Sad Cypress
Authors: Agatha Christie
Sad Cypress
A Hercule Poirot Mystery
To Peter and Peggy McLeod
Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath!
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew
O prepare it;
My part of death no one so true;
Did share it.
Shakespeare
“
E
linor Katharine Carlisle. You stand charged upon this indictment with the murder of Mary Gerrard upon the 27th of July last. Are you guilty or not guilty?”
Elinor Carlisle stood very straight, her head raised. It was a graceful head, the modelling of the bones sharp and well-defined. The eyes were a deep vivid blue, the hair black. The brows had been plucked to a faint thin line.
There was a silenceâquite a noticeable silence.
Sir Edwin Bulmer, Counsel for the Defence, felt a thrill of dismay.
He thought:
“My God, she's going to plead guilty⦠She's lost her nerveâ¦.”
Elinor Carlisle's lips parted. She said:
“Not guilty.”
Counsel for the Defence sank back. He passed a handkerchief over his brow, realizing that it had been a near shave.
Sir Samuel Attenbury was on his feet, outlining the case for the Crown.
“May it please your lordship, gentlemen of the jury, on the 27th of July, at half past three in the afternoon, Mary Gerrard died at Hunterbury, Maidensfordâ¦.”
His voice ran on, sonorous and pleasing to the ear. It lulled Elinor almost into unconsciousness. From the simple and concise narrative, only an occasional phrase seeped through to her conscious mind.
“â¦case a peculiarly simple and straightforward oneâ¦
“â¦It is the duty of the Crownâ¦prove motive and opportunityâ¦
“â¦No one, as far as can be seen, had any motive to kill this unfortunate girl, Mary Gerrard, except the accused. A young girl of a charming dispositionâliked by everybodyâwithout, one would have said, an enemy in the worldâ¦.”
Mary, Mary Gerrard! How far away it all seemed now. Not real any longerâ¦.
“â¦Your attention will be particularly directed to the following considerations:
Â
1. What opportunities and means had the accused for administering poison?
2. What motive had she for so doing?
Â
“It will be my duty to call before you witnesses who can help you to form a true conclusion on these mattersâ¦.
“â¦As regards the poisoning of Mary Gerrard, I shall endeavour to show you that
no one had any opportunity
to commit this crime except the accusedâ¦.”
Elinor felt as though imprisoned in a thick mist. Detached words came drifting through the fog.
“â¦Sandwichesâ¦
“â¦Fish pasteâ¦
“â¦Empty house⦔
The words stabbed through the thick enveloping blanket of Elinor's thoughtsâpin-pricks through a heavy muffling veilâ¦.
The court. Faces. Rows and rows of faces! One particular face with a big black moustache and shrewd eyes. Hercule Poirot, his head a little on one side, his eyes thoughtful, was watching her.
She thought: He's trying to see just exactly
why
I did it⦠He's trying to get inside my head to see what I thoughtâwhat I feltâ¦.
Felt�
A little blurâa slight sense of shock⦠Roddy's faceâhis dear,
dear
face with its long nose, its sensitive mouth⦠Roddy! Always Roddyâalways, ever since she could rememberâ¦since those days at Hunterbury amongst the raspberries and up in the warren and down by the brook. RoddyâRoddyâRoddyâ¦
Other faces! Nurse O'Brien, her mouth slightly open, her freckled fresh face thrust forward. Nurse Hopkins looking smugâsmug and implacable. Peter Lord's faceâPeter Lordâso kind, so sensible, soâso
comforting!
But looking nowâwhat was itâ
lost?
Yesâlost! Mindingâminding all this frightfully! While she herself, the star performer, didn't mind at all!
Here she was, quite calm and cold, standing in the dock, accused of murder. She was in court.
Something stirred; the folds of blanket round her brain lightenedâbecame mere wraiths. In
court!
â¦
People
â¦
People leaning forward, their lips parted a little, their eyes agog, staring at her, Elinor, with a horrible ghoulish enjoymentâlistening with a kind of slow, cruel relish to what that tall man with the Jewish nose was saying about her.
“The facts in this case are extremely easy to follow and are not in dispute. I shall put them before you quite simply. From the very beginning⦔
Elinor thought:
“The beginning⦠The beginning? The day that horrible anonymous letter came!
That
was the beginning of itâ¦.”
A
n anonymous letter!
Elinor Carlisle stood looking down at it as it lay open in her hand. She'd never had such a thing before. It gave one an unpleasant sensation. Ill-written, badly spelt, on cheap pink paper.
This is to Warn You
(it ran),
I'm naming no Names but there's Someone sucking up to your Aunt and if you're not kareful you'll get Cut Out of Everything. Girls Are very Artful and Old Ladies is Soft when Young Ones suck up to Them and Flatter them What I say is You'd best come down and see for Yourself whats Going On its not right you and the Young Gentleman should be Done Out of What's yoursâand She's Very Artful and the Old Lady might Pop off at any time.
Well-Wisher
Elinor was still staring at this missive, her plucked brows drawn together in distaste, when the door opened. The maid announced, “Mr. Welman,” and Roddy came in.
Roddy! As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent upon her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn't feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a manâan ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young manâshould be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you wantâjust a littleâto cry⦠Love surely should be a pleasurable emotionânot something that hurt you by its intensityâ¦.
One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be offhand and casual about it all. Men didn't like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn't.
She said lightly:
“Hallo, Roddy!”
Roddy said:
“Hallo, darling. You're looking very tragic. Is it a bill?”
Elinor shook her head.
Roddy said:
“I thought it might beâmidsummer, you knowâwhen the fairies dance, and the accounts rendered come tripping along!”
Elinor said:
“It's rather horrid. It's an anonymous letter.”
Roddy's brows went up. His keen fastidious face stiffened and changed. He saidâa sharp, disgusted exclamation:
“No!”
Elinor said again:
“It's rather horridâ¦.”
She moved a step towards her desk.
“I'd better tear it up, I suppose.”
She could have done thatâshe almost didâfor Roddy and anonymous letters were two things that ought not to come together. She might have thrown it away and thought no more about it. He would not have stopped her. His fastidiousness was far more strongly developed than his curiosity.
But on impulse Elinor decided differently. She said:
“Perhaps, though, you'd better read it first. Then we'll burn it. It's about Aunt Laura.”
Roddy's eyebrows rose in surprise.
“Aunt Laura?”
He took the letter, read it, gave a frown of distaste, and handed it back.
“Yes,” he said. “Definitely to be burnt! How extraordinary people are!”
Elinor said:
“One of the servants, do you think?”
“I suppose so.” He hesitated. “I wonder whoâwho the person isâthe one they mention?”
Elinor said thoughtfully:
“It must be Mary Gerrard, I think.”
Roddy frowned in an effort of remembrance.
“Mary Gerrard? Who's she?”
“The daughter of the people at the lodge. You must remember her as a child? Aunt Laura was always fond of the girl, and took an
interest in her. She paid for her schooling and for various extrasâpiano lessons and French and things.”
Roddy said:
“Oh, yes, I remember her now: scrawny kid, all legs and arms, with a lot of messy fair hair.”
Elinor nodded.
“Yes, you probably haven't seen her since those summer holidays when Mum and Dad were abroad. You've not been down at Hunterbury as often as I have, of course, and she's been abroad
au pair
in Germany lately, but we used to rout her out and play with her when we were all kids.”
“What's she like now?” asked Roddy.
Elinor said:
“She's turned out very nice looking. Good manners and all that. As a result of her education, you'd never take her for old Gerrard's daughter.”
“Gone all ladylike, has she?”
“Yes. I think, as a result of that, she doesn't get on very well at the lodge. Mrs. Gerrard died some years ago, you know, and Mary and her father don't get on. He jeers at her schooling and her âfine ways.'”
Roddy said irritably:
“People never dream what harm they may do by âeducating' someone! Often it's cruelty, not kindness!”
Elinor said:
“I suppose she
is
up at the house a good deal⦠She reads aloud to Aunt Laura, I know, since she had her stroke.”
Roddy said:
“Why can't the nurse read to her?”
Elinor said with a smile:
“Nurse O'Brien's got a brogue you can cut with a knife! I don't wonder Aunt Laura prefers Mary.”
Roddy walked rapidly and nervously up and down the room for a minute or two. Then he said:
“You know, Elinor, I believe we ought to go down.”
Elinor said with a slight recoil:
“Because of thisâ?”
“No, noânot at all. Oh, damn it all, one must be honest,
yes!
Foul as that communication is, there
may
be some truth behind it. I mean, the old girl is pretty illâ”
“Yes, Roddy.”
He looked at her with his charming smileâadmitting the fallibility of human nature. He said:
“And the money
does
matterâto you and me, Elinor.”
She admitted it quickly.
“Oh, it does.”
He said seriously:
“It's not that I'm mercenary. But, after all, Aunt Laura herself has said over and over again that you and I are her only family ties. You're her own niece, her brother's child, and I'm her husband's nephew. She's always given us to understand that at her death all she's got would come to one or otherâor more probably bothâof us. Andâand it's a pretty large sum, Elinor.”
“Yes,” said Elinor thoughtfully. “It must be.”
“It's no joke keeping up Hunterbury.” He paused. “Uncle Henry was what you'd call, I suppose, comfortably off when he
met your Aunt Laura. But she was an heiress. She and your father were both left very wealthy. Pity your father speculated and lost most of his.”
Elinor sighed.
“Poor Father never had much business sense. He got very worried over things before he died.”
“Yes, your Aunt Laura had a much better head than he had. She married Uncle Henry and they bought Hunterbury, and she told me the other day that she'd been exceedingly lucky always in her investments. Practically nothing had slumped.”
“Uncle Henry left all he had to her when he died, didn't he?”
Roddy nodded.
“Yes, tragic his dying so soon. And she's never married again. Faithful old bean. And she's always been very good to us. She's treated me as if I was her nephew by blood. If I've been in a hole she's helped me out; luckily I haven't done that
too
often!”
“She's been awfully generous to me, too,” said Elinor gratefully.
Roddy nodded.
“Aunt Laura,” he said, “is a brick. But, you know, Elinor, perhaps without meaning to do so, you and I live pretty extravagantly, considering what our means really are!”
She said ruefully:
“I suppose we do⦠Everything costs so muchâclothes and one's faceâand just silly things like cinemas and cocktailsâand even gramophone records!”
Roddy said:
“Darling, you
are
one of the lilies of the field, aren't you? You toil not, neither do you spin!”
Elinor said:
“Do you think I ought to, Roddy?”
He shook his head.
“I like you as you are: delicate and aloof and ironical. I'd hate you to go all earnest. I'm only saying that if it weren't for Aunt Laura you probably would be working at some grim job.”
He went on:
“The same with me. I've got a job, of sorts. Being with Lewis & Hume is not too arduous. It suits me. I preserve my self-respect by having a job; butâmark thisâbut I don't worry about the future because of my expectationsâfrom Aunt Laura.”
Elinor said:
“We sound rather like human leeches!”
“Nonsense! We've been given to understand that some day we shall have moneyâthat's all. Naturally, that fact influences our conduct.”
Elinor said thoughtfully:
“Aunt Laura has never told us definitely just
how
she has left her money?”
Roddy said:
“That doesn't matter! In all probability she's divided it between us; but if that isn't soâif she's left all of it or most of it to you as her own flesh and bloodâwhy, then, darling, I shall share in it, because I'm going to marry youâand if the old pet thinks the majority should go to me as the male representative of the Welmans, that's still all right, because
you're
marrying
me.
”
He grinned at her affectionately. He said:
“Lucky we happen to love each other. You do love me, don't you, Elinor?”
“Yes.”
She said it coldly, almost primly.
“Yes!” Roddy mimicked her. “You're adorable, Elinor. That little air of yoursâaloofâuntouchableâ
la Princesse Lointaine.
It's that quality of yours that made me love you, I believe.”
Elinor caught her breath. She said, “Is it?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Some women are soâoh, I don't knowâso damned possessiveâsoâso doglike and devotedâtheir emotions slopping all over the place! I'd hate that. With you I never knowâI'm never sureâany minute you might turn round in that cool, detached way of yours and say you'd changed your mindâquite coolly, like thatâwithout batting an eyelash! You're a fascinating creature, Elinor. You're like a work of artâsoâsoâ
finished!
”
He went on:
“You know, I think ours will be the perfect marriage⦠We both love each other enough and not too much. We're good friends. We've got a lot of tastes in common. We know each other through and through. We've all the advantages of cousinship without the disadvantages of blood relationship. I shall never get tired of you, because you're such an elusive creature.
You
may get tired of
me,
though. I'm such an ordinary sort of chapâ”
Elinor shook her head. She said:
“I shan't get tired of you, Roddyânever.”
“My sweet!”
He kissed her.
He said:
“Aunt Laura has a pretty shrewd idea of how it is with us, I
think, although we haven't been down since we finally fixed it up. It rather gives us an excuse, doesn't it, for going down?”
“Yes. I was thinking the other dayâ”
Roddy finished the sentence for her:
“âThat we hadn't been down as often as we might. I thought that, too. When she first had her stroke we went down almost every other weekend. And now it must be almost two months since we were there.”
Elinor said:
“We'd have gone if she'd asked for usâat once.”
“Yes, of course. And we know that she likes Nurse O'Brien and is well looked after. All the same, perhaps we
have
been a bit slack. I'm talking now not from the money point of viewâbut the sheer human one.”
Elinor nodded.
“I know.”
“So that filthy letter has done some good, after all! We'll go down to protect our interests
and
because we're fond of the old dear!”
He lit a match and set fire to the letter which he took from Elinor's hand.
“Wonder who wrote it?” he said. “Not that it matters⦠Someone who was âon our side,' as we used to say when we were kids. Perhaps they've done us a good turn, too. Jim Partington's mother went out to the Riviera to live, had a handsome young Italian doctor to attend her, became quite crazy about him and left him every penny she had. Jim and his sisters tried to upset the will, but couldn't.”
Elinor said:
“Aunt Laura likes the new doctor who's taken over Dr. Ransome's practiceâbut not to that extent! Anyway, that horrid letter mentioned a girl. It must be Mary.”
Roddy said:
“We'll go down and see for ourselvesâ¦.”
II
Nurse O'Brien rustled out of Mrs. Welman's bedroom and into the bathroom. She said over her shoulder:
“I'll just pop the kettle on. You could do with a cup of tea before you go on, I'm sure, Nurse.”
Nurse Hopkins said comfortably:
“Well, dear, I can
always
do with a cup of tea. I always say there's nothing like a nice cup of teaâa strong cup!”
Nurse O'Brien said as she filled the kettle and lit the gas ring:
“I've got everything here in this cupboardâteapot and cups and sugarâand Edna brings me up fresh milk twice a day. No need to be forever ringing bells. 'Tis a fine gas ring, this; boils a kettle in a flash.”
Nurse O'Brien was a tall red-haired woman of thirty with flashing white teeth, a freckled face and an engaging smile. Her cheerfulness and vitality made her a favourite with her patients. Nurse Hopkins, the District Nurse who came every morning to assist with the bed making and toilet of the heavy old lady, was a homely-looking middle-aged woman with a capable air and a brisk manner.
She said now approvingly:
“Everything's very well-done in this house.”
The other nodded.
“Yes, old-fashioned, some of it, no central heating, but plenty of fires and all the maids are very obliging girls and Mrs. Bishop looks after them well.”