Evil Under the Sun

‘Sorrow for a person is different-one can’t putthat behind one. But onecan get over shock and horror by just not letting your minddwell on it all the time.’

Linda said sharply:

‘You don’t understand.’

‘I think I do, my dear.’

Linda shook her head.

‘No, you don’t. You don’t understand in the least-and Christine doesn’t understand either! Both of you have been nice to me, but you can’t understand what I’m feeling. You just think it’s morbid-that I’m dwelling on it all when I needn’t.’

She paused.

‘But it isn’t that at all. If you knew what I know-’

Rosamund stopped dead. Her body did not tremble-on the contrary it stiffened. She stood for a minute or two, then she disengaged her arm from Linda’s.

She said:

‘What is it that you know, Linda?’ 

The girl gazed at her. Then she shook her head.

She muttered:

‘Nothing.’

Rosamund caught her by the arm. The grip hurt and Linda winced slightly.

Rosamund said:

‘Be careful, Linda. Be damned careful.’

Linda had gone dead white.

She said:

‘Iam very careful-all the time.’

Rosamund said urgently:

‘Listen, Linda, what I said a minute or two ago applies just the same-only a hundred times more so.Put the whole business out of your mind. Never think about it. Forget-forget…You can if you try! Arlena is dead and nothing can bring her back to life…Forget everything and live in the future. And above all,hold your tongue.’

Linda shrank a little. She said:

‘You-you seem to know all about it?’

Rosamund said energetically:

‘I don’t knowanything! In my opinion a wandering maniac got on to the island and killed Arlena. That’s much the most probable solution. I’m fairly sure that the police will have to accept that in the end. That’s whatmust have happened! That’s whatdid happen!’

Linda said: 

‘If Father-’

Rosamund interrupted her.

‘Don’t talk about it.’

Linda said:

‘I’ve got to say one thing. My mother-’

‘Well, what about her?’

‘She-she was tried for murder, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

Linda said slowly:

‘And then Father married her. That looks, doesn’t it, as though Father didn’t really think murder was very wrong-not always, that is.’

Rosamund said sharply:

‘Don’t say things like that-even to me! The police haven’t got anything against your father. He’s got an alibi-an alibi that they can’t break. He’s perfectly safe.’

Linda whispered:

‘Did they think at first that Father-?’

Rosamund cried:

‘I don’t know what they thought! But they know nowthat he couldn’t have done it. Do you understand?He couldn’t have done it.’

She spoke with authority, her eyes commanded Linda’s acquiescence. The girl uttered a long fluttering sigh.

Rosamund said: 

‘You’ll be able to leave here soon. You’ll forget everything-everything!’

Linda said with sudden unexpected violence.

‘I shall never forget.’

She turned abruptly and ran back to the hotel. Rosamund stared after her.

III

‘There is something I want to know, Madame?’

Christine Redfern glanced up at Poirot in a slightly abstracted manner. She said:

‘Yes?’

Hercule Poirot took very little notice of her abstraction. He had noted the way her eyes followed her husband’s figure where he was pacing up and down on the terrace outside the bar, but for the moment he had no interest in purely conjugal problems. He wanted information.

He said:

‘Yes, Madame. It was a phrase-a chance phrase of yours the other day which roused my attention.’

Christine, her eyes still on Patrick, said:

‘Yes? What did I say?’

‘It was in answer to a question from the Chief Constable. You described how you went into Miss Linda Marshall’s room on the morning of the crime and how you found her absent from it and how she returned there, and it was then that the Chief Constable asked you where she had been.’

Christine said rather impatiently:

‘And I said she had been bathing? Is that it?’

‘Ah, but you did not say quite that. You did not say “she had been bathing”. Your words were, “she said she had been bathing”.’

Christine said:

‘It’s the same thing, surely.’

‘No, it is not the same! The form of your answer suggests a certain attitude of mind on your part. Linda Marshall came into the room-she was wearing a bathing-wrap and yet-for some reason-you did not at once assume she had been bathing. That is shown by your words, “shesaid she had been bathing”. What was there about her appearance-was it her manner, or something that she was wearing or something she said-that led you to feel surprised when she said she had been bathing?’

Christine’s attention left Patrick and focused itself entirely on Poirot. She was interested. She said:

‘That’s clever of you. It’s quite true, now I remember…Iwas, just faintly, surprised when Linda said she had been bathing.’

‘But why, Madame, why?’ 

‘Yes, why? That’s just what I’m trying to remember. Oh yes, I think it was the parcel in her hand.’

‘She had a parcel?’

‘Yes.’

‘You do not know what was in it?’

‘Oh yes, I do. The string broke. It was loosely done up in the way they do in the village. It wascandles -they were scattered on the floor. I helped her to pick them up.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot. ‘Candles.’

Christine stared at him. She said: