The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side. Agatha Christie
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‘Mrs Bantry really says she doesn’t hate the things we’ve done to it,’ said Marina.
‘I should be frightfully disappointed if you hadn’t,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘I came up here all agog. I can tell you the most splendid rumours have been going around the village.’
‘Never knew how difficult it was to get hold of plumbers in this country,’ said Miss Zielinsky, champing a sandwich in a businesslike way. ‘Not that that’s been really my job,’ she went on.
‘Everything is your job,’ said Marina, ‘and you know it is, Ella. The domestic staff and the plumbing and arguing with the builders.’
‘They don’t seem ever to have heard of a picture window in this country.’
Ella looked towards the window. ‘It’s a nice view, I must admit.’
‘A lovely old-fashioned rural English scene,’ said Marina. ‘This house has got atmosphere.’
‘It wouldn’t look so rural if it wasn’t for the trees,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘That housing estate down there grows while you look at it.’
‘That’s new since my time,’ said Mrs Bantry.
‘You mean there was nothing but the village when you lived here?’
Mrs Bantry nodded.
‘It must have been hard to do your shopping.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘I think it was frightfully easy.’
‘I understand having a flower garden,’ said Ella Zielinsky, ‘but you folk over here seem to grow all your vegetables as well. Wouldn’t it be much easier to buy them—there’s a supermarket?’
‘It’s probably coming to that,’ said Mrs Bantry, with a sigh. ‘They don’t taste the same, though.’
‘Don’t spoil the atmosphere, Ella,’ said Marina.
The door opened and Jason looked in. ‘Darling,’ he said to Marina, ‘I hate to bother you but would you mind? They just want your private view about this.’
Marina sighed and rose. She trailed languidly towards the door. ‘Always something,’ she murmured. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Bantry. I don’t really think that this will take longer than a minute or two.’
‘Atmosphere,’ said Ella Zielinsky, as Marina went out and closed the door. ‘Do you think the house has got atmosphere?’
‘I can’t say I ever thought of it that way,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘It was just a house. Rather inconvenient in some ways and very nice and cosy in other ways.’
‘That’s what I should have thought,’ said Ella Zielinsky. She cast a quick direct look at Mrs Bantry. ‘Talking of atmosphere, when did the murder take place here?’
‘No murder ever took place here,’ said Mrs Bantry.
‘Oh come now. The stories I’ve heard. There are always stories, Mrs Bantry. On the hearthrug, right there, wasn’t it?’ said Miss Zielinsky nodding towards the fireplace.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘That was the place.’
‘So there was a murder?’
Mrs Bantry shook her head. ‘The murder didn’t take place here. The girl who had been killed was brought here and planted in this room. She’d nothing to do with us.’
Miss Zielinsky looked interested.
‘Possibly you had a bit of difficulty making people believe that?’ she remarked.
‘You’re quite right there,’ said Mrs Bantry.
‘When did you find it?’
‘The housemaid came in in the morning,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘with early morning tea. We had housemaids then, you know.’
‘I know,’ said Miss Zielinksy, ‘wearing print dresses that rustled.’
‘I’m not sure about the print dress,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘it may have been overalls by then. At any rate, she burst in and said there was a body in the library. I said “nonsense”, then I woke up my husband and we came down to see.’
‘And there it was,’ said Miss Zielinsky. ‘My, the way things happen.’ She turned her head sharply towards the door and then back again. ‘Don’t talk about it to Miss Gregg, if you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘It’s not good for her, that sort of thing.’
‘Of course. I won’t say a word,’ said Mrs Bantry. ‘I never do talk about it, as a matter of fact. It all happened so long ago. But won’t she—Miss Gregg I mean—won’t she hear it anyway?’
‘She doesn’t come very much in contact with reality,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘Film stars can lead a fairly insulated life, you know. In fact very often one has to take care that they do. Things upset them. Things upset her. She’s been seriously ill the last year or two, you know. She only started making a comeback a year ago.’
‘She seems to like the house,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘and to feel she will be happy here.’
‘I expect it’ll last a year or two,’ said Ella Zielinsky.
‘Not longer than that?’
‘Well, I rather doubt it. Marina is one of those people, you know, who are always thinking they’ve found their heart’s desire. But life isn’t as easy as that, is it?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Bantry forcefully, ‘it isn’t.’
‘It’ll mean a lot to him if she’s happy here,’ said Miss Zielinsky. She ate two more sandwiches in an absorbed, rather gobbling fashion in the manner of one who crams food into themselves as though they had an important train to catch. ‘He’s a genius, you know,’ she went on. ‘Have you seen any of the pictures he’s directed?’
Mrs Bantry felt slightly embarrassed. She was of the type of woman who when she went to the cinema went entirely for the picture. The long lists of casts, directors, producers, photography and the rest of it passed her by. Very frequently, indeed, she did not even notice the names of the stars. She was not, however, anxious to call attention to this failing on her part.
‘I get mixed up,’ she said.
‘Of course he’s got a lot to contend with,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘He’s got her as well as everything else and she’s not easy. You’ve got to keep her happy, you see; and it’s not really easy, I suppose, to keep people happy. Unless—that is—they—they are—’ she hesitated.
‘Unless they’re the happy kind,’ suggested Mrs Bantry. ‘Some people,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘enjoy being miserable.’
‘Oh, Marina isn’t like that,’ said Ella Zielinsky, shaking her head. ‘It’s more that her ups and downs are so violent. You know—far too happy one moment, far too pleased with everything and delighted with everything and how wonderful she feels. Then of course some little thing happens and down she goes to the opposite extreme.’
‘I suppose that’s temperament,’ said Mrs Bantry vaguely.
‘That’s right,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘Temperament. They’ve all got it, more or less, but Marina Gregg has got it more than most people. Don’t we know it! The stories I could tell you!’ She ate the last sandwich. ‘Thank God I’m only the social secretary.’
The throwing open of the grounds of Gossington Hall for the benefit of the St John Ambulance Association was attended by a quite unprecedented number of people. Shilling admission fees mounted up in a highly satisfactory fashion. For one