Christie - Ordeal by Innocence

Ordeal by Innocence

Hester Argyle was looking at herself in the glass. There was little vanity in her gaze. It was more an anxious questioning with behind it the humility of one who has never really been sure of herself. She pushed up her hair from her forehead, pulled it to one side and frowned at the result. Then, as a face appeared behind hers in the mirror, she started, flinched and swung round apprehensively.

Ah, said Kirsten Lindstrom, you are afraid! What do you mean, afraid, Kirsty?

You are afraid of me. You think that I come up behind you quietly and that perhaps I shall strike you down.

Oh, Kirsty, don't be so foolish. Of course I wouldn't think anything like that.

But you did think it, said the other. And you are right, too, to think such things. To look at the shadows, to start when you see something that you do not quite understand. Because there is something here in this house to be afraid of. We know that now.

At any rate, Kirsty darling, said Hester, I needn't be afraid of you.

How do you know? said Kirsten Lindstrom. Did I not read in the paper a short while back of a woman who had lived with another woman for years, and then one day suddenly she kills her. Suffocates her. Tries to scratch her eyes out. And why? Because, she tells the police very gently, for some time she has seen that the devil is inhabiting the woman. She has seen the devil looking out of the other woman's eyes and she knows that she must be strong and brave and kill the devil?

Oh, well, I remember that, said Hester. But that woman was mad.

Ah, said Kirsten. But she did not know herself that she was mad. And she did not seem mad to those round her, because no one knew what was going on in her poor, twisted mind. And so I say to you, you do not know what is going on in my mind. Perhaps I am mad. Perhaps I looked one day at your mother and thought that she was Anti-Christ and that I would kill her.

But, Kirsty, that's nonsense! Absolute nonsense.

Kirsten Lindstrom sighed and sat down.

Yes, she admitted, it is nonsense. I was very fond of your mother. She was good to me, always. But what I am trying to say to you, Hester, and what you have got to understand and believe, is that you cannot say 'nonsense' to anything or anyone. You cannot trust me or anybody else.

Hester turned round and looked at the other woman. I really believe you're serious, she said.

I am very serious, said Kirsten. We must all be serious and we must bring things out into the open. It is no good pretending that nothing has happened. That man who came here. I wish he had not come, but he did, and now he has made it, I understand, quite plain that Jacko was not a murderer. Very well then, someone else is a murderer, and that someone else must be one of us.

No, Kirsty, no. It could have been someone who - Who what?

Well, who wanted to steal something, or who had a grudge against Mother for some reason in the past.

You think your mother would let that someone in?

She might, said Hester. You know what she was like. If somebody came with a hard luck story, if someone came to tell her about some child that was being neglected or ill-treated. Don't you think Mother would have let that person in and taken them to her room and listened to what they had to say?

It seems to me very unlikely, said Kirsten. At least it seems to me unlikely that your mother would sit down at a table and let that person pick up a poker and hit her on the back of the head. No, she was at her ease, confident, with someone she knew in the room.

I wish you wouldn't, Kirsty, cried Hester. Oh, I wish you wouldn't. You're bringing it so near, so close.

Because it is near, it is close. No, I will not say any more now, but I have warned you that though you think you know someone well, though you may think you trust them, you cannot be sure. So be on your guard. Be on your guard against me and against Mary and against your father and against Gwenda Vaughan.

How can I go on living here and suspecting everybody?

If you will take my advice it will be better for you to leave this house.

I can't just now.

Why not? Because of the young doctor?

I don't know what you mean, Kirsty. Colour flamed up in Hester's cheeks.

I mean Dr. Craig. He is a very nice young man. A sufficiently good doctor, amiable, conscientious. You could do worse. But all the same I think it would be better if you left here and went away.

The whole thing's nonsense, Hester cried angrily, "nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

Oh, how I wish Dr. Calgary had never come here.

So do I, said Kirsten, with all my heart.