. Well under two minutes.' 'What was under two minutes?' 'The conjuring trick. The trick when it wasn't two people but one person. In there - in the study. We're only looking at the visible part of the stage. Behind the scenes there is the terrace and a row of windows. So easy when there are two people in the study to open the study window, get out, run along the terrace (those footsteps Alex heard), in at the side door, shoot Christian Gulbrandsen and run back, and during that time, the other person in the study does both voices so that we're all quite sure there are two people in there. And so there were most of the time, but not for that little period of under two minutes.' Inspector Curry found his breath and his voice.

'Do you mean that it was Edgar Lawson who ran along the terrace and shot Gulbrandsen? Edgar Lawson who poisoned Mrs Serrocold?' 'But you see, Inspector, no one has been poisoning Mrs Serrocold at all. That's where the misdirection comes in.

Someone very cleverly used the fact that Mrs Serrocold's sufferings from arthritis were not unlike the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. It's the old conjurer's trick of forcing a card on you. Quite easy to add arsenic to a bottle of tonic - quite easy to add a few lines to a typewritten letter. But the real reason for Mr Gulbrandsen's coming here was the most likely reason - something to do with the Gulbrandsen Trust. Money, in fact. Suppose that there had been embezzlement - embezzlement on a very big scale - you see where that points? To just one person ' Inspector Curry gasped: 'Lewis Serrocold?' he murmured incredulously.

'Lewis Serrocold…' said Miss Marple.

Chapter 22

Part of letter from Gina Hudd to her aunt Mrs Van Rydock: - and so you see, darling Aunt Ruth, the whole thing has been just like a nightmare - especially the end of it. I've told you all about this funny man Edgar Lawson. He always was a complete rabbit - and when the Inspector began questioning him and breaking him dowr6 he lost his nerve completely and scuttled like a rabbit. Just lost his nerve and ran - literally ran. Jumped out of the window and round the house and down the drive and then there was a policeman coming to head him off, and he swerved and ran full tilt for the lake. He leaped into a rotten old punt that's mouldered therefor years and pushed off. Quite a mad senseless thing to do, of course, but as I say he was just a panic-stricken rabbit. And then LeWis gave a great shout and said 'That punt's rotten,' and raced off to the lake too. The punt went down and there was Edgar struggling in the water. He couldn't swim. Lewis jumped in and swam out to him. He got to him but they were both in difficulty because they'd got among the reeds. One of the Inspector's men went in with a rope round him but he got entangled too and they had to pull him in. Aunt Mildred said 'They'll drown - they'll drown - they'll both drown…' in a silly sort of way, and Grandam just said 'Yes.' I can't describe to you just how she made that one word sound. Just 'YES' and it went through you like - like a sword.

Am I being just silly and melodramatic? I suppose I am.

But it did sound like that…

And then - when it was all oer, and they'd got out and tried artificial respiration (but it was no go.

Inspector came to us and said to Grandam: 'I'm afraid, Mrs Serrocold, there's no hope.' Grandam said very quietly: 'Thank you, Inspector.'

Then she looked at us all longing to help knowing how, and Jolly, looking grtm and tender and to minister as usual, and Stephen stretching out, and funny old Miss Marple so sad.

Grandam looking so small and frail and leaning on

Gina paused and sucked the end of her fountair

She resumed:

About me and Wally - we're coming back to the Statas soon as we can.

Chapter 23

'What made you guess, Jane?'

Miss Marple took her time about replying. She looked thoughtfully at the other two - Carrie Louise thinner and frailer and yet curiously untouched - and the old man with the sweet smile and the thick white hair. Dr Galbraith, Bishop of Cromer.

The Bishop took Carrie Louise's hand in his.

'This has been a great sorrow to you, my poor child, and a great shock.'

'A sorrow, yes, but not really a shock.'

'No,' said Miss Marple. 'That's what I discovered, you.know. Everyone kept saying how Carrie Louise lived in another world from this and was out of touch with reality.

But actually, Carrie Louise, it was reality you were in touch with, and not the illusion. You are never deceived by illusion like most of us are. When I suddenly realized that, I saw that I must go by what you thought and felt.

You were quite sure that no one would try to poison you, you couldn't believe it - and you were quite right not to believe it, because it wasn't so! You never believed that Edgar would harm Lewis - and again you were right. He never would have harmed Lewis. You were sure that Gina did not love anyone but her husband - and that again was quite true.