Spider's Web

by Agatha Christie

  Clarissa disagreed. ‘No, it isn’t. I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ she declared, as Jeremy returned from the library carrying a small electric radiator. ‘Got it?’ she asked him.

  ‘Here it is,’ he replied. ‘Where’s the plug?’

  ‘Down there,’ Clarissa told him, pointing. She held the radiator while Jeremy plugged its lead into the socket, and then she put it down on the floor.

  Sir Rowland took the Robert Browning autograph and stood close to the radiator. Jeremy knelt by it, and the others stood as close as possible to observe the result.

  ‘We mustn’t hope for too much,’ Sir Rowland warned them. ‘After all, it’s only an idea of mine, but there must have been some very good reason why Sellon kept these bits of paper in such a secret place.’

  ‘This takes me back years,’ Hugo recalled. ‘I remember writing secret messages with lemon juice when I was a kid.’

  ‘Which one shall we start with?’ Jeremy asked enthusiastically.

  ‘I say Queen Victoria,’ said Clarissa.

  ‘No, six to one on Ruskin,’ was Jeremy’s guess.

  ‘Well, I’m putting my money on Robert Browning,’ Sir Rowland decided, bending over and holding the paper in front of the radiator.

  ‘Ruskin? Most obscure chap. I never could understand a word of his poetry,’ Hugo felt moved to comment.

  ‘Exactly,’ Sir Rowland agreed. ‘It’s full of hidden meaning.’

  They all craned over Sir Rowland. ‘I can’t bear it if nothing happens,’ Clarissa exclaimed.

  ‘I believe–yes, there’s something there,’ Sir Rowland murmured.

  ‘Yes, there is something coming up,’ Jeremy noticed.

  ‘Is there? Let me see,’ said Clarissa excitedly.

  Hugo pushed between Clarissa and Jeremy. ‘Out of the way, young man.’

  ‘Steady,’ Sir Rowland complained. ‘Don’t joggle me–yes–there is writing.’ He paused for a moment, and then straightened up with a cry of, ‘We’ve got it!’

  ‘What have you got?’ Mrs Brown wanted to know.

  ‘A list of six names and addresses,’ Sir Rowland told them. ‘Distributors in the drug racket, I should say. And one of those names is Oliver Costello.’

  There were exclamations all around. ‘Oliver!’ said Clarissa. ‘So that’s why he came, and someone must have followed him and–Oh, Uncle Roly, we must tell the police. Come along, Hugo.’

  Clarissa rushed to the hall door followed by Hugo who, as he went, was muttering, ‘Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of.’ Sir Rowland picked up the other autographs, while Jeremy unplugged the radiator and took it back into the library.

  About to follow Clarissa and Hugo out, Sir Rowland paused in the doorway. ‘Coming, Miss Peake?’ he asked.

  ‘You don’t need me, do you?’

  ‘I think we do. You were Sellon’s partner.’

  ‘I’ve never had anything to do with the drug business,’ Mrs Brown insisted. ‘I just ran the antique side. I did all the London buying and selling.’

  ‘I see,’ Sir Rowland replied non-committally as he held the hall door open for her.

  Jeremy returned from the library, closing the door carefully behind him. He went over to the hall door and listened for a moment. After a glance at Pippa, he went over to the easy chair, picked up the cushion from it, and moved slowly back towards the sofa where Pippa lay sleeping.

  Pippa stirred in her sleep. Jeremy stood frozen for a moment, but when he was certain she was still asleep, he continued towards the sofa until he stood behind Pippa’s head. Then, slowly, he began to lower the cushion over her face.

  At that moment, Clarissa re-entered the room from the hall. Hearing the door, Jeremy carefully placed the cushion over Pippa’s feet. ‘I remembered what Sir Rowland said,’ he explained to Clarissa, ‘so I thought perhaps we oughtn’t to leave Pippa all alone. Her feet seemed a bit cold, so I was just covering them up.’

  Clarissa went across to the stool. ‘All this excitement has made me feel terribly hungry,’ she declared. She looked down at the plate of sandwiches, and then continued in a tone of great disappointment, ‘Oh, Jeremy, you’ve eaten them all.’

  ‘Sorry, but I was starving,’ he said, sounding not at all sorry.

  ‘I don’t see why you should be,’ she reprimanded him. ‘You’ve had dinner. I haven’t.’

  Jeremy perched on the back of the sofa. ‘No, I haven’t had any dinner either,’ he told her. ‘I was practising approach shots. I only came into the dining-room just after your telephone call came.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Clarissa replied nonchalantly. She bent over the back of the sofa to pat the cushion. Suddenly her eyes widened. In a deeply moved voice she repeated, ‘I see. You–it was you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You!’ Clarissa repeated, almost to herself.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Clarissa looked him in the eye. ‘What were you doing with that cushion when I came into the room?’ she asked.

  He laughed. ‘I told you. I was covering up Pippa’s feet. They were cold.’

  ‘Were you? Is that really what you were going to do? Or were you going to put that cushion over her mouth?’

  ‘Clarissa!’ he exclaimed indignantly. ‘What a ridiculous thing to say!’

  ‘I was certain that none of us could have killed Oliver Costello. I said so to everyone,’ Clarissa recalled. ‘But one of us could have killed him. You. You were out on the golf course alone. You could have come back to the house, got in through the library window which you’d left open, and you had your golf club still in your hand. Of course. That’s what Pippa saw. That’s what she meant when she said, “A golf stick like Jeremy had”. She saw you.’

  ‘That’s absolute nonsense, Clarissa,’ Jeremy objected, with a poor attempt at a laugh.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘Then, after you’d killed Oliver you went back to the club and rang the police so that they would come here, find the body, and think it was Henry or I who had killed him.’

  Jeremy leaped to his feet. ‘What bloody rubbish!’ he declared.

  ‘It’s not rubbish. It’s true. I know it’s true,’ Clarissa exclaimed. ‘But why? That’s what I don’t understand. Why?’

  They stood facing each other in tense silence for a few moments. Then Jeremy gave a deep sigh. He took from his pocket the envelope that had contained the autographs. He held it out to Clarissa, but did not let her take it. ‘This is what it’s all about,’ he told her.

  Clarissa glanced at it. ‘That’s the envelope the autographs were kept in,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a stamp on it,’ Jeremy explained quietly. ‘It’s what’s known as an error stamp. Printed in the wrong colour. One from Sweden sold last year for fourteen thousand three hundred pounds.’

  ‘So that’s it,’ Clarissa gasped, stepping backwards.

  ‘This stamp came into Sellon’s possession,’ Jeremy continued. ‘He wrote to my boss Sir Kenneth about it. But it was I who opened the letter. I came down here and visited Sellon–’

  He paused, and Clarissa completed his sentence for him: ‘–and killed him.’

  Jeremy nodded without saying anything.

  ‘But you couldn’t find the stamp,’ Clarissa guessed aloud, backing away from him.

  ‘You’re right again,’ Jeremy admitted. ‘It wasn’t in the shop, so I felt sure it must be here, in his house.’

  He began to move towards Clarissa, as she continued to back away. ‘Tonight I thought Costello had beaten me to it.’

  ‘And so you killed him, too,’ said Clarissa.

  Jeremy nodded again.

  ‘And just now, you would have killed Pippa?’ she gasped.

  ‘Why not?’ he replied blandly.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Clarissa told him.

  ‘My dear Clarissa, fourteen thousand pounds is a great deal of money,’ he observed with a smile that contrived to be both apologetic and sinister.

  ‘
But why are you telling me this?’ she asked, sounding both perplexed and anxious. ‘Do you imagine for one moment that I shan’t go to the police?’

  ‘You’ve told them so many lies, they’ll never believe you,’ he replied off-handedly.

  ‘Oh yes, they will.’

  ‘Besides,’ Jeremy continued, advancing upon her, ‘you’re not going to get the chance. Do you think that when I’ve killed two people I shall worry about killing a third?’

  He gripped Clarissa by the throat, and she screamed.

  Chapter 22

  Clarissa’s scream was answered immediately. Sir Rowland came in swiftly from the hall, switching on the wall-brackets as he did so, while Constable Jones rushed into the room through the French windows, and the Inspector hurried in from the library.

  The Inspector grabbed Jeremy. ‘All right, Warrender. We’ve heard it all, thank you,’ he announced. ‘And that’s just the evidence we need,’ he added. ‘Give me that envelope.’

  Clarissa backed behind the sofa, holding her throat, and Jeremy handed the envelope to the Inspector, observing coolly, ‘So it was a trap, was it? Very clever.’

  ‘Jeremy Warrender,’ said the Inspector, ‘I arrest you for the murder of Oliver Costello, and I must warn you that anything you say may be taken down and given in evidence.’

  ‘You can save your breath, Inspector,’ was Jeremy’s smoothly uttered reply. ‘I’m not saying anything. It was a good gamble, but it just didn’t work.’

  ‘Take him away,’ the Inspector instructed Constable Jones, who took Jeremy by the arm.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mr Jones? Forgotten your handcuffs?’ Jeremy asked coldly as his right arm was twisted behind his back and he was marched off through the French windows.

  Shaking his head sadly, Sir Rowland watched him go, and then turned to Clarissa. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’ he asked her anxiously.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m all right,’ Clarissa replied somewhat breathlessly.

  ‘I never meant to expose you to this,’ Sir Rowland said apologetically.

  She looked at him shrewdly. ‘You knew it was Jeremy, didn’t you?’ she asked.

  The Inspector added his voice. ‘But what made you think of the stamp, sir?’

  Sir Rowland approached Inspector Lord and took the envelope from him. ‘Well, Inspector,’ he began, ‘it rang a bell when Pippa gave me the envelope this evening. Then, when I found from Who’s Who that young Warrender’s employer, Sir Kenneth Thomson, was a stamp collector, my suspicion developed, and just now, when he had the impertinence to pocket the envelope under my nose, I felt it was a certainty.’

  He returned the envelope to the Inspector. ‘Take great care of this, Inspector. You’ll probably find it’s extremely valuable, besides being evidence.’

  ‘It’s evidence, all right,’ replied the Inspector. ‘A particularly vicious young criminal is going to get his deserts.’ Walking across to the hall door, he continued, ‘However, we’ve still got to find the body.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy, Inspector,’ Clarissa assured him. ‘Look in the bed in the spare room.’

  The Inspector turned and regarded her disapprovingly. ‘Now, really, Mrs Hailsham-Brown–’ he began.

  He was interrupted by Clarissa. ‘Why does nobody ever believe me?’ she cried plaintively. ‘It is in the spare room bed. You go and look, Inspector. Across the bed, under the bolster. Miss Peake put it there, trying to be kind.’

  ‘Trying to be–?’ The Inspector broke off, clearly at a loss for words. He went to the door, turned, and said reproachfully, ‘You know, Mrs Hailsham-Brown, you haven’t made things easier for us tonight, telling us all these tall stories. I suppose you thought your husband had done it, and were lying to cover up for him. But you shouldn’t do it, madam. You really shouldn’t do it.’ With a final shake of his head, he left the room.

  ‘Well!’ Clarissa exclaimed indignantly. She turned towards the sofa. ‘Oh, Pippa–’ she remembered.

  ‘Better get her up to bed,’ Sir Rowland advised. ‘She’ll be safe now.’

  Gently shaking the child, Clarissa said softly, ‘Come on, Pippa. Ups-a-daisy. Time you were in bed.’

  Pippa got up, waveringly. ‘I’m hungry,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you are,’ Clarissa assured her as she led her to the hall door. ‘Come on, we’ll see what we can find.’

  ‘Good night, Pippa,’ Sir Rowland called to her, and was rewarded with a yawned ‘Goo’ night’ as Clarissa and Pippa left the room. He sat down at the bridge table and had begun to put the playing cards in their boxes when Hugo came in from the hall.

  ‘God bless my soul,’ Hugo exclaimed. ‘I’d never have believed it. Young Warrender, of all people. He seemed a decent enough young fellow. Been to a good school. Knew all the right people.’

  ‘But was quite willing to commit murder for the sake of fourteen thousand pounds,’ Sir Rowland observed suavely. ‘It happens now and then, Hugo, in every class of society. An attractive personality, and no moral sense.’

  Mrs Brown, the erstwhile Miss Peake, stuck her head around the hall door. ‘I thought I’d just tell you, Sir Rowland,’ she announced, reverting to her familiar booming voice, ‘I’ve got to go along to the police station. They want me to make a statement. They’re not too pleased at the trick I played on them. I’m in for a wigging, I’m afraid.’ She roared with laughter, withdrew, and slammed the door shut.

  Hugo watched her go, then went over to join Sir Rowland at the bridge table. ‘You know, Roly, I still don’t quite get it,’ he admitted. ‘Was Miss Peake Mrs Sellon, or was Mr Sellon Mr Brown? Or the other way round?’

  Sir Rowland was saved from having to reply by the return of the Inspector who came into the room to pick up his cap and gloves. ‘We’re removing the body now, gentlemen,’ he informed them both. He paused momentarily before adding, ‘Sir Rowland, would you mind advising Mrs Hailsham-Brown that, if she tells these fancy stories to the police, one day she’ll get into real trouble.’

  ‘She did actually tell you the truth once, you know, Inspector,’ Sir Rowland reminded him gently, ‘but on that occasion you simply wouldn’t believe her.’

  The Inspector looked a trifle embarrassed. ‘Yes–hmmm–well,’ he began. Then, pulling himself together, he said, ‘Frankly, sir, it was a bit difficult to swallow, you’ll admit.’

  ‘Oh, I admit that, certainly,’ Sir Rowland assured him.

  ‘Not that I blame you, sir,’ the Inspector went on in a confidential tone. ‘Mrs Hailsham-Brown is a lady who has a very taking way with her.’ He shook his head reflectively, then, ‘Well, good night, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Good night, Inspector,’ Sir Rowland replied amiably.

  ‘Good night, Mr Birch,’ the Inspector called, backing towards the hall door.

  ‘Good night, Inspector, and well done,’ Hugo responded, coming over to him and shaking hands.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the Inspector.

  He left, and Hugo yawned. ‘Oh, well, I suppose I’d better be going home to bed,’ he announced to Sir Rowland. ‘Some evening, eh?’

  ‘As you say, Hugo, some evening,’ Sir Rowland replied, tidying the bridge table as he spoke. ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night,’ Hugo responded, and made his way out into the hall.

  Sir Rowland left the cards and markers in a neat pile on the table, then picked up Who’s Who and replaced it on the bookshelves. Clarissa came in from the hall, went over to him and put her hands on his arms. ‘Darling Roly,’ she addressed him. ‘What would we have done without you? You are so clever.’

  ‘And you are a very lucky young woman,’ he told her. ‘It’s a good thing you didn’t lose your heart to that young villain, Warrender.’

  Clarissa shuddered. ‘There was no danger of that,’ she replied. Then, smiling tenderly, ‘If I lost my heart to anybody, darling, it would be to you,’ she assured him.

  ‘Now, now, none of your tricks with me,’ Sir Rowland warned her, laugh
ing. ‘If you–’

  He stopped short as Henry Hailsham-Brown came in through the French windows, and Clarissa gave a startled exclamation. ‘Henry!’

  ‘Hello, Roly,’ Henry greeted his friend. ‘I thought you were going to the club tonight.’

  ‘Well–er–I thought I’d turn in early,’ was all that Sir Rowland felt capable of saying at that moment. ‘It’s been rather a strenuous evening.’

  Henry looked at the bridge table. ‘What? Strenuous bridge?’ he inquired playfully.

  Sir Rowland smiled. ‘Bridge and–er–other things,’ he replied as he went to the hall door. ‘Good night, all.’

  Clarissa blew him a kiss and he blew one to her in return as he left the room. Then Clarissa turned to Henry. ‘Where’s Kalendorff–I mean, where’s Mr Jones?’ she asked urgently.

  Henry put his briefcase on the sofa. In a voice of weary frustration he muttered, ‘It’s absolutely infuriating. He didn’t come.’

  ‘What?’ Clarissa could hardly believe her ears.

  ‘The plane arrived with nothing but a half-baked aide-de-camp in it,’ Henry told her, unbuttoning his overcoat as he spoke.

  Clarissa helped him off with the coat, and Henry continued, ‘The first thing he did was to turn round and fly back again where he’d come from.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Understandably, Henry sounded somewhat on edge. ‘He was suspicious, it seems. Suspicious of what? Who knows?’

  ‘But what about Sir John?’ Clarissa asked as she removed Henry’s hat from his head.

  ‘That’s the worst of it,’ he groaned. ‘I was too late to stop him, and he’ll be arriving down here any minute now, I expect.’ Henry consulted his watch. ‘Of course, I rang up Downing Street at once from the aerodrome, but he’d already started out. Oh, the whole thing’s a most ghastly fiasco.’

  Henry sank on to the sofa with an exhausted sigh, and as he did so the telephone rang. ‘I’ll answer it,’ Clarissa said, crossing the room to do so. ‘It may be the police.’ She lifted the receiver.

  Henry looked at her questioningly. ‘The police?’

  ‘Yes, this is Copplestone Court,’ Clarissa was saying into the telephone. ‘Yes–yes, he’s here.’ She looked across at Henry. ‘It’s for you, darling,’ she told him. ‘It’s Bindley Heath aerodrome.’