Read Online The Ability to Kill by Eric Ambler - Free Book Online Page A

go into the house. Miss Lindholm, the maid, and Patti, the doctor’s twelve-year-old stepdaughter, were watching the Miss Universe Contest on television and remained unaware of them. Miss Tregoff and the doctor passed the time by playing with the dog, an elderly Samoyed named Frosty.
    Mrs Finch returned shortly after eleven o’clock.
    Miss Tregoff says that as Mrs Finch drove into the garage the doctor walked up and said that they wanted to talk to her. Mrs Finch replied that she did not want to do any talking.
    Miss Tregoff said: ‘She got out of the car and bent down. Her back was to me, but then I noticed she had a gun pointed towards me. Dr Finch reached behind his wife into the car, threw something at me which hit me in the stomach and yelled at me to get out of there. The object he threw was a leather case.’
    Miss Tregoff says that, as she ran across the lawn, she tripped over a sprinkler head and heard Mrs Finch scream.
    ‘I heard another sound from the garage and it sounded like Dr Finch was in trouble. I started back in quite cautiously. Then I saw Barbara on the right side of the car. She took offdown the driveway. She had a gun in her hand. I ran back around the lawn. I was scared. I was afraid of being shot at. I guess I stayed there until about 5 a.m. while all kinds of police came around. I seemed to be paralysed.’
    In the end, she left her hiding place, behind a large bougainvillaea, and made her way down the hill to the car park. Her car was still there. She drove back to Las Vegas.
    Miss Lindholm’s account of what happened is very different. She never saw Miss Tregoff and did not know that she was there.
    Just after eleven the television was switched off and Patti went to bed. Miss Lindholm went to her room. She heard Mrs Finch’s car drive in. A few seconds later, she heard Mrs Finch scream for help.
    Miss Lindholm had some difficulty in expressing herself in English, and her accounts of the events of the next few minutes varied; but the general pattern was clear.
    She ran out, thinking that Mrs Finch might have fallen into the swimming pool, or had some other accident. Patti ran out with her; but, when they heard the doctor’s angry voice, Miss Lindholm sent the child back to the house and went on alone. When she reached the garage, she turned on the lights. She saw Mrs Finch lying on the floor. She was bleeding from a cut on the forehead. Dr Finch was standing over her.
    As Miss Lindholm started towards Mrs Finch, the doctor grabbed the girl ‘by the face and chin’ and banged her head against the wall. A broken area of plaster on the wall seemed to bear out this part of her story. She was not clear what happened immediately after that. She was not sure whether or not she lost consciousness, nor whether she remained on her feet. She did remember clearly that the doctor ordered her into the car and that he had a gun in his hand. In one account, she said that he fired a shot to enforce his orders.
    At all events, she climbed into the rear seat of Mrs Finch’s convertible. At the same time, the doctor was ordering his wife to get into the front seat. As she got to her feet he told her to give him the car keys. Then he shouted at her: ‘So help me, I will kill you if you don’t do as I say.’
    Apparently, Mrs Finch made as if to obey, then suddenly turned and ran out of the garage. A week or so earlier, it will be remembered, she had told her lawyer that if the doctor came to the house again, she would run for protection to the house of his parents. That was the direction in which she ran now. The doctor ran after her.
    Miss Lindholm said he had a gun in his hand. Miss Tregoff said that it was Mrs Finch who had the gun.
    There is no doubt, however, about the rest of Miss Lindholm’s story. She got out of the car and ran to the house. Patti unlocked the door and let her in. At just about that time, they heard a distant shot. Miss Lindholm called the police.
    Mrs Finch’s body had only one