The Murder at the Vicarage - Christie Agatha (онлайн книги бесплатно полные TXT) 📗

"Louder?" I suggested.

No, Miss Marple didn't think it had been louder. In fact, she found it hard to say in what way it had been different, but she still insisted that it was.

I thought she was probably persuading herself of the fact rather than actually remembering it, but she had just contributed such a valuable new outlook to the problem that I felt highly respectful towards her.

She rose, murmuring that she must really get back - it had been so tempting just to run over and discuss the case with dear Griselda. I escorted her to the boundary wall and the back gate and returned to find Griselda wrapped in thought.

"Still puzzling over that note?" I asked.

"No."

She gave a sudden shiver and shook her shoulders impatiently.

"Len, I've been thinking. How badly someone must have hated Anne Protheroe!"

"Hated her?"

"Yes. Don't you see? There's no real evidence against Lawrence - all the evidence against him is what you might call accidental. He just happens to take it into his head to come here. If he hadn't - well, no one would have thought of connecting him with the crime. But Anne is different. Suppose someone knew that she was here at exactly 6.20 - the clock and the time on the letter - everything pointing to her. I don't think it was only because of an alibi it was moved to that exact time - I think there was more in it than that - a direct attempt to fasten the business on her. If it hadn't been for Miss Marple saying she hadn't got the pistol with her and noticing that she was only a moment before going down to the studio - Yes, if it hadn't been for that…" She shivered again. "Len, I feel that someone hated Anne Protheroe very much. I - I don't like it."

Chapter XII

I was summoned to the study when Lawrence Redding arrived. He looked haggard, and, I thought, suspicious. Colonel Melchett greeted him with something approaching cordiality.

"We want to ask you a few questions - here, on the spot," he said.

Lawrence sneered slightly.

"Isn't that a French idea? Reconstruction of the crime?"

"My dear boy," said Colonel Melchett, "don't take that tone with us. Are you aware that someone else has also confessed to committing the crime which you pretend to have committed?"

The effect of these words on Lawrence was painful and immediate.

"S-s-omeone else?" he stammered. "Who - who?"

"Mrs. Protheroe," said Colonel Melchett, watching him.

"Absurd. She never did it. She couldn't have. It's impossible."

Melchett interrupted him.

"Strangely enough, we did not believe her story. Neither, I may say, do we believe yours. Dr. Haydock says positively that the murder could not have been committed at the time you say it was."

"Dr. Haydock says that?"

"Yes, so, you see, you are cleared whether you like it or not. And now we want you to help us, to tell us exactly what occurred."

Lawrence still hesitated.

"You're not deceiving me about - about Mrs. Protheroe? You really don't suspect her?"

"On my word of honour," said Colonel Melchett.

Lawrence drew a deep breath.

"I've been a fool," he said. "An absolute fool. How could I have thought for one minute that she did it -"

"Suppose you tell us all about it?" suggested the Chief Constable.

"There's not much to tell. I - I met Mrs. Protheroe that afternoon -" He paused.

"We know all about that," said Melchett. "You may think that your feeling for Mrs. Protheroe and hers for you was a dead secret, but in reality it was known and commented upon. In any case, everything is bound to come out now."

"Very well, then. I expect you are right. I had promised the vicar here (he glanced at me) to - to go right away. I met Mrs. Protheroe that evening in the studio at a quarter-past six. I told her of what I had decided. She, too, agreed, that it was the only thing to do. We - we said good-bye to each other.

"We left the studio, and almost at once Dr. Stone joined us. Anne managed to seem marvellously natural. I couldn't do it. I went off with Stone to the Blue Boar and had a drink. Then I thought I'd go home, but when I got to the corner of this road, I changed my mind and decided to come along and see the vicar. I felt I wanted someone to talk to about the matter.

"At the door, the maid told me the vicar was out, but would be in shortly, but that Colonel Protheroe was in the study waiting for him. Well, I didn't like to go away again - looked as though I were shirking meeting him. So I said I'd visit too, and I went into the study."

He stopped.

"Well?" said Colonel Melchett.

"Protheroe was sitting at the writing table - just as you found him. I went up to him - touched him. He was dead. Then I looked down and saw the pistol lying on the floor beside him. I picked it up - and at once saw that it was my pistol."

"That gave me a turn. My pistol! And then, straightaway I leaped to one conclusion. Anne must have bagged my pistol some time or other - meaning it for herself if she couldn't bear things any longer. Perhaps she had had it with her to-day. After we parted in the village she must have come back here and - and - oh! I suppose I was mad to think of it. But that's what I thought. I slipped the pistol in my pocket and came away. Just outside the Vicarage gate, I met the vicar. He said something nice and normal about seeing Protheroe - suddenly I had a wild desire to laugh. His manner was so ordinary and everyday and there was I all strung up. I remember shouting out something absurd and seeing his face change. I was nearly off my head, I believe. I went walking - walking - at last I couldn't bear it any longer. If Anne had done this ghastly thing, I was, at least, morally responsible. I went and gave myself up."

There was a silence when he had finished. Then the colonel said in a business-like voice:

"I would like to ask just one or two questions. First, did you touch or move the body in any way?"

"No, I didn't touch it at all. One could see he was dead without touching him."

"Did you notice a note lying on the blotter half concealed by his body?"

"No."

"Did you interfere in any way with the clock?"

"I never touched the clock. I seem to remember a clock lying overturned on the table, but I never touched it."

"Now as to this pistol of yours, when did you last see it?"

Lawrence Redding reflected. "It's hard to say exactly."

"Where do you keep it?"

"Oh! in a litter of odds and ends in the sitting-room in my cottage. On one of the shelves of the bookcase."

"You left it lying about carelessly?"

"Yes. I really didn't think about it. It was just there."

"So that any one who came to your cottage could have seen it?"

"Yes."

"And you don't remember when you last saw it?"

Lawrence drew his brows together in a frown of recollection.

"I'm almost sure it was there the day before yesterday. I remember pushing it aside to get an old pipe. I think it was the day before yesterday - but it may have been the day before that."

"Who has been to your cottage lately?"

"Oh! crowds of people. Someone is always drifting in and out, I had a sort of tea party the day before yesterday. Lettice Protheroe, Dennis, and all their crowd. And then one or other of the old Pussies comes in now and again."

"Do you lock the cottage up when you go out?"

"No; why on earth should I? I've nothing to steal. And no one does lock their houses up round here."

"Who looks after your wants there?"

"An old Mrs. Archer comes in every morning to 'do for me' as it's called."

"Do you think she would remember when the pistol was there last?"

"I don't know. She might. But I don't fancy conscientious dusting is her strong point."