Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?. Agatha Christie
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‘Oh, Mr Jones. You can’t send a message like that.’
‘Can’t I?’ said Bobby. ‘If I were allowed to get up from this blasted bed you’d soon see whether I could or couldn’t. As it is, you’ve got to do it for me.’
‘But she’ll hardly be back.’
‘You don’t know that Bentley.’
‘She won’t have had her tea.’
‘Now look here, my dear girl,’ said Bobby, ‘don’t stand there arguing with me. Ring up as I tell you. Tell her she’s got to come here at once because I’ve got something very important to say to her.’
Overborne, but unwilling, the nurse went. She took some liberties with Bobby’s message.
If it was no inconvenience to Lady Frances, Mr Jones wondered if she would mind coming as he had something he would like to say to her, but, of course, Lady Frances was not to put herself out in any way.
Lady Frances replied curtly that she would come at once.
‘Depend upon it,’ said the nurse to her colleagues, ‘she’s sweet on him! That’s what it is.’
Frankie arrived all agog.
‘What’s this desperate summons?’ she demanded.
Bobby was sitting up in bed, a bright red spot in each cheek. In his hand he waved the copy of the Marchbolt Weekly Times.
‘Look at this, Frankie.’
Frankie looked.
‘Well,’ she demanded.
‘This is the picture you meant when you said it was touched up but quite like the Cayman woman.’
Bobby’s finger pointed to a somewhat blurred reproduction of a photograph. Underneath it were the words: ‘PORTRAIT FOUND ON THE DEAD MAN AND BY WHICH HE WAS IDENTIFIED. MRS AMELIA CAYMAN, THE DEAD MAN’S SISTER.’
‘That’s what I said, and it’s true, too. I can’t see anything to rave over in it.’
‘No more than I.’
‘But you said –’
‘I know I said. But you see, Frankie’ – Bobby’s voice became very impressive – ‘this isn’t the photograph that I put back in the dead man’s pocket …’
They looked at each other.
‘Then in that case,’ began Frankie slowly.
‘Either there must have been two photographs –’
‘– Which isn’t likely –’
‘Or else –’
They paused.
‘That man – what’s his name?’ said Frankie.
‘Bassington-ffrench!’ said Bobby.
‘I’m quite sure!’
Chapter 8 Riddle of a Photograph
They stared at each other as they tried to adjust themselves to the altered situation.
‘It couldn’t be anyone else,’ said Bobby. ‘He was the only person who had the chance.’
‘Unless, as we said, there were two photographs.’
‘We agreed that that wasn’t likely. If there had been two photographs they’d have tried to identify him by means of both of them – not only one.’
‘Anyway, that’s easily found out,’ said Frankie. ‘We can ask the police. We’ll assume for the moment that there was just the one photograph, the one you saw that you put back again in his pocket. It was there when you left him, and it wasn’t there when the police came, therefore the only person who could have taken it away and put the other one in its place was this man Bassington-ffrench. What was he like, Bobby?’
Bobby frowned in the effort of remembrance.
‘A sort of nondescript fellow. Pleasant voice. A gentleman and all that. I really didn’t notice him particularly. He said that he was a stranger down here – and something about looking for a house.’
‘We can verify that, anyway,’ said Frankie. ‘Wheeler & Owen are the only house agents.’ Suddenly she gave a shiver. ‘Bobby, have you thought? If Pritchard was pushed over – Bassington-ffrench must be the man who did it …’
‘That’s pretty grim,’ said Bobby. ‘He seemed such a nice pleasant sort of fellow. But you know, Frankie, we can’t be sure he really was pushed over.’
‘You have been all along.’
‘No, I just wanted it to be that way because it made things more exciting. But now it’s more or less proved. If it was murder everything fits in. Your unexpected appearance which upsets the murderer’s plans. Your discovery of the photograph and, in consequence, the need to put you out of the way.’
‘There’s a flaw there,’ said Bobby.
‘Why?’ You were the only person who saw that photograph. As soon as Bassington-ffrench was left alone with the body he changed the photograph which only you had seen.’
But Bobby continued to shake his head.
‘No, that won’t do. Let’s grant for the moment that that photograph was so important that I had to be “got out of the way”, as you put it. Sounds absurd but I suppose it’s just possible. Well, then, whatever was going to be done would have to be done at once. The fact that I went to London and never saw the Marchbolt Weekly Times or the other papers with the photograph in it was just pure chance – a thing nobody could count on. The probability was that I should say at once, “That isn’t the photograph I saw.” Why wait till after the inquest when everything was nicely settled?’
‘There’s something in that,’ admitted Frankie.
‘And there’s another point. I can’t be absolutely sure, of course, but I could almost swear that when I put the photograph back in the dead man’s pocket Bassington-ffrench wasn’t there. He didn’t arrive till about five or ten minutes later.’
‘He might have been watching you all the time,’ argued Frankie.
‘I don’t see very well how he could,’ said Bobby slowly. ‘There’s really only one place where you can see down to exactly the spot we were. Farther round, the cliff bulges and then recedes underneath, so that you can’t see over. There’s just the one place and when Bassington-ffrench did arrive there I heard him at once. Footsteps echo down below. He may have been near at hand, but he wasn’t looking over till then – I’ll swear.’
‘Then you think that he didn’t know about your seeing the photograph?’
‘I don’t see how he could have known.’
‘And he can’t have been afraid you’d seen him doing it – the murder, I mean – because, as you say, that’s absurd. You’d never have held your tongue about it. It looks as though it must have been something else altogether.’
‘Only I don’t see what it could have been.’
‘Something they didn’t know about till after the inquest. I don’t know why I say “they”.’
‘Why not? After all, the Caymans must have been in it, too. It’s probably a gang. I like gangs.’
‘That’s a low taste,’ said Frankie absently. ‘A single-handed murder is much higher class. Bobby!’
‘Yes?’
‘What