I Saw Him Die

by Andrew Wilson

  Mr. Peterson remained silent as Davison continued. “It’s my supposition that Miss Passerini, of whom I am sure you are genuinely fond, will not take kindly to learning that you are, at worst, a murderer or, if not that, then at least a cad. Imagine if she discovered that you had come here so you could get close to her—that you pretended to make love to her just so you could learn more about her communist tendencies. I don’t think such news would be conducive to the beginning of a romantic attachment, do you?”

  Mr. Peterson’s face was ashen now. He must have realized that Davison had maneuvered him into a corner. It took a while for him to speak; no doubt he was working out whether it was possible to use any information that he had gathered to gain an advantage over Davison.

  Eventually acknowledging to himself that he had lost this particular round, he said, “I can see that the situation does look bad, and I’m sure you know that I had nothing to do with those deaths. And neither did I come here hoping to spy on Miss Passerini. I’d hate it if she were to think that.” He swallowed hard, as if the words that followed were difficult for him to speak. “But if there is anything I can do to prove to you that I was not involved, I am… well, I am willing to help.”

  “It sounds like we can have, at last, a more reasonable discussion,” said Davison. “Now, why don’t you take a seat?”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The specks of dried blood from my head wound turned the water pink. As Dr. Fitzpatrick carefully washed the area around the gash, I tried not to wince. The skin was still tender, but no doubt over the course of the next few hours the swelling would begin to go down and at least I would be able to hide the injury under a hat. According to the doctor I would soon recover: there would be no permanent damage. I pleaded with Dr. Fitzpatrick not to tell anyone about my injuries, which I said were the result of a fall. Everyone had enough to worry about, I said. Agreeing, he insisted that I rest and left me on the bed in my room.

  As I thought about what had very nearly happened to me—my existence nearly snuffed out as easily as that of a snail on a hosta plant or a spider in the corner of a room—I felt overwhelmed by emotion. The thought of never seeing my daughter, Rosalind, again or my sister, Madge, upset me considerably. I would never again feel the fond touch of Max, so soon to be my husband. Instead of celebrating a wedding, my friends would come together to mark my passing at a funeral. There would be no more travel, no more simple delights of long walks with my dog, Peter, no more sea swimming. I blinked back the tears. I could not afford to be sentimental. There was someone in the house who wanted me dead. And the only way to stop that person from murdering me was to solve the case.

  I had to think logically. If someone wanted to kill me, that meant they thought I knew or had seen something. But what? As I got up and dressed, I ran through everything that I had witnessed since arriving at Dallach Lodge. The accidental shooting of Robin Kinmuir by his nephew, James. The awful grimace on the man’s face, his hands grasping at that patch of heather as he fought for breath. Mrs. Buchanan and that torn photograph. Vivienne Passerini’s passport, stamped with the names of those countries in South America, and her lie about never having visited the continent. The scream of the girl servant as she discovered the body of old Mrs. Kinmuir. The sight of the elderly lady’s white blouse stained with blood. The playing cards scattered on the floor. The earring belonging to Vivienne Passerini that had been found on the floor by the victim’s body. The paper knife—produced by Inspector Hawkins—which had been used to kill Mrs. Kinmuir. And the blind woman’s last words to me: “ ‘Who killed Cock Robin? / I, said the Sparrow, / with my bow and arrow, / I killed Cock Robin.’ ”

  A moment before that, Mrs. Kinmuir had said, L’ho visto morire—I saw him die. Could she be referring to a murder in the past? I thought back to our conversation. My Italian was rudimentary, but I realized if the old lady had ended the word visto with an a instead of an o, then the subject of the sentence would not have been him but her L’ho vista morire would translate “I saw her die.” Could she have been referring to Catherine, the wife of Robin Kinmuir, who had mysteriously disappeared all those years ago? Had she witnessed that death? Although Mrs. Kinmuir probably could not have remembered what she had eaten for breakfast or which person had paid her a visit only moments before, perhaps she could have recalled something that had happened nearly fifteen years before.

  I remembered the scene at dinner when I had related my conversation with old Mrs. Kinmuir. Who had been there? James Kinmuir and Rufus Phillips. Mr. Peterson. The Frith-Stratton sisters. Vivienne Passerini. Mrs. Buchanan. Davison. And, hovering in the background, there had been Simkins, the butler.

  Just then there was a gentle knock at my door. It was Davison. The inspector wanted to see all the guests in the library. He had some important news.

  “Are you sure that you’re feeling up to it?” asked Davison. “I’ve just passed Dr. Fitzpatrick on the stairs and he told me that you had to rest.”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “I’m feeling much better.” That was far from the truth, but I didn’t want to make a fuss.

  Nevertheless, Davison insisted on supporting me as we descended the stairs. There was something so comforting about feeling his strong arm holding on to me.

  “Agatha, you do look awfully pale,” he said as we paused outside the library. “I’m sure I can make an excuse for you, if you like.”

  “Thank you, Davison,” I said, squeezing his hand. “But, really, I’m well.” I smiled at him. “Now let’s see what the inspector has to tell us.”

  As we entered the library Dr. Fitzpatrick cast me a concerned look, but I reassured him with a smile. There was an air of expectation in the room and a look of slight impatience on the inspector’s part as we took our seats; apparently we were the last to arrive.

  “Thank you all for joining me,” he said somewhat brusquely. Hawkins had lost a great deal of respect for the group since the discovery of the business about the letters. “As you will no doubt be aware, we have charged Miss Passerini with the murders of Robin Kinmuir and his aunt, Mrs. Veronica Kinmuir.”

  “The bitch,” murmured Mrs. Buchanan to herself.

  “I realize that some of you came to the lodge for—well, for reasons particular to yourselves,” Hawkins continued, “and while I don’t condone your behavior, I now know that none of you played a part in the murders. The crimes were done entirely by Miss Passerini, and Miss Passerini alone must pay the price.”

  “I hope she hangs for what she did,” Mrs. Buchanan interjected loudly so everyone could hear.

  “I’m quite certain she will,” replied the inspector. “After all, there is a good deal of evidence against her. We have the murder weapon that killed Mrs. Kinmuir, the paper knife, and also Miss Passerini’s earring that was found by the old lady’s body. We have the fact that Miss Passerini lied to everyone here about her most recent travels, denying she had ever set foot on the continent of South America, which we know to be the origin of the curare poison that killed Mr. Kinmuir. And now we have discovered the motive.”

  This was the one piece of the puzzle that had so far escaped me. I felt my heart begin to race as the inspector began to outline his case against the young woman.

  “Before I get into the specifics, let me explain the wider context,” he said. “You see, there is a great deal of bias when it comes to seeing women as murderers. We like to see them as caring, nurturing individuals who look after their menfolk and tend to their children. But you see, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve studied the annals of murder and I know that in some instances women can be just as ruthless and as cruel as men.”

  He had the attention of the whole room and he addressed us as if he were a particularly gifted and articulate professor in a lecture hall full of devoted students.

  “I’m sure you, Mrs. Christie, are familiar with the case of Amelia Dyer?”

  “Indeed,” I said, nodding my head gravely.

  “For the benefit of the others, let me
explain,” he said. “Amelia Dyer was a nurse who was born Amelia Hobley in 1837, the daughter of a shoemaker in a village near Bristol. It was said that, as a girl, she grew to love poetry and literature, which is strange when you consider the monstrous things she did later, as an adult. You see, Amelia Dyer was responsible for the deaths of dozens of babies. It’s difficult to know just how many she killed. Some say the number ran into the hundreds.”

  “Babies?” cried May Frith-Stratton, her hand jumping up to cover her mouth.

  “Yes. Amelia Dyer was what was known as a baby farmer, taking in children for profit, infants who had been born… illegitimately. But she did not want the bother of looking after the children. All she was interested in was the money. She killed the little mites by strangling them with white edging tape, the kind I believe is used in dressmaking.”

  “I don’t think I can bear any more… Inspector, please stop,” May pleaded. Her eyes look haunted.

  But Hawkins continued. “In 1896, after the discovery of a baby girl in the Thames near Reading, Mrs. Dyer was arrested and charged with murder. At the Old Bailey it took the jury only four and a half minutes to find the woman guilty and, at the age of fifty-nine or sixty—the records are vague on that—she was hanged at Newgate Prison.”

  “How awful,” said Mrs. Buchanan.

  “And then, before Mrs. Dyer, there was the case of Mary Ann Cotton, who was convicted for poisoning her stepson,” intoned Hawkins. “It is thought that she also murdered three husbands in order to profit from their insurance policies. Arsenic was her poison of choice, a poison which Mrs. Christie here will know was often used by murderers because it went undetected unless tested: the symptoms of the poisoning were often mistaken for certain gastric problems. It is thought that she also murdered eleven out of her thirteen children.”

  “I can’t bear this,” said May Frith-Stratton, rising to her feet. “Please excuse me.”

  “As I said, I’m sorry to cause any upset among the ladies, but I do insist that you stay and listen to what I have to say,” said the inspector, raising his voice. “Please, sit down.” There was a cruel tone to his manner now. Was this his way of getting revenge on the people who had come to the lodge with the sole purpose of witnessing the punishment meted out to Robin Kinmuir? “Mrs. Cotton, who was forty years old, was herself hanged at Durham jail in 1873.” He paused for dramatic effect and turned and looked at each one of us in the room. “And, more recently, we have the famous case of Edith Thompson, who with her lover, Frederick Bywaters, was found guilty of the murder of her husband, Percy. She too—”

  “I’m afraid that case was very different,” I interrupted. “She should never have been found guilty. You see—”

  Hawkins cut me off. “The law is the law, Mrs. Christie. There can be no arguing with it. The jury at the Old Bailey found Edith Thompson guilty, and the twenty-nine-year-old was hanged in Holloway prison in January 1923. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Yes, but there were certain pieces of evidence which—” The inspector did not let me finish my sentence.

  “I mention these three cases of female murderers at random, but as I am sure you are aware, there are many more. I know my criminal history, Mrs. Christie.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said. “But—”

  “Which is why I’m certain that Miss Passerini will be found guilty and, after being found guilty, she will hang for her crimes,” he said.

  Mrs. Buchanan looked as satisfied and as pleased with herself as a dog which was within sniffing distance of a promised large bone.

  “Of course, you want to know her motive,” said the inspector, preempting my next question.

  The room was so quiet, I could hear the sound of the breath of those guests closest to me.

  “What I am going to describe to you now is not for the faint of heart, but it is a story that I must insist all of you listen to,” continued the inspector. “After all, each of you here—apart from, I believe, Mrs. Buchanan—came to this place hoping to see the punishment of one particular person: the late Mr. Kinmuir.” So Hawkins believed Mrs. Buchanan’s denial. Either she was telling the truth, as she said, or she must have used all her skills of persuasion and performance to convince him of her innocence. “And even though you did not do the deed yourselves—only Miss Passerini was responsible for the crime, or I should say crimes—you do bear some responsibility.”

  The announcement was greeted by cries of alarm from the Frith-Stratton sisters and murmurs of disagreement on the part of Mr. Peterson. Meanwhile, James Kinmuir, who stood away from the group by the window with his friend Rufus Phillips, looked on with approval. It seemed likely that he had had a conversation with Hawkins before entering the room. It was only natural that he wanted to make these people suffer for the base motives that had driven them to this island. He wanted the inspector to teach the guests a lesson, one they would never forget.

  “Now, to get back to Miss Passerini,” said the inspector. “Like each of you, she too had a connection to the late Mr. Kinmuir. In her case, her need for revenge was, perhaps, the most pressing.” He paused for a moment before he set forth the revelation that we were all waiting for. “You see, Miss Passerini was the illegitimate daughter of Robin Kinmuir.”

  A collective gasp echoed around the room. I felt a little light-headed as I tried to see how this new piece of information fitted into the larger picture.

  “It is no surprise to learn that Mr. Kinmuir had a number of intimate friendships and encounters with women other than his wife,” said Hawkins, glancing in the direction of Mrs. Buchanan.

  The actress had dropped her head, and it was impossible to see the expression in her eyes. But from what I knew of her relationship with Mr. Kinmuir, I guessed that she would feel broken by the news. She was too much of a woman of the world not to know of Kinmuir’s propensity for taking other lovers—she had been, after all, having an affair with a married man—but, even so, it must have been difficult to hear the truth of his infidelities. Eliza Buchanan accepted the need for Robin to have had a wife, but how would she feel knowing that he had had other mistresses, too? Had she known about this particular relationship—and the illegitimate child from that liaison? Could this have prompted her to turn to thoughts of murder? She had loved Robin Kinmuir—that much was clear—but I knew how easy it was for love to turn to hate. Indeed, weren’t those two emotions really just extremes on the same spectrum?

  “Miss Passerini was the offspring of an encounter Mr. Kinmuir had had with a woman whose name we do not know,” continued Hawkins. “Miss Passerini was born in 1909 in Italy, in Florence, and as a result the birth was not registered at Somerset House. Soon after the birth, however, it seems the mother died by her own hand.”

  “How terrible,” said Mr. Peterson.

  “In turn, Miss Passerini was adopted by a very kind London couple who were also quite wealthy. When I interviewed Miss Passerini in her cell in Portree, she told me that she discovered her true parentage when she turned twenty-one earlier this year.”

  “But has she confessed to the crime?” I asked.

  “No, of course she hasn’t confessed,” said Hawkins dismissively, as if this were not important. “I wouldn’t expect her to just yet. But give it time and I’m sure she will.”

  “And what did she say about why she came here?” I persisted. “To Skye.”

  “She said that she had received a letter like the rest of you,” he replied, “calling her to Dallach Lodge to witness the punishment of Robin Kinmuir.”

  “And you don’t believe her?”

  “Of course I don’t believe her!” Hawkins snapped. “It’s clear that she was the one who wrote those letters to all of you. She blamed her mother’s suicide on her father and, fueled by hatred and revenge, she tried to find out who else had suffered because of him. And so, after doing some careful research, she lured a handful of strangers to the island with a prospect so delicious you could not refuse: a ringside seat to watch the humiliatio
n of a man you all hated. Perhaps she thought she could get away with it. Perhaps she wanted to try to blame the murder of Mr. Kinmuir on someone else. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as clever as she thought. Although she denies ever traveling to South America, her passport shows she was there quite recently. And while on that continent she must have acquired the curare with which she poisoned Mr. Kinmuir, her father.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked.

  Hawkins looked at me as if I were an annoying little midge that was about to settle on his skin and inflict a nasty bite.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Miss Passerini’s name,” I said.

  “Her name?”

  “Yes, the Latin root. As I told you, passer means sparrow in Latin. In the rhyme—”

  “You don’t expect me to listen to all that rot about that stupid nursery rhyme,” he said impatiently.

  I tried to speak as calmly as possible, aware that Inspector Hawkins wanted to categorize me as an hysterical woman. “If Miss Passerini was the one responsible for these murders, why would she advertise the fact? Her name gives her away.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said.

  Was he about to listen to what I had to say? My heartbeat increased as I steadied myself to explain my suspicions. But then, as soon as he started to speak, I realized that the inspector’s theory blinded him to all other possibilities. My brief sense of elation turned to disappointment.

  “Perhaps she wanted to be caught all along,” he said. “I’ve known that to happen in cases before: killers leaving clues so that they can be found. Arrest comes as something of a relief to them. In one case I believe there was a murderer responsible for the deaths of seven women who actually thanked the policeman who arrested him. I’m sorry, Mrs. Christie, but I think it’s best if you leave the solving of crimes to me.”