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Ordeal by Innocence
Agatha Christie
Evidence that clears the name of a boy sentenced for killing his adopted mother arrives too late to save his life – so who did kill her?According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonmentBut when Dr Arthur Calgary turns up a year later with the proof that confirms Jacko’s innocence, he is too late – Jacko died behind bars from a bout of pneumonia.Worse still, the doctor’s revelations re-open old wounds in the family, increasing the likelihood that the real murderer will strike again…
Agatha Christie
Ordeal by Innocence
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1958
Copyright © 1958 Agatha Christie Ltd. All rights reserved.
www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com/)
Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018 Cover photographs by James Fisher © Agatha Christie Productions, 2018
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007154913
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007422647
Version: 2018-08-13
To Billy Collins
with affection and gratitude
If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me.
I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent.
Job
Contents
Cover (#ulink_d53ce783-7d5a-5175-b072-00b0a15509e8)
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
It was dusk when he came to the Ferry.
Chapter 2
It should have been a sensational announcement. Instead, it fell…
Chapter 3
Hester went slowly up the stairs pushing back the dark…
Chapter 4
Calgary said apologetically, ‘It’s very good of you to see…
Chapter 5
The Chief Constable’s eyebrows climbed slowly up his forehead in…
Chapter 6
The lights went up in the cinema. Advertisements flashed on…
Chapter 7
Dr MacMaster was an old man with bushy eyebrows, shrewd grey…
Chapter 8
Hester Argyle was looking at herself in the glass. There was…
Chapter 9
Calgary had only been gone a few minutes when Dr MacMaster…
Chapter 10
‘I’m sure, Marshall, that you’ll appreciate my reasons for asking…
Chapter 11
Night settled down on Sunny Point.
Chapter 12
In her spotlessly kept bedroom, Kirsten Lindstrom plaited her grizzled blonde…
Chapter 13
Superintendent Huish looked round on them all, gently and politely.
Chapter 14
‘Don’t suppose you got anything?’ said the Chief Constable.
Chapter 15
‘But I don’t want to go home just yet,’ said…
Chapter 16
‘Do you mind if I stay on a bit, Dad?’…
Chapter 17
‘And what are you doing, Hester, my love?’ asked Philip.
Chapter 18
‘There’s a young lady down below wanting to see you,…
Chapter 19
‘I want to talk to you, Kirsty,’ said Philip.
Chapter 20
Calgary and Huish looked at each other. Calgary saw what…
Chapter 21
There had been nothing to tell Philip Durrant that this day…
Chapter 22
Tina parked her car on the grass by the churchyard…
Chapter 23
In his hotel room, Arthur Calgary went over and over the…
Chapter 24
It was again dusk when Arthur Calgary came to Sunny Point…
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About the Author
Other Books by Agatha Christie
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
I
It was dusk when he came to the Ferry.
He could have been there much earlier. The truth was, he had put it off as long as he could.
First his luncheon with friends in Redquay; the light desultory conversation, the interchange of gossip about mutual friends–all that had meant only that he was inwardly shrinking from what he had to do. His friends had invited him to stay on for tea and he had accepted. But at last the time had come when he knew that he could put things off no longer.
The car he had hired was waiting. He said goodbye and left to drive the seven miles along the crowded coast road and then inland down the wooded lane that ended at the little stone quay on the river.
There was a large bell there which his driver rang vigorously to summon the ferry from the far side.
‘You won’t be wanting me to wait, sir?’
‘No,’ said Arthur Calgary. ‘I’ve ordered a car to meet me over there in an hour’s time–to take me to Drymouth.’
The man received his fare and tip. He said, peering across the river in the gloom:
‘Ferry’s coming now, sir.’
With a soft-spoken goodnight he reversed the car and drove away up the hill. Arthur Calgary was left alone waiting on the quayside. Alone with his thoughts and his apprehension of what was in front of him. How wild the scenery was here, he thought. One could fancy oneself on a Scottish loch, far from anywhere. And yet, only a few miles away, were the hotels, the shops, the cocktail bars and the crowds of Redquay. He reflected, not for the first time, on the extraordinary contrasts of the English landscape.
He heard the soft plash of the oars as the ferry boat drew in to the side of the little quay. Arthur Calgary walked down the sloping ramp and got into the boat as the ferryman steadied it with a boathook. He was an old man and gave Calgary the fanciful impression that he and his boat belonged together, were one and indivisible.
A little cold wind came rustling up from the sea as they pushed off.
‘’Tis chilly this evening,’ said the ferryman.
Calgary replied suitably. He further agreed that it was colder than yesterday.
He was conscious, or thought he was conscious, of a veiled curiosity in the ferryman’s eyes. Here was a stranger. And a stranger after the close of the tourist season proper. Moreover, this stranger was crossing at an unusual hour–too late for tea at the café by the pier. He had no luggage so he could not be coming to stay. (Why, Calgary wondered, had he come so late in the day? Was it really because, subconsciously, he had been putting this moment off? Leaving as late as possible, the thing that had to be done?) Crossing the Rubicon–the river…the river…his mind went back to that other river–the Thames.
He had stared at it unseeingly (was it only yesterday?) then turned to look again at the man facing him across the table. Those thoughtful eyes with something in them that he had not quite been able to understand. A reserve, something that was being thought but not expressed…
