Ordeal by Innocence. Agatha Christie

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СКАЧАТЬ it had been outside my power to prevent. I have not made amends. In some curious way I have made things worse for people who have already suffered. But I still don’t understand clearly why.’

      ‘No,’ said Marshall slowly, ‘no, you would not see why. For the past eighteen months or so you’ve been out of touch with civilization. You did not read the daily papers, the account of this family that was given in the newspapers. Possibly you would not have read them anyway, but you could not have escaped, I think, hearing about them. The facts are very simple, Dr Calgary. They are not confidential. They were made public at the time. It resolves itself very simply into this. If Jack Argyle did not (and by your account he cannot have), committed the crime, then who did? That brings us back to the circumstances in which the crime was committed. It was committed between the hours of seven and seven-thirty on a November evening in a house where the deceased woman was surrounded by the members of her own family and household. The house was securely locked and shuttered and if anyone entered from outside, then the outsider must have been admitted by Mrs Argyle herself or have entered with their own key. In other words, it must have been someone she knew. It resembles in some ways the conditions of the Borden case in America where Mr Borden and his wife were struck down by blows of an axe on a Sunday morning. Nobody in the house heard anything, nobody was known or seen to approach the house. You can see, Dr Calgary, why the members of the family were, as you put it, disturbed rather than relieved by the news you brought them?’

      Calgary said slowly: ‘They’d rather, you mean, that Jack Argyle was guilty?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ said Marshall. ‘Oh yes, very decidedly so. If I may put it in a somewhat cynical way, Jack Argyle was the perfect answer to the unpleasant fact of murder in the family. He had been a problem child, a delinquent boy, a man of violent temper. Excuses could be and were made for him within the family circle. They could mourn for him, have sympathy with him, declare to themselves, to each other, and to the world that it was not really his fault, that psychologists could explain it all! Yes, very, very convenient.’

      ‘And now–’ Calgary stopped.

      ‘And now,’ said Mr Marshall, ‘it is different, of course. Quite different. Almost alarming perhaps.’

      Calgary said shrewdly, ‘The news I brought was unwelcome to you, too, wasn’t it?’

      ‘I must admit that. Yes. Yes, I must admit that I was–upset. A case which was closed satisfactorily–yes, I shall continue to use the word satisfactorily–is now reopened.’

      ‘Is that official?’ Calgary asked. ‘I mean–from the police point of view, will the case be reopened?’

      ‘Oh, undoubtedly,’ said Marshall. ‘When Jack Argyle was found guilty on overwhelming evidence–(the jury was only out a quarter of an hour)–that was an end of the matter as far as the police were concerned. But now, with the grant of a free pardon posthumously awarded, the case is opened again.’

      ‘And the police will make fresh investigations?’

      ‘Almost certainly I should say. Of course,’ added Marshall, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, ‘it is doubtful after this lapse of time, owing to the peculiar features of the case, whether they will be able to achieve any result…For myself, I should doubt it. They may know that someone in the house is guilty. They may get so far as to have a very shrewd idea of who that someone is. But to get definite evidence will not be easy.’

      ‘I see,’ said Calgary. ‘I see…Yes, that’s what she meant.’

      The lawyer said sharply: ‘Of whom are you speaking?’

      ‘The girl,’ said Calgary. ‘Hester Argyle.’

      ‘Ah, yes. Young Hester.’ He asked curiously: ‘What did she say to you?’

      ‘She spoke of the innocent,’ said Calgary. ‘She said it wasn’t the guilty who mattered but the innocent. I understand now what she meant…’

      Marshall cast a sharp glance at him. ‘I think possibly you do.’

      ‘She meant just what you are saying,’ said Arthur Calgary. ‘She meant that once more the family would be under suspicion–’

      Marshall interrupted. ‘Hardly once more,’ he said. ‘There was never time for the family to come under suspicion before. Jack Argyle was clearly indicated from the first.’

      Calgary waved the interruption aside.

      ‘The family would come under suspicion,’ he said, ‘and it might remain under suspicion for a long time–perhaps for ever. If one of the family was guilty it is possible that they themselves would not know which one. They would look at each other and–wonder…Yes, that’s what would be the worst of all. They themselves would not know which…’

      There was silence. Marshall watched Calgary with a quiet, appraising glance, but he said nothing.

      ‘That’s terrible, you know…’ said Calgary.

      His thin, sensitive face showed the play of emotion on it.

      ‘Yes, that’s terrible…To go on year after year not knowing, looking at one another, perhaps the suspicion affecting one’s relationships with people. Destroying love, destroying trust…’

      Marshall cleared his throat.

      ‘Aren’t you–er–putting it rather too vividly?’

      ‘No,’ said Calgary, ‘I don’t think I am. I think, perhaps, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Marshall, I see this more clearly than you do. I can imagine, you see, what it might mean.’

      Again there was silence.

      ‘It means,’ said Calgary, ‘that it is the innocent who are going to suffer…And the innocent should not suffer. Only the guilty. That’s why–that’s why I can’t wash my hands of it. I can’t go away and say “I’ve done the right thing, I’ve made what amends I can–I’ve served the cause of justice,” because you see what I have done has not served the cause of justice. It has not brought conviction to the guilty, it has not delivered the innocent from the shadow of guilt.’

      ‘I think you’re working yourself up a little, Dr Calgary. What you say has some foundation of truth, no doubt, but I don’t see exactly what–well, what you can do about it.’

      ‘No. Nor do I,’ said Calgary frankly. ‘But it means that I’ve got to try. That’s really why I’ve come to you, Mr Marshall. I want–I think I’ve a right to know–the background.’

      ‘Oh, well,’ said Mr Marshall, his tone slightly brisker. ‘There’s no secret about all that. I can give you any facts you want to know. More than facts I am not in a position to give you. I’ve never been on intimate terms with the household. Our firm has acted for Mrs Argyle over a number of years. We have co-operated with her over establishing various trusts and seeing to legal business. Mrs Argyle herself I knew reasonably well and I also knew her husband. Of the atmosphere at Sunny Point, of the temperaments and characters of the various people living there, I only know as you might say, at second-hand through Mrs Argyle herself.’

      ‘I quite understand all that,’ said Calgary, ‘but I’ve got to make a start somewhere. I understand that the children were not her own. That they were adopted?’

      ‘That is so. Mrs СКАЧАТЬ