Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot 22) - Page 74

Hercule Poirot said:

“But, then…?”

He spread out his hands in a wide, appealing foreign gesture.

Ted Bigland nodded his head. His eyes had still the dumb, glazed look of an animal in pain.

He said:

“I know, sir. I know what you say’s true. She didn’t die natural. But I’ve been wondering….”

He paused.

Poirot said:

“Yes?”

Ted Bigland said slowly:

“I’ve been wondering if in some way it couldn’t have been an accident?”

“An accident? But what kind of an accident?”

“I know, sir. I know. It doesn’t sound like sense. But I keep thinking and thinking, and it seems to me it must have been that way. Something that wasn’t meant to happen or something that was all a mistake. Just—well, just an accident!”

He looked pleadingly at Poirot, embarrassed by his own lack of eloquence.

Poirot was silent a moment or two. He seemed to be considering. He said at last:

“It is interesting that you feel that.”

Ted Bigland said deprecatingly:

“I dare say it doesn’t make sense to you, sir. I can’t figure out any how and why about it. It’s just a feeling I’ve got.”

Hercule Poirot said:

“Feeling is sometimes an important guide… You will pardon me, I hope, if I seem to tread on painful ground, but you cared very much for Mary Gerrard, did you not?”

A little dark colour came up in the tanned face.

Ted said simply:

“Everyone knows that around here, I reckon.”

“You wanted to marry her?”

“Yes.”

“But she—was not willing?”

Ted’s face darkened a little. He said, with a hint of surpressed anger:

“Mean well, people do, but they shouldn’t muck up people’s lives by interfering. All this schooling and going abroad! It changed Mary. I don’t mean spoilt her, or that she was stuck-up—she wasn’t. But it…oh, it bewildered her! She didn’t know where she was any more. She was—well, put it crudely—she was too good for me; but she still wasn’t good enough for a real gentleman like Mr. Welman.”

Hercule Poirot said, watching him:

“You don’t like Mr. Welman?”

Tags: Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot Mystery
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