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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 100 из 147Quite a normal thing forhim to do-and privately I thought him very wise to elect to do it today. Lunch was likely to have been an awkward meal.
We had coffee on the terrace. I wish I could remember better how Caroline looked and acted. She didn’t seem excited in any way. Quiet and rather sad is my impression. What a devil that woman was!
For it is a devilish thing to do, to poison a man in cold blood. If there had been a revolver about and she caught it up and shot him-well, that might have been understandable. But this cold, deliberate, vindictive poisoning… And so calm and collected.
She got up and said she’d take his coffee to him in the most natural way possible. And yet she knew-she must have known-that by now she’d find him dead. Miss Williams went with her. I don’t remember if that was at Caroline’s suggestion or not. I rather think it was.
The two women went off together. Meredith strolled away shortly afterwards. I was just making an excuse to go after him, when he came running up the path again. His face was grey. He gasped out:
‘We must get a doctor-quick-Amyas-’
I sprang up.
‘Is he ill-dying?’
Meredith said:
‘I’m afraid he’s dead…’
We’d forgotten Elsa for the minute. But she let out a sudden cry. It was like the wail of a banshee.
She cried:
‘Dead? Dead?…’ And then she ran. I didn’t know any one could move like that-like a deer-like a stricken thing. And like an avenging Fury, too.
Meredith panted out:
‘Go after her. I’ll telephone. Go after her. You don’t know what she’ll do.’
I did go after her-and it’s as well I did. She might quite easily have killed Caroline. I’ve never seen such grief and such frenzied hate. All the veneer of refinement and education was stripped off. You could see her father and her father’s mother and father had been millhands. Deprived of her lover, she was just elemental woman. She’d have clawed Caroline’s face, torn her hair, hurled her over the parapet if she could. She thought for some reason or other that Caroline had knifed him. She’d got it all wrong-naturally.
I held her off, and then Miss Williams took charge. She was good, I must say. She got Elsa to control herself in under a minute-told her she’d got to be quiet and that we couldn’t have this noise and violence going on. She was a tartar, that woman. But she did the trick. Elsa was quiet-just stood there gasping and trembling.
As for Caroline, so far as I am concerned, the mask was right off.
We had coffee on the terrace. I wish I could remember better how Caroline looked and acted. She didn’t seem excited in any way. Quiet and rather sad is my impression. What a devil that woman was!
For it is a devilish thing to do, to poison a man in cold blood. If there had been a revolver about and she caught it up and shot him-well, that might have been understandable. But this cold, deliberate, vindictive poisoning… And so calm and collected.
She got up and said she’d take his coffee to him in the most natural way possible. And yet she knew-she must have known-that by now she’d find him dead. Miss Williams went with her. I don’t remember if that was at Caroline’s suggestion or not. I rather think it was.
The two women went off together. Meredith strolled away shortly afterwards. I was just making an excuse to go after him, when he came running up the path again. His face was grey. He gasped out:
‘We must get a doctor-quick-Amyas-’
I sprang up.
‘Is he ill-dying?’
Meredith said:
‘I’m afraid he’s dead…’
We’d forgotten Elsa for the minute. But she let out a sudden cry. It was like the wail of a banshee.
She cried:
‘Dead? Dead?…’ And then she ran. I didn’t know any one could move like that-like a deer-like a stricken thing. And like an avenging Fury, too.
Meredith panted out:
‘Go after her. I’ll telephone. Go after her. You don’t know what she’ll do.’
I did go after her-and it’s as well I did. She might quite easily have killed Caroline. I’ve never seen such grief and such frenzied hate. All the veneer of refinement and education was stripped off. You could see her father and her father’s mother and father had been millhands. Deprived of her lover, she was just elemental woman. She’d have clawed Caroline’s face, torn her hair, hurled her over the parapet if she could. She thought for some reason or other that Caroline had knifed him. She’d got it all wrong-naturally.
I held her off, and then Miss Williams took charge. She was good, I must say. She got Elsa to control herself in under a minute-told her she’d got to be quiet and that we couldn’t have this noise and violence going on. She was a tartar, that woman. But she did the trick. Elsa was quiet-just stood there gasping and trembling.
As for Caroline, so far as I am concerned, the mask was right off.