Ordeal by Innocence

Read Online Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie - Free Book Online Page A

Book: Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online
Authors: Agatha Christie
Ads: Link
the alarm. He could have gone to his wife's sitting-room and killed her any time during that twenty minutes. Mary Durrant, who was upstairs, could have come down during that half hour and killed her mother. And -” said Finney thoughtfully - “Mrs. Argyle herself could have let anyone in by the front door as we thought she let Jack Argyle in. Leo Argyle said, if you remember, that he thought he did hear a ring at the bell, and the sound of the front door opening and closing, but he was very vague about the time. We assumed that that was when Jacko returned and killed her.”
    “He needn't have rung the bell,” said Huish. “He had a key of his own. They all had.”
    “There's another brother, isn't there?”
    “Yes, Michael. Works as a car salesman in Drymouth.”
    “You'd better find out, I suppose,” said the Chief Constable, “what he was doing that evening.”
    “After two years?” said Superintendent Huish. “Not likely anyone will remember, is it?”
    “Was he asked at the time?”
    “Out testing a customer's car, I understand. No reason for suspecting him then, but he had a key and he could have come over and killed her.”
    The Chief Constable sighed.
    “I don't know how you're going to set about it, Huish. I don't know whether we're ever going to get anywhere.”
    “I'd like to know myself who killed her,” said Huish. “From all I can make out, she was a fine type of woman. She'd done a lot for people. For unlucky children, for all sorts of charities. She's the sort of person that oughtn't to have been killed. Yes. I'd like to know. Even if we can never get enough evidence to satisfy the D.P.P. I'd still like to know.”
    “Well, I wish you the best of luck, Huish,” said the Chief Constable. “Fortunately we've nothing very much on just now, but don't be discouraged if you can't get anywhere. It's a very cold trail. Yes, it's a very cold trail.”

Ordeal by Innocence

Chapter 6
    The lights went up in the cinema. Advertisements flashed on to the screen. The cinema usherettes walked round with cartons of lemonade and of ice-cream. Arthur Calgary scrutinised them. A plump girl with brown hair, a tall dark one and a small, fair-haired one. That was the one he had come to see. Jacko's wife. Jacko's widow, now the wife of a man called Joe Clegg. It was a pretty, rather vapid little face, plastered with make-up, eyebrows plucked, hair hideous and stiff in a cheap perm. Arthur Calgary bought an ice-cream carton from her. He had her home address and he meant to call there, but he had wanted to see her first while she was unaware of him.
    Well, that was that. Not the sort of daughter-in-law, he thought, that Mrs. Argyle, from all accounts, would have cared about very much. That, no doubt, was why Jacko had kept her dark.
    He sighed, concealed the ice-cream carton carefully under his chair, and leaned back as the lights went out and a new picture began to flash on the screen. Presently he got up and left the cinema.
    At eleven o'clock the next morning he called at the address he had been given. A sixteen-year-old boy opened the door, and in answer to Calgary's enquiry, said: “Cleggs? Top floor.”
    Calgary climbed the stairs. He knocked at a door and Maureen Clegg opened it. Without her smart uniform and her make-up, she looked a different girl. It was a silly little face, good-natured but with nothing particularly interesting about it. She looked at him doubtfully, frowned suspiciously.
    “My name is Calgary. I believe you have had a letter from Mr. Marshall about me.”
    Her face cleared.
    “Oh, so you're the one! Come in, do.” She moved back to let him enter. “Sorry the place is in such a mess. I haven't had time to get around to things yet.”
    She swept some untidy clothes off a chair and pushed aside the remains of a breakfast consumed some time ago. “Do sit down. I'm sure it's ever so good of you to come.”
    “I felt it was the least I could do,” said Calgary.
    She gave a little

Similar Books

To Sir

Rachell Nichole

A Column of Fire

Ken Follett

Tomb of Zeus (Atlantis)

Christopher David Petersen

Upgraded

Peter Watts, Greg Egan, Ken Liu, Robert Reed, Elizabeth Bear, Madeline Ashby, E. Lily Yu

Edith Wharton - Novella 01

Fast (and) Loose (v2.1)

Mahu Surfer

Neil Plakcy