The hush was broken by Arthur. ‘I am the inheritor of Hainault hall.’ His voice was harsh, and his expression suddenly steely. ‘My father was Sir Wyndham Tapton. And my mother was his mistress.’ Arthur was sitting still, and upright, with a strange calm about him.
There was a gasp in the room.
‘All of that is true,’ Agatha said. ‘But your parents weren’t married,’ she went on. ‘And in any case, you couldn’t inherit.’
‘I was the only heir –’ he began.
‘Because,’ she was saying, ‘the true heirs, were the twins. The offspring of his marriage to Lady Dympna Tapton.’
‘They died,’ he said. ‘Their graves are there for all to see.’
‘Those poor babies,’ Agatha said. ‘Six months old.’
‘Exactly,’ he said. He was staring directly at her.
‘But they did not die.’ Agatha met his empty stare.
His gaze seemed to falter.
‘They were adopted,’ Agatha said. ‘As you, Arthur, know very well. When his first, much-loved wife died, Sir Wyndham remarried very quickly. To Iris, whose niece I met yesterday. She’s a lovely woman. We had a very interesting conversation.’
Arthur had grown pale.
‘She had no good to say of her aunt. And what I learned, from the papers, is that Iris forced her husband to give up the children and to pretend that they’d died. The funeral was fake. As fake as your Holbein.’
Arthur was staring straight ahead, unblinking.
‘It seems she didn’t want to raise another woman’s children. He was most unhappy. His unhappiness drove him into the arms of your mother, Arthur. Eleanora. Who managed as best as she could to raise you on her own, and eventually married a Mr. Sutton, who didn’t live that long either. Eventually Sir Wyndham died. His will names only his second wife, Iris. And she left the house to her niece. Who describes it as a millstone. When you came along as a tenant, she was relieved.’
‘I’m not a tenant. It’s mine –’ He was steel-eyed, tight-lipped.
‘I realized,’ Agatha continued, ‘from what she was saying, about having to spend money on the house, about how it was so helpful you living here, that she still believed she owned the house. So I went back to the deeds and it all became clear. Once I realized there was a possibility that the twins had been adopted, I went to the clinic, and sure enough, it had been organised via the Tapton Trust. The old vicar, the predecessor of Reverend Collins here, processed the adoption without realizing who these babies actually were. I imagine that with Iris, Sir Wyndham’s second wife, pulling the strings, he didn’t dare to ask.’
All this time Gwendoline was looking more and more pale.
Agatha turned to her. ‘You, Miss Holgate, are the sole surviving heir of Hainault Hall. Cecil was the other twin. And that’s why you were both in terrible danger. From the person who felt they were the wronged party in all this. Cecil, tragically, met his end as a result. And when you were sitting in the summerhouse, the flask of tea destined for you was drunk instead by Phoebe, as Bertha appeared, unannounced, with sherry, which you preferred to drink. It was that sherry which saved your life, Miss Holgate.’
Arthur was staring, glassily, through all this speech, but now he spoke. ‘You can’t prove any of this,’ he said. ‘This is your story teller’s nonsense, it’s got the better of you, your fictional world, you’re just making it up –’
‘So,’ Agatha said, ‘the atropine that you put into Cicely’s lovely cup?’
Arthur went white.
Gwendoline, too had acquired a ghostly sheen.
‘It’s all right.’ Agatha turned to her. ‘I swapped the cups. Mary did, in fact, bring both, but we had a little performance, didn’t we Mary?’
Mary gave a brief nod, a small smile of pride.
‘And the poisoned one is currently outside, with Inspector Mallatratt and his people.’
At that moment the Inspector himself came through the door.
‘Arthur Francis Sutton,’ he announced, loudly. ‘You are hereby under arrest for the murders of Cecil Coates and Phoebe Banks, and for the attempted murder of Gwendoline Holgate.’
Chapter Sixteen
The vicarage drawing room looked upside down and disorderly, as if a storm had blown through it but now calm had been restored.
People blinked in the aftermath. Arthur had been handcuffed and driven away by Inspector Mallatratt and his team. Now everyone sat around looking somehow dishevelled. Even the tea things looked shabby, with sandwich crusts and half-eaten cakes sitting randomly on plates.
Reverend Collins was looking around him as if in someone else’s house altogether, as if he’d been displaced from the comfort of his own life and given the life of someone altogether different, someone who lived side by side with murderers. He sat, mopping his brow, gazing from one person to the next.
Robert was attending to Gwendoline, who had fainted. She was sitting up, looking pale but otherwise alert. ‘You’re all right now,’ he murmured to her. ‘Perfectly OK. But to think that blackguard might have killed you …’
Clifford had gone to the French windows and was standing, stock-still, gazing out into the garden.
Mary was holding Cicely’s cup, the one remaining one, between both hands and studying it, thoughtfully. Sylvia, tucked away in her corner of the sofa, had reached for one of the remaining sandwiches and was now nibbling on it as if hoping no one would see.
‘But –’ It was Mary who spoke at last. ‘How did Arthur Sutton get everyone here?’
Clifford turned to face the room. ‘I blame myself,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize quite what …’ He breathed and went on, ‘You see, he’d found out our secret. Miss Wilkins and I … we were married last year.’
Mary studied the cup in her lap. Sylvia looked up from her sandwich, blinking at the news, yet another fact of village life of which she was unaware.
‘And you see,’ Clifford went on, ‘Bertha didn’t want anyone to know. So when you, Miss Ettridge, mentioned your godson, Arthur made Miss Wilkins insist on Robert coming here, as she was connected to the charitable trust at the time. And that way he knew Cecil would come and stay. And he put forward the name of Miss Holgate, from the Providence school, to help the vicar, which is why I suggested her. He must have gone through the parish papers to know all this, as Mrs. Christie did subsequently. And I supported him. I liked the idea of this young artist taking over the old house, I thought his ideas were good …’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘I had no idea it was all fake. Everything. Even the painting,’ he added, with an empty smile.
He turned to Agatha. ‘I have much to thank you for. My Bertha will be freed, with no stain on her character. And as for the Hall …’ He turned to face the others. ‘I never wanted the house. I just wanted justice for my mother. But this is justice enough. And to think that you, Miss Holgate will inherit. It really is very pleasing. I’m sure it will be a relief to the niece too.’ He ambled to the nearest seat and sat down as if his thoughts still weighed heavily.
‘But –’ Sylvia almost put up her hand to ask a question. ‘The poison,’ she said. ‘How did he …?’
Agatha leaned back in her chair. ‘I realized that on both occasions the poison was administered, Arthur had been in the vicarage. Bertha had made cocoa for Cecil, but Arthur was in the background then. And it was the same with the tea flask intended for Gwendoline.’
‘And how did he get the poison in the first place?’ Sylvia asked.
Agatha answered her again. ‘We know that Cecil brought it from the London clinic. I think Arthur must have taken it from him at that point, when he arrived, and squirreled some away, enough for a fatal dose. After all, the whooping cough remedy only needed a few drops. Only Cecil would have known that Arthur had taken it, and he wasn’t here to tell us.’
Mary gathered up the one remaining cup. ‘Poison,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘It really is just as well I don’t like these awful cups.’
Sylvia put down her sandwich and sur
veyed the room. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Well, well, well.’
*
Then there was the slow clearing up, with Eva quietly carrying plates, tidying chairs, restoring order. At one point Agatha saw her rest her hand on the vicar’s arm, giving him a maternal pat. He smiled, vaguely, up at her.
‘Reverend Collins –’ Sylvia approached him. ‘May I see this so-called Holbein?’
The party trouped into the old barn. Clifford removed the cover from the frame and they stood back and surveyed the half-restored portrait.
There was a silence, broken only by the cooing of the wood pigeons in the roof.
‘The sad fact is –’ It was Clifford who spoke. ‘It’s really very good. Even as a fake. The man has talent, there’s no doubt about it.’
‘Perhaps they offer classes in prison,’ Sylvia said, crisply.
The vicar was standing a little way back, with Agatha. He turned to her. ‘Greed,’ he said. ‘A human failing. One of which we are all so easily guilty. This …’ He waved his hand towards the painting. ‘I so fervently hoped … I allowed all rationality to be overcome with it …’ A smile crossed his face. ‘I shall write about it for my next sermon.’
*
Later, Agatha and Mary walked home together. Agatha told her how the final thoughts had fallen into place.
‘It was when Arthur showed me the paintings in his studio,’ she said. ‘And there was one of his mother. Eleanora. A small painting, tucked away in the corner of his studio. But of course, he knew it was his mother. It’s a lovely portrait. And I stared at it, at those eyes, gazing out of the frame. You see –’ She turned to Mary. ‘They were so like Arthur’s eyes.’
They continued along the lane. Agatha spoke again. ‘And the peculiar thing is –’ She stopped, turned to her friend. ‘It was what Madame Litvinoff said, about the woman in black with the yellow flowers. It turned out she was right all along.’
Chapter Seventeen
Bunty Flowers was standing by the window. She was wearing a blue floral dress, with matching shoes, her hair loosely pinned up. Inspector Jerome, as he entered the room, felt that he had never seen such a beautiful woman in his life. “Will you marry me?” The words formed in his mind, and yet, even now, even though they were alone, he could not bring himself to utter them. It was Bunty herself who turned round, who saw him standing there, his hat clutched between his hands. She smiled at him and said, “Oh. Inspector. Do you have anything to say to me?”
Agatha put down her pen. It was evening. A quiet, spring evening. Even outside it was quiet, as if the village had settled, with relief, into its habitual calm. Late that afternoon, Bertha Wilkins had been released from prison and returned to the village. She had stepped out of the police van into the village square, and ignoring the journalists and onlookers, had scanned the crowds for Clifford. He had stepped forward, and she had run into his arms, and Agatha had heard the passion in her voice as she’d uttered apologies for having treated him so badly, entreaties that they might start afresh. Clifford had taken her hand, gazed into her eyes, assured her that from now on, ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
Robert had been inseparable from Gwendoline. They’d left the vicarage together.
‘A walk in the sunshine,’ he’d said. ‘Clear the air, get some colour into those cheeks.’
They’d left, hand-in-hand, walking up towards Hainault Hall. Agatha imagined Gwendoline approaching the drive of the house, taking in the astonishing fact that this house was rightfully hers, and that her adoptive sister, all those years ago, had been speaking the truth.
Agatha returned to her page of writing. There he was, Inspector Jerome, turning his hat between his fingers, wondering what to say to Bunty. Poor Inspector Jerome. What can he possibly want with Dorothea, the mysterious woman in black standing by the gravestone?
No, she thought. Not Jerome. I will marry him off. Dear Inspector Jerome. He can retire to the countryside with Bunty and they can keep pigs. And then, I shall start my new story. It will be a different detective who meets Dorothea. A woman detective. Older, unmarried. A spinster detective –
She almost said the words out loud, just as the door opened.
‘Ah.’ It was Archie who spoke, finding her there. ‘I just wondered if you’d like a cup of tea.’
Hidden Sins
Alison Joseph
© Alison Joseph 2015
Alison Joseph has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
This edition published 2018 by Sharpe Books.
This book is not authorized by Agatha Christie Limited.
Chapter One
There was a sharpness in the wind, in spite of the blue of the sky, the sparkle of the sea. Agatha Christie took careful steps along the cliff-top track, thinking about true love. The kind in books, she thought, as her brown brogues scuffed the yellow-flowering gorse.
And in real life?
That morning, her husband had held her in his arms and mumbled a goodbye, the little Cornish railway station all noise and steam, glimpses of lace ironwork amidst the heaped luggage, the harassed nannies, the bright chatter of children.
‘London,’ Archie was saying, ‘business, office, only a few days, you’ll have a wonderful time, new book, getting on with it, peace and quiet, sea air, soon be back with me…’
Something like that.
Agatha gazed out at the white-flecked ocean.
I love you. That’s what people say in books. The hero takes hold of the heroine’s hands and says, ‘I love you.’
But only at the story’s end.
She turned away from the cliff and rejoined the path, the June sun on her face as she descended the hill. My new book, she thought. A romance. The characters had begun to take shape. A Captain, a brave, military type. A shy but clever young woman, destined to marry someone dull, someone chosen by her mother, a well-meaning but fearful woman who worries for her daughter’s future…
But my readers will know, thought Agatha, that the brave Captain and the shy young woman need to be together.
‘A romance?’ Archie had said, a week or so ago when she’d first mentioned it. It had been at home, at dinner, during several days of constant rain. ‘Are you sure?’
She’d looked at him across the silverware.
‘The detective stuff is doing so well,’ he’d said.
‘I’ve got this idea…’ she’d said.
His face fixed, tightened.
‘I thought I’d work on it when we’re in Cornwall,’ she’d said.
‘It’s supposed to be a holiday,’ he’d said, picking up his fork.
Now, alone, she walked towards the village. After three days, Archie had decided two things; one, that the golf course here was really quite sub-standard compared to the one at home, ‘bumps and dips everywhere, and then that sea view, and trying to land your drive on to the green with that blustery wind, what do they expect a chap to do? If their golf facilities were half as good as their tennis courts I might be tempted to stay…’ And secondly, that the office really couldn’t do without him any longer.
This morning she had let him go, a hurried goodbye in the midst of smoke and slamming doors.
I love you, people say in books.
I love you, my Captain will say to my shy young woman.
It will be the end of the story.
Her thoughts were interrupted by loud shouts, and laughter, as she rounded the corner and the coastal village came into view, no more than a scattering of cottages. The tide was out, and on the sands a group of people stood clustered around a structure, dark and jagged-edged against the shining sea. The curves of a prow, she saw, the ruins of a shipwreck. They seemed to be working on it, and now she could hear hammering, and every so often a small group broke away and carried part of the structure towards the shore.
So this is the Lady Leona, she thought. Little M
ay at the hotel had told her all about it this morning, sitting at reception with her tub of silver polish. ‘It’s an old fishing boat,’ she’d said. ‘Hit the rocks, been there for a year and a day. More than that, in fact. So now it means that the wreckers can help themselves. It’s the law, see? And with these low spring tides, they’ve decided to haul her in, to see what she holds. They say they’ll find gold.’ She’d giggled, with a shake of her pretty curls. ‘Dead fish, more like. That’s what I think anyways. And ghosts. Loads of ghosts. The dead, see. They don’t like to be disturbed.’ She’d laughed again, and returned to the candlesticks.
Agatha’s gaze went to the activity beneath them on the sands, the strong young men in rough shirts hauling huge, barnacled ribs of wood, the women kneeling, digging at the hulk, or standing, watching, the sea breeze catching at their shawls. The whole scene reflected blue and gold on the tide-washed sands.
Ghosts, she thought. It had occurred to her that her Captain would have a sense of being haunted, something to do with a war, not the war just gone, not that, no— an earlier war, one of glory and horsemanship, of etiquette and justice.
Not the war just gone.
It changed us all, she thought, gazing downwards at the activity below. Hospital memories, again. A soldier shouting in pain, ‘my leg, nurse, my leg, do something about my leg…’ He’d grabbed her hand, tried to pull her towards his injured leg. ‘Here, Nurse, it hurts so much…’
There is no leg, she’d wanted to say. I washed the operating theatre clean of your blood. That pain, is the ghost of your leg.
She turned away from the view of the ship. It was time to get back to the hotel. There will be afternoon tea, she thought. I will sit with my notebook. There will be cucumber sandwiches, and Darjeeling, and my brave Captain in his scarlet coat. He will wear medals, and ride to hounds. He’ll be strong, and whole, and his hauntings will be the sort that can be cured.
Agatha Christie Investigates Omnibus Page 11