They’ll take me away and they’ll say I’m guilty of murder. It wasn’t murder. I just had to do it. Sometimes I do have to do things. I wanted to see the blood, you know. I couldn’t wait to see Molly die, though. I ran away. But I knew she would die. I just hoped you wouldn’t find her. She just fell over the cliff.
People would say it was an accident.’ ” “It’s a horrible story,” said Desmond.
“Yes,” said Celia, “it’s a horrible story, but it’s better to know. It’s better to know, isn’t it? I can’t even feel sorry for her. I mean for my mother. I know she was sweet. I know there was never any trace of evil in her—she was good all through—and I know, I can understand, why my father didn’t want to marry Dolly. He wanted to marry my mother because he loved her and he had found out by then that there was something wrong with Dolly. Something bad and twisted. But how—how did you do it all?” “We told a good many lies,” said Zeiie. “We hoped the body would not be found so that later perhaps it might be removed in the night or something like that to somewhere where it could look as though she’d fallen down into the sea. But then we thought of the sleep-walking story. What we had to do was really quite simple. Alistair said, ‘It’s frightening, you know.
But I promised—I swore to Molly when she was dying. I swore I’d do as she asked. There’s a way, a possible way to save Dolly, if only Dolly can do her part. I don’t know if she’s capable of it.’ I said, ‘Do what?’ And Alistair said, ‘Pretend she’s Molly and that it’s Dorothea who walked in her sleep and fell to her death.’ “We managed it. Took Dolly to an empty cottage we knew of and I stayed with her there for some days. Alistair said Molly had been taken to hospital suffering from shock after the discovery that her sister had fallen over the cliff while walking in her sleep at night. Then we brought Dolly back— brought her back as Molly—wearing Molly’s clothes and Molly’s wig. I got extra wigs—the kind with curls, which really did disguise her. The dear old housekeeper, Janet, couldn’t see very well. Dolly and Molly were really very much alike, you know, and their voices were alike. Everyone accepted quite easily that it was Molly, behaving rather peculiarly now and then because of still suffering from shock. It all seemed quite natural. That was the horrible part of it—” “But how could she keep it up?” asked Celia. “It must have been dreadfully difficult.” “No—she did not find it difficult. She had got, you see, what she wanted—what she had always wanted. She had got Alistair—” “But Alistair—how could he bear it?” “He told me why and how—on the day he had arranged for me to go back to Switzerland. He told me what I had to do and then he told me what he was going to do.
“He said: “There is only one thing for me to do. I promised Margaret that I wouldn’t hand Dolly over to the police, that it should never be known that she was a murderess, that the children were never to know that they had a murderess for an aunt. No one need ever know that Dolly committed murder.
She walked in her sleep and fell over the cliff—a sad accident and she will be buried here in the church, and under her own name.’ ” ‘How can you let that be done?’ I asked. I couldn’t bear it.
“He said: ‘Because of what I am going to do—you have got to know about it.’ ” ‘You see,’ he said, ‘Dolly has to be stopped from living. If she’s near children, she’ll take more lives—poor soul; she’s not fit to live. But you must understand, Zeiie, that because of what I am going to do, I must pay with my own life, too. I shall live here quietly for a few weeks with Dolly playing the part of my wife—and then there will be another tragedy—’ “I didn’t understand what he meant. I said, ‘Another accident? Sleepwalking again?’ And he said, ‘No—what will be known to the world is that I and Molly have both committed suicide. I don’t suppose the reason will ever be known.