The Under Dog

but I’d like to get this clear. I didn’t care for Arlena—only just a little at first—and living with her day after day was a pretty nerve-racking business. In fact it was absolute hell, but I was awfully sorry for her. She was such a damned fool—crazy about men—she just couldn’t help it—and they always let her down and treated her rottenly. I simply felt I couldn’t be the one to give her the final push. I’d married her and it was up to me to look after her as best I could. I think she knew that and was grateful to me really. She was—she was a pathetic sort of creature really

“Rosamund, did you get some extraordinary idea into your head that I’d killed Arlena.”

Rosamund looked rather shamefaced. She said:

“I suppose I was a damned fool.”

“Of course you were.”

Just make up your mind not to hate your next stepmother.”

Linda said startled:

“Do you think I’m going to have another? Oh, I see, you mean Rosamund. I don’t mind her.” She hesitated a minute. “She’s sensible.”

It was not the adjective that Poirot himself would have selected for Rosamund Darnley, but he realized that it was Linda’s idea of high praise.

But you know, M. Poirot, it’s just the same as if I’d killed her, isn’t it? I meant to.”

Hercule Poirot said energetically:

“It is not at all the same thing. The wish to kill and the action of killing are two different things. If in your bedroom instead of a little wax figure you had had your stepmother bound and helpless and a dagger in your hand instead of a pin, you would not have pushed it into her heart! Something within you would have said ‘no.’ It is the same with me. I enrage myself at an imbecile. I say, ‘I would like to kick him.’ Instead, I kick the table. I say, ‘This table, it is the imbecile, I kick him so.’ And then, if I have not hurt my toe too much, I feel much better and the table it is not usually damaged. But if the imbecile himself was there I should not kick him. To make the wax figures and stick in the pins, it is silly, yes, it is childish, yes—but it does something useful too. You took the hate out of yourself and put it into that little figure. And with the pin and the fire you destroyed—not your stepmother—but the hate you bore her.

Of course it’s true that she wasn’t a cultured woman at all, and as Captain Marshall isn’t here I don’t mind saying that she always did seem to me kind of dumb. I said so to Mr. Gardener, didn’t I, Odell?”

“Yes, darling,” said Mr. Gardener.

“What I did,” he said with importance, “was exceedingly dangerous—but I do not regret it. I succeeded! I did not suffer in vain.”

I must know definitely if Mrs. Redfern was a liar. I arranged our little excursion to Dartmoor. If anyone has a bad head for heights, they are never comfortable crossing a narrow bridge over running water. Miss Brewster, a genuine sufferer, showed giddiness. But Christine Redfern, unconcerned, ran across without a qualm. It was a small point, but it was a definite test. If she had told one unnecessary lie—then all the other lies were possible. In the meantime Colgate had got the photograph identified by the Surrey Police. I played my hand in the only way I thought likely to succeed. Having lulled Patrick Redfern into security, I turned on him and did my utmost to make him lose his self-control. The knowledge that he had been identified with Corrigan caused him to lose his head completely.”

The second opportunity was easy—she could alter the watch back again as soon as Linda turned her back and went down to bathe.

“Then there was the question of the ladder. Christine had always declared she had no head for heights. Another carefully prepared lie.

“I had my mosaic now—each piece beautifully fitted into its place. But, unfortunately, I had no definite proof. It was all in my mind.

Either Rosamund Darnley or Arlena Marshall had been in the Pixy’s Cave, the scent they both used told me that. It was certainly not Rosamund Darnley. Then it was Arlena, hiding till the coast should clear.

“When Emily Brewster went off in the boat, Patrick had the beach to himself and full opportunity to commit the crime. Arlena Marshall was killed after a quarter to twelve, but the medical evidence was only concerned with the earliest possible time the crime could have been committed. That Arlena was dead at a quarter to twelve was what was told to the doctor, not what he told the police.

Patrick Redfern and Emily Brewster had got to the Cove and seen a body lying there. A body—suppose it was not Arlena’s body but somebody else’s? The face was hidden by the great Chinese hat.

“But there was only one dead body—Arlena’s. Then, could it be—a live body—someone pretending to be dead? Could it be Arlena herself, inspired by Patrick to play some kind of a joke. I shook my head—no, too risky. A live body—whose? Was there any woman who would help Redfern? Of course—his wife. But she was a white-skinned delicate creature. Ah yes, but suntan can be applied out of bottles—bottles—I had one of my jig-saw pieces. Yes, and afterwards, of course, a bath—to wash that telltale stain off before she went out to play tennis. And the scissors? Why, to cut up that duplicate cardboard hat—an unwieldy thing that must be got out of the way, and in the haste the scissors were left behind—the one thing that the pair of murderers forgot.