After lapsing into silence once more Archie looked at me with concern and with pity, but not with love. No, that had gone. Yet I could tell that he was grateful to me, thankful that I had not made a scene about his affair. However, the state of my mind was unpredictable, or so I had led him to believe, and I suspect that he was relieved to retire early. He helped me from the chair and accompanied me up the stairs to my room. He told me that he had taken the room next to mine and that if I needed anything – anything at all – I should just knock on the interconnecting door. Otherwise, we would meet for breakfast at eight, after which a train would take us back home. My sister Madge and her husband Jimmy were on their way to Harrogate too, he said. They would travel with us the following day. Surely that would make me feel better.
Archie turned to me to say goodnight. ‘Will you be able to sleep or do you need to see a doctor?’ The word sent a shiver through me, and I felt my eyes darken. ‘No, I can see that you are feeling tired,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘A good night’s rest will do the trick, I’m certain. There’s time for a thorough medical examination when we get you home. We’ll get the best man for the job, no expense spared.’ I doubted that I would ever feel comfortable in the presence of a general practitioner again.
He kissed me lightly on the cheek, a limp and passionless gesture, and turned away, his eyes filling up with tears once more. I watched him as he walked, head bowed, along the corridor towards his room. His shoulders shook ever so slightly as he tried to hide his sobbing.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Breakfast was a miserable affair. The only sound at our table was the crunch of Archie eating his toast and the occasional ring of a teaspoon on a china cup. It looked as though he had not slept. The purple shadows under his eyes had darkened and his skin had taken on the appearance of thin parchment. Both of us knew that we would have to communicate, if only to talk about practical considerations – such as what time we were leaving – but Archie seemed so broken and defeated. Perhaps he had received some bad news. Had Miss Neele written a letter or sent a telegram severing relations with him? Certainly, the fact that her name had been linked with a married man – and for that friendship to be splashed all over the newspapers – would not have pleased her parents.
Finally, I could bear it no longer and I reached out and took hold of Archie’s hand. He bit his lip and when he finally looked up his eyes were full of regret, sadness and guilt.
‘I’m sorry,’ he managed to say. ‘I—’
‘Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ I said in a bright, artificial tone.
‘I feel as though it was all my fault. If it hadn’t had been for, well, you know . . . ’ He hesitated, but finally, his face contorting in pain, he managed to say a name that now stood for many things: betrayal, the end of our marriage, private and public shame. ‘Nancy.’
‘Sh-sh,’ I said, before we fell silent once more.
Archie took another sip of tea, and surprised by his tentative steps into the dangerous territory of emotions – a land that he regarded as suspicious and really only the preserve of the fairer sex – cleared his throat and started to talk of train times and suchlike. The certainty of facts soothed his troubled conscience and soon he reverted back to his old self.
‘I’m not sure what time Madge and Jimmy will be down for breakfast,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘They got in awfully late last night. They think it’s best if you go and stay with them at Abney Hall rather than return to Styles. The press interest is just extraordinary. The Daily Mail offered £500 for an exclusive. Said they would even charter a special train for you! Vultures they are, but the police are no better. That damned Kenward. I’ve got a mind to sue the blasted daylights out of him. Sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to alarm you. No, let’s not talk about that. But I am afraid you will need to be aware that there is a large group of pressmen outside and they all want to get a word or a photograph or something out of you. Jimmy has come up with a super plan. He’s got hold of a group of volunteers at the hotel to serve as decoys. Two couples are to leave the front entrance and get into a car in the hope that the reporters will follow them, while we all leave from the side entrance and slip away. What do you think of that? Also, we’ve spoken to the station master and he’s arranged for us to have a special compartment on the train.’
He seemed so full of it now – a little life had come back into his eyes – happy that he could talk about solutions, not the problem that was his wife.
‘Jimmy also said we should make the press believe that we are travelling to London, so we’ve put out word to that effect. By the time we change trains at Leeds we will have put the hounds off the scent.’
He ended his little speech on a note of triumph, like a small boy who had just solved what he thought was a particularly difficult puzzle.
‘Very good,’ I said. ‘It seems you’ve thought of everything. Thank you.’
‘Shall we go up and see them? Madge and Jimmy?’
‘Oh yes, I can’t wait,’ I said. Archie’s eyes looked encouraging, pleased that I seemed to be on the mend at last. ‘Such handsome creatures.’
Archie hesitated as he nervously smoothed his hair with his right hand. ‘You know Madge surely? Punkie?’
‘Of course I do, silly, my favourite dog in the world.’ When I thought about it Madge’s nickname did have a canine ring to it. ‘Closely followed by Jimmy.’
Archie looked down, embarrassed, almost as if he were in pain. How long would I have to carry on with this cruel farce? And how would I cope when I had to come face to face with Madge? Surely she would be able to see through me? At that moment my sister and her husband appeared at the entrance to the breakfast room. When she saw me Madge moved quickly across the room, but Archie bolted from his chair and went to talk to her and Jimmy. It was obvious he thought I was not ready to see them yet. I saw them whispering, followed by a few concerned looks in my direction. Madge shook her head and I think I heard her say something like, ‘But I must see her, I must.’ Archie became quite adamant over something and I saw the colour returning to his cheeks. Madge strained her head to look over in my direction once more, and so as not to meet her eye I concentrated on a palm tree in the distant corner of the room. ‘If you are quite certain,’ she said, taking her husband’s arm and walking out of the room.
‘Did you recognise them?’ said Archie softly as he sat down at the table.
I shook my head and stared at the cup of cold tea in front of me.
‘It will take a little time, that’s all. Don’t worry. It won’t be long before you’re back to your old self.’
The words had a hollow ring to them, as if he were just reading them from an over-rehearsed script. I, for one, did not want to return to my ‘old self’, whatever that was. Undoubtedly, part of me had been damaged, but another part had been set free.
‘If we’re going to make that train, we’d better get going. How is your packing? Need some help?’
‘No, all ready,’ I said blankly.
‘Good, I’ll get the boy to bring down the cases.’
As I waited for Archie to return I looked around me at the hotel that had been my home for the last week or more. When I had first arrived I had regarded the Hydro as something of a gilded prison, a place where I was being held against my will. Now that I was being told that I was free to leave I began to have fond feelings for the quaint, rather old-fashioned hotel. It had been here that I had danced to ‘Yes! We Have No Bananas’, something that still made me blush; here that I had shed my old identity and taken on another; it was here, too, that I had planned a murder.
‘All taken care of,’ said Archie, returning. ‘Now, if you just take my arm, dear. We are going to go out of the side entrance, as I told you earlier. It will make things a little easier for us all.’
I could not bear to say goodbye to the acquaintances I had made at the Hydro, friends who were probably regarding me with a certain amount of suspicion. No doubt the
y felt foolish at being taken in so. Poor Mrs Robson, she had been so nice, and I had promised to go dancing with her. Archie led me down a corridor, then another, where Madge and Jimmy were waiting. I bowed my head as Archie opened the door. The chill of the morning air took my breath away, the cold stinging my face just as it had done that night on Newlands Corner when I had stepped out of my car to meet Kurs. I pulled my cloche hat a little further down over my head but at that instant a photographer, a mean-faced little man in a cheap suit who said he was from the Daily Mail, started snapping away at me. Archie at first tried to plead with the man, but it was useless. I could see Archie’s face tightening with anger, his fists beginning to clench, but the last thing we needed was a scuffle.
‘Please, Archie, just leave it be,’ I said through clenched teeth, leading him towards the taxi. ‘Let’s just get the train.’
‘Yes, the goods entrance of the station, if you please,’ said Archie in a slightly pompous voice to the taxi driver. ‘We have a private compartment waiting for us reserved for Mr Parker and his party. That’s the name of the station master.’
By the time we arrived at the station the word had got out. The London platform was crowded with a swarm of journalists and photographers, all jostling for position and shouting. The scene looked like something from a painting I had once seen, a portrait of hell, full of writhing beasts and people doing unutterable things.
I closed my eyes and gripped Madge’s hand tightly as she led me along the platform. At one moment there was a surge of movement from behind, and I felt something push my back, threatening to unsteady me. Someone, I think a small boy, shouted, ‘It’s her. Mrs Christie! Look!’ People strained their heads in different directions, but no one was quite sure where the small boy meant. A wave of motion passed through the crowd. I felt someone push against me again. I lost hold of Madge’s hand and I saw myself being swept along the platform. I was back in the Underground with Kurs behind me, easing me towards my death. I screamed, and the sound of my own voice frightened me even more. The heat of steam burnt my face and I closed my eyes, darkness enveloping me. The energy drained from my body and I felt myself falling. Perhaps this was my punishment. This was how it was all supposed to end. At that moment, I felt someone take hold of me and lift me up and into the train.
Chapter Thirty-nine
I suppose I should have been happy. I had everything I could wish for. Rosalind was playing at my feet with darling Peter snuffling for a piece of broken biscuit near by. I could hear Carlo practising the piano in the drawing room. Madge had given me a supply of notebooks and pens galore. Abney Hall, her grand house in Cheshire, had a splendid library full of fascinating books and beautiful grounds in which I could walk. There was even a glass of delicious milk and cream on the table next to me. And yet I felt on edge, uncomfortable, decidedly ill at ease.
Perhaps I was still mourning the loss of Archie, who after rescuing me from that terrible throng on the platform and accompanying me to Cheshire had retreated back to Styles. Although we had not talked of divorce it was, I surmised, the next logical step. I knew that the public humiliation, the nasty gossip in the newspapers, the inference that he had had something to do with my disappearance, and my continuing mental instability had left him bruised and broken.
I suspected that he believed there was more to the story than a simple case of amnesia, but he probably didn’t want to question me too closely because the truth – or his perception of it – would be too difficult to bear. In response to the coverage in the newspapers – claims that I had staged my disappearance as some kind of bizarre publicity stunt or as a way of enacting revenge on a straying husband – Archie had brought in a couple of doctors to examine me. They were kind enough men – nothing at all like Kurs – and, after asking me lots of questions, they had issued a statement to the effect that I had indeed suffered a serious case of memory loss. Still, there were certain elements of the press who did not believe that story.
Archie had written to me asking whether I would like to pursue the matter through the courts, but I wrote back telling him that I would prefer it if no further action was taken. I insisted that I never wanted to talk about the episode again.
Yet all these were superficial concerns when compared to the shadow that darkened my conscience: the deaths of Flora Kurs and Una Crowe. The girl’s body had finally been found at the bottom of the cliffs off Ballard Point, Swanage. Although I had been preparing myself for the worst, seeing the news of the gruesome discovery in the paper had forced my stomach to lurch into my mouth. Apparently, her body had been spotted while a young woman had been out walking her dog. One report said that it had taken the police six hours to extricate the corpse from the jagged rocks. I had sent Davison a letter of condolence, but I had kept the correspondence brief and to the point. Since then I had often toyed with his card and thought about sending him a telegram. But I could hardly bring myself to recall, let alone talk about, the events that had taken me from the superficial comforts of my Sunningdale home to the wilds of Newlands Corner and then the horrors of Harrogate and Leeds.
No matter how hard I rationalised the situation, how often I told myself that none of what had happened had been my fault, it had all been initiated by Kurs, I still felt that I was to blame for their deaths. Would I be free of the guilt that ate away at me? Would I ever stop seeing their faces in my dreams? Perhaps my only release, if not salvation, would come through my writing. I had a great deal of work to do: I had to finish that blasted novel, The Mystery of the Blue Train, and then think about what to write next. There was only so long I could depend on Madge and Jimmy’s kindness. I would need to earn my own living now.
As I took up my pen to scribble a fragment of an idea into my notebook my sister came into the room. We had not talked about those eleven days and I hoped we never would.
‘Hello, darling. There’s someone here to see you,’ said Madge.
‘Who is it?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a beastly reporter or yet another doctor.’ Madge knew that I was not keen on either profession but, of course, she would never be able to guess the real reason for my antipathy towards physicians. ‘Nice-looking fellow, blond hair, lovely voice. Says he met you in London. You dark horse, you never told me about that.’
‘What? Davison?’
‘Yes, that’s his name. I’ve told him to wait in the morning room. I tried to put him off, said you were still recovering, but he was quite insistent.’
I bolted up and walked quickly towards the door.
‘Oh my, I thought you’d like a little distraction. But I didn’t realise he meant that much to you. I’ve never seen you move so fast in all my life!’
‘Madge, it’s nothing like that, nothing of the sort,’ I said somewhat irritably.
As I hurried down the long corridor, lined with paintings of horses and dogs and English landscapes, I felt my heart racing. What did he want? So far he had managed to keep my name out of the newspapers as he had promised. Was that all set to change? Was he coming to warn me that the blasted story was about to come out?
I stepped into the east-facing room to see him standing in the weak winter sun that filtered through the French doors. As he turned towards me he smiled, but his eyes looked haunted.
‘Good morning, Mrs Christie,’ he said, walking towards me. As he approached I noticed the dark circles that still shadowed his eyes.
‘Please sit down. Would you like tea, coffee?’ I said somewhat stiffly.
‘No, that’s very kind, I’m not sure how long I can stay. I’m pleased to see you in better health. From some of the things in the newspapers—’
‘Best not to believe everything you read in the newspapers,’ I said, giving him a half-smile.
‘Indeed.’
As we fell silent the sound of the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room filled the air.
‘I’m – I’m sorry that our worst fears were finally realised,’ I said. ‘Tha
t poor girl.’
‘Yes, it was most regrettable,’ he said, deliberately choosing words to mask his real feelings. I suspected that if he allowed himself to articulate them he would break down completely.
‘And what brings you north?’
‘Actually, I’m on my way to London from Leeds.’
Would I always shiver when I heard the name of that northern city? ‘What were you doing there?’ I was not sure whether I really wanted to know.
‘Just some background work into Dr Kurs and his unfortunate wife. It’s only now that we are beginning to build up a portrait of just how unpleasant he really was.’
I wondered how much he already knew about my involvement. ‘Have you discovered any more?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I have. It seems Kurs had a hold on a good many people. We found, at his practice, a number of very interesting documents that could compromise a range of individuals, some of them in positions of power. His motive, however, was not financial. It seems as though he got a kind of thrill from being able to control people.’
‘How intriguing,’ I said, careful not to give anything away.
‘The suggestion is that he saw himself as a kind of writer and the people around him as mere characters. We also found some manuscripts, or I should say fragments of manuscripts, but very interesting indeed. Detective fiction and the like.’
He watched me like a hawk. ‘He was a great admirer of your work in particular,’ he added. ‘There are pages of notes devoted to his thoughts on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It seems that he was obsessed with the character of Dr James Sheppard. He regarded him as something of a hero.’
‘That is most unfortunate,’ I said.
‘But of course there are certain gaps in the story,’ he continued. ‘To get the whole picture we will need to get the truth from you. A full account of what happened.’
I wasn’t sure whether I could risk relating the whole sorry affair. I was afraid not only for my reputation, but for my sanity too.
A Talent For Murder Page 26