The Christie Affair(39)
‘Darling,’ his wife cried, turning back towards him. ‘Oh, my darling. Help him, please, somebody help him!’
Mr Marston fell to the floor. His eyes bulged, his hands clasped his throat and his feet kicked like a freshly landed fish. Almost everyone – the hotel staff as well as the guests – headed over to the scene of distress.
It was young Mrs Race who reached him first. ‘Stand back,’ she commanded, seeming a different person to the one who’d just done battle with her husband. ‘I’m a nurse.’ She loosened Mr Marston’s tie and shirt collar, then took his pulse. She had his head pulled into her lap and I thought there was something grotesque about that pretty young girl balancing his wide, red, froggish face so close to her body.
By now Lizzie had returned to her seat. She and I did not move from our table. We sat, quietly watching everything unfold. Lizzie took a sip of wine and said, ‘Too many cooks.’
‘If you ask me, it’s too late,’ I said. The violence in Mr Marston’s body had come to rest. His eyes stared glassily at the ceiling.
The doctor who performed massages had gone for the day, but there was another one, a guest staying in room 403. Someone ran to fetch him. All poor Mrs Marston could do was crouch beside her husband, staring in shock at the scene before her. The doctor arrived in a state of half-dress. He was a youngish but prematurely white-haired man who looked elegant and purposeful despite his indecent state.
‘It’s no use,’ the doctor said, after a swift examination. He looked around the room, addressing all of us with an appropriately solemn expression. Then with practised fingers he pulled Mr Marston’s eyelids closed.
The sound that emanated from Mrs Marston was altogether unholy. She clutched at her throat as her husband had done earlier and, for a moment, I thought she might also fall to her death.
‘Come now,’ said Inspector Chilton, stepping forward. He put his arms around her shoulders. She accepted his embrace, her scream giving way to sobs. Chilton led her across the room to another table and seated her with her back to her deceased husband.
‘A hefty dose of brandy will do for her,’ the doctor said. ‘And perhaps a sheet for him, while we wait for the coroner to arrive. Best go ahead and call the authorities.’
‘Oh, you’ve no idea,’ Mrs Marston was sobbing. ‘How long we waited, what we’ve been through, what we’ve given up. Oh, my poor, dear darling. It can’t be. Just like that? It can’t. Where will I go? What will I do?’
She pushed herself up from the table and rushed back to her husband, throwing herself upon him and weeping. The force of her ministrations startled the body enough for his eyes to pop back open. Mrs Marston gasped, a pathetic and hopeful moment, then commenced to weep again as she realized he hadn’t come back to life, and she lost him for the second time.
‘I believe I’ll take this plate to my room,’ I said to Lizzie and Donny. I’d barely taken a bite.
‘Yes,’ Lizzie said. ‘We’ll talk later. Will you be all right?’
‘I believe I will. And you?’
She nodded but her eyes brimmed. It was a shocking thing we’d witnessed.
As I passed the grandfather clock in the front hall, I saw Mr and Mrs Race by the stairs, no longer scowling or arguing. The tragedy seemed to have subdued them. Her head was lowered and though his hand was on her arm, it did not seem to be an aggressive grip. Their foreheads pressed together. Perhaps he was apologizing, or even comforting her. I paused a moment, and when neither of them looked towards me I continued on.
My room had a wide four-poster bed and a little writing desk. I sat down at the latter and used it for my dinner table. It was in front of a window, and again I looked out into the darkness, as if for all the world I was fourteen years old and back in Ireland, knowing Finbarr might arrive any moment for lawn tennis.
The death I’d witnessed had not spoiled my appetite, not for food and not for love. I cleaned my plate, having learned during the war never to waste food. Sleep was another matter. The bed was comfortable. Eventually, the ruckus downstairs quieted. I lay very still, trying to clear my mind, unable to close my eyes, staring up at the canopy. I must have fallen asleep eventually, because by the time sunlight poured through the curtains I’d forgotten to close, I was awakened by a scream.
The Disappearance
Day Four
Tuesday, 7 December 1926
I DONNED MY DRESSING gown and peered into the hall. Several other faces dotted the corridor, all belonging to women. I could hear the doctor’s voice inside a room not far from mine, presumably the origin of the scream, trying to calm someone down. Mrs Leech, I surmised. The door directly across the hall from me opened with an urgent, audible whoosh, bespeaking great confidence. There stood Miss Cornelia Armstrong, the young lady travelling on her own.
‘That was Mrs Marston’s room,’ she announced, for the whole hotel to hear. Miss Armstrong was barely nineteen, with impeccable posture and thick black hair spilling down her back in astonishing quantity. She had a way of lifting her chin as she spoke, daring the listener to contradict her.
‘Oh dear,’ I said.
‘I’m going to see what’s happened.’
There was no stopping her. Miss Armstrong marched down the hall towards Mrs Marston’s room. She had her dressing gown loosely belted and showing more of her décolletage than likely she intended. When she returned, her face was pale, and her voice shook as she reported: ‘Mrs Marston is dead. I saw the doctor pull the sheet over her face.’