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The Mirror Crack'd: from Side to Side

Page 23

by Agatha Christie


  She looked at Jason Rudd.

  “This is only a theory of yours,” said Jason Rudd.

  “You can put it that way, if you like,” said Miss Marple, “but you know quite well, don’t you, Mr. Rudd, that I’m speaking the truth. You know, because you knew from the first. You knew because you heard that mention of German measles. You knew and you were frantic to protect her. But you didn’t realize how much you would have to protect her from. You didn’t realize that it was not only a question of hushing up one death, the death of a woman whom you might say quite fairly had brought her death on herself. But there were other deaths—the death of Giuseppe, a blackmailer, it is true, but a human being. And the death of Ella Zielinsky of whom I expect you were fond. You were frantic to protect Marina and also to prevent her from doing more harm. All you wanted was to get her safely away somewhere. You tried to watch her all the time, to make sure that nothing more should happen.”

  She paused, and then coming nearer to Jason Rudd, she laid a gentle hand on his arm.

  “I am very sorry for you,” she said, “very sorry. I do realize the agony you’ve been through. You cared for her so much, didn’t you?”

  Jason Rudd turned slightly away.

  “That,” he said, “is, I believe, common knowledge.”

  “She was such a beautiful creature,” said Miss Marple gently. “She had such a wonderful gift. She had a great power of love and hate but no stability. That’s what’s so sad for anyone, to be born with no stability. She couldn’t let the past go and she could never see the future as it really was, only as she imagined it to be. She was a great actress and a beautiful and very unhappy woman. What a wonderful Mary, Queen of Scots she was! I shall never forget her.”

  Sergeant Tiddler appeared suddenly on the stairs.

  “Sir,” he said, “can I speak to you a moment?”

  Craddock turned.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to Jason Rudd, then he went towards the stairs.

  “Remember,” Miss Marple called after him, “poor Arthur Badcock had nothing to do with this. He came to the fête because he wanted to have a glimpse of the girl he had married long ago. I should say she didn’t even recognize him. Did she?” she asked Jason Rudd.

  Jason Rudd shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. She certainly never said anything to me. I don’t think,” he added thoughtfully, “she would recognize him.”

  “Probably not,” said Miss Marple. “Anyway,” she added, “he’s quite innocent of wanting to kill her or anything of that kind. Remember that,” she added to Dermot Craddock as he went down the stairs.

  “He’s not been in any real danger, I can assure you,” said Craddock, “but of course when we found out that he had actually been Miss Marina Gregg’s first husband we naturally had to question him on the point. Don’t worry about him, Aunt Jane,” he added in a low murmur, then he hurried down the stairs.

  Miss Marple turned to Jason Rudd. He was standing there like a man in a daze, his eyes faraway.

  “Would you allow me to see her?” said Miss Marple.

  He considered her for a moment or two, then he nodded.

  “Yes, you can see her. You seem to—understand her very well.”

  He turned and Miss Marple followed him. He preceded her into the big bedroom and drew the curtains slightly aside.

  Marina Gregg lay in the great white shell of the bed—her eyes closed, her hands folded.

  So, Miss Marple thought, might the Lady of Shalott have lain in the boat that carried her down to Camelot. And there, standing musing, was a man with a rugged, ugly face, who might pass as a Lancelot of a later day.

  Miss Marple said gently, “It’s very fortunate for her that she—took an overdose. Death was really the only way of escape left to her. Yes—very fortunate she took that overdose—or—was given it?”

  His eyes met hers, but he did not speak.

  He said brokenly, “She was—so lovely—and she had suffered so much.”

  Miss Marple looked back against the still figure.

  She quoted softly the last lines of the poem:

  “He said: ‘She has a lovely face;

  God in His mercy lend her grace,

  The Lady of Shalott.’”

  * * *

  The Agatha Christie Collection

  THE HERCULE POIROT MYSTERIES

  Match your wits with the famous Belgian detective.

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles

  The Murder on the Links

  Poirot Investigates

  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

  The Big Four

  The Mystery of the Blue Train

  Peril at End House

  Lord Edgware Dies

  Murder on the Orient Express

  Three Act Tragedy

  Death in the Clouds

  The A.B.C. Murders

  Murder in Mesopotamia

  Cards on the Table

  Murder in the Mews and Other Stories

  Dumb Witness

  Death on the Nile

  Appointment with Death

  Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

  Sad Cypress

  One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

  Evil Under the Sun

  Five Little Pigs

  The Hollow

  The Labors of Hercules

  Taken at the Flood

  The Underdog and Other Stories

  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead

  After the Funeral

  Hickory Dickory Dock

  Dead Man’s Folly

  Cat Among the Pigeons

  The Clocks

  Third Girl

  Hallowe’en Party

  Elephants Can Remember

  Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

  Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

  * * *

  * * *

  TheAgatha Christie Collection

  THE MISS MARPLE MYSTERIES

  Join the legendary spinster sleuth from St. Mary Mead in solving murders far and wide.

  The Murder at the Vicarage

  The Body in the Library

  The Moving Finger

  A Murder Is Announced

  They Do It with Mirrors

  A Pocket Full of Rye

  4:50 From Paddington

  The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

  A Caribbean Mystery

  At Bertram’s Hotel

  Nemesis

  Sleeping Murder

  Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

  THE TOMMY AND TUPPENCE MYSTERIES

  Jump on board with the entertaining crime-solving couple from Young Adventurers Ltd.

  The Secret Adversary

  Partners in Crime

  N or M?

  By the Pricking of My Thumbs

  Postern of Fate

  Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

  * * *

  * * *

  The Agatha Christie Collection

  Don’t miss a single one of Agatha Christie’s stand-alone novels and short-story collections.

  The Man in the Brown Suit

  The Secret of Chimneys

  The Seven Dials Mystery

  The Mysterious Mr. Quin

  The Sittaford Mystery

  Parker Pyne Investigates

  Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

  Murder Is Easy

  The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

  And Then There Were None

  Towards Zero

  Death Comes as the End

  Sparkling Cyanide

  The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

  Crooked House

  Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

  They Came to Baghdad

  Destination Unknown

  Ordeal by Innocence

  Double Sin and Other Stories

  The Pale Horse

  Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

  Endless Night

  Passenger to Frankfurt

&nb
sp; The Golden Ball and Other Stories

  The Mousetrap and Other Plays

  The Harlequin Tea Set

  Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

  * * *

  About the Author

  Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

  She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

  Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

  Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

  www.AgathaChristie.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION

  The Man in the Brown Suit

  The Secret of Chimneys

  The Seven Dials Mystery

  The Mysterious Mr. Quin

  The Sittaford Mystery

  Parker Pyne Investigates

  Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

  Murder Is Easy

  The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

  And Then There Were None

  Towards Zero

  Death Comes as the End

  Sparkling Cyanide

  The Witness for the Prosecution and

  Other Stories

  Crooked House

  Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

  They Came to Baghdad

  Destination Unknown

  Ordeal by Innocence

  Double Sin and Other Stories

  The Pale Horse

  Star over Bethlehem: Poems and

  Holiday Stories

  Endless Night

  Passenger to Frankfurt

  The Golden Ball and Other Stories

  The Mousetrap and Other Plays

  The Harlequin Tea Set

  The Hercule Poirot Mysteries

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles

  The Murder on the Links

  Poirot Investigates

  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

  The Big Four

  The Mystery of the Blue Train

  Peril at End House

  Lord Edgware Dies

  Murder on the Orient Express

  Three Act Tragedy

  Death in the Clouds

  The ABC Murders

  Murder in Mesopotamia

  Cards on the Table

  Murder in the Mews and Other Stories

  Dumb Witness

  Death on the Nile

  Appointment with Death

  Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

  Sad Cypress

  One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

  Evil Under the Sun

  Five Little Pigs

  The Hollow

  The Labors of Hercules

  Taken at the Flood

  The Underdog and Other Stories

  Mrs. McGinty’s Dead

  After the Funeral

  Hickory Dickory Dock

  Dead Man’s Folly

  Cat Among the Pigeons

  The Clocks

  Third Girl

  Hallowe’en Party

  Elephants Can Remember

  Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

  The Miss Marple Mysteries

  The Murder at the Vicarage

  The Body in the Library

  The Moving Finger

  A Murder Is Announced

  They Do It with Mirrors

  A Pocket Full of Rye

  4:50 from Paddington

  The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

  A Caribbean Mystery

  At Bertram’s Hotel

  Nemesis

  Sleeping Murder

  Miss Marple: The Complete

  Short Stories

  The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries

  The Secret Adversary

  Partners in Crime

  N or M?

  By the Pricking of My Thumbs

  Postern of Fate

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE® MARPLE® MISS MARPLE® THE MIRROR CRACK’D FROM SIDE TO SIDE™. Copyright © 2011 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side was first published in 1962.

  THE MIRROR CRACK’D FROM SIDE TO SIDE. Copyright © 2011 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-06-207367-9

  EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-174805-9

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