Sad Cypress Read online

  Agatha Christie

  Sad Cypress

  A Hercule Poirot Mystery

  Dedication

  To Peter and Peggy McLeod

  Epigraph

  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

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Part II

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part III

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  About the Author

  Other Books by Agatha Christie

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  “Elinor 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 silence—quite 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 nerve….”

  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, Maidensford….”

  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.

  “…case a peculiarly simple and straightforward one…

  “…It is the duty of the Crown…prove motive and opportunity…

  “…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 disposition—liked by everybody—without, one would have said, an enemy in the world….”

  Mary, Mary Gerrard! How far away it all seemed now. Not real any longer….

  “…Your attention will be particularly directed to the following considerations:

  1. What opportunities and means had the accused for administering poison?

  2. What motive had she for so doing?

  “It will be my duty to call before you witnesses who can help you to form a true conclusion on these matters….

  “…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 accused….”

  Elinor felt as though imprisoned in a thick mist. Detached words came drifting through the fog.

  “…Sandwiches…

  “…Fish paste…

  “…Empty house…”

  The words stabbed through the thick enveloping blanket of Elinor’s thoughts—pin-pricks through a heavy muffling veil….

  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 thought—what I felt….

  Felt…? A little blur—a slight sense of shock… Roddy’s face—his dear, dear face with its long nose, its sensitive mouth… Roddy! Always Roddy—always, ever since she could remember…since those days at Hunterbury amongst the raspberries and up in the warren and down by the brook. Roddy—Roddy—Roddy…

  Other faces! Nurse O’Brien, her mouth slightly open, her freckled fresh face thrust forward. Nurse Hopkins looking smug—smug and implacable. Peter Lord’s face—Peter Lord—so kind, so sensible, so—so comforting! But looking now—what was it—lost? Yes—lost! Minding—minding 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 lightened—became mere wraiths. In court!…People…

  People leaning forward, their lips parted a little, their eyes agog, staring at her, Elinor, with a horrible ghoulish enjoyment—listening 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 it….”

  PART I

  One

  An 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 yours—and 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 man—an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man—should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want—just a little—to cry… Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion—not something that hurt you by its intensity….

  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 be—midsummer, you know—when 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 said—a sharp, disgusted exclamation:

  “No!”

  Elinor said again:

  “It’s rather horrid….”

  She moved a step towards her desk.

  “I’d better tear it up, I suppose.”

  She could have done that—she almost did—for 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 who—who the person is—the 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 extras—piano 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 ‘fine ways.’”

  Roddy said irritably:

  “People never dream what harm they may do by ‘educating’ 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 this—?”

  “No, no—not 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 ill—”

  “Yes, Roddy.”

  He looked at her with his charming smile—admitting the fallibility of human nature. He said:

  “And the money does matter—to 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 other—or more probably both—of us. And—and 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 much—clothes and one’s face—and just silly things like cinemas and cocktails—and 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; but—mark this—but I don’t worry about the future because of my expectations—from Aunt Laura.”

  Elinor said:

  “We sound rather like human leeches!”

  “Nonsense! We’ve been given to understand that some day we shall have money—that’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 so—if she’s left all of it or most of it to you as her own flesh and blood—why, then, darling, I shall share in it, because I’m going to marry you—and 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 yours—aloof—untouchable—la Princesse Lointaine. It’s that quality of yours that made m
e love you, I believe.”

  Elinor caught her breath. She said, “Is it?”

  “Yes.” He frowned. “Some women are so—oh, I don’t know—so damned possessive—so—so doglike and devoted—their emotions slopping all over the place! I’d hate that. With you I never know—I’m never sure—any minute you might turn round in that cool, detached way of yours and say you’d changed your mind—quite coolly, like that—without batting an eyelash! You’re a fascinating creature, Elinor. You’re like a work of art—so—so—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 chap—”

  Elinor shook her head. She said:

  “I shan’t get tired of you, Roddy—never.”

  “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 day—”

  Roddy finished the sentence for her:

  “—That 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 us—at once.”