‘David was better sport to her because he put up a fight. He felt her charm—but he wasn’t having any. I think because he’d got sense enough to know that she didn’t really care a damn. And that’s why I hate her so. She’s not sensual. She doesn’t want affairs. It’s just cold-blooded experiment on her part and the fun of stirring people up and setting them against each other. She dabbled in that too. She’s the sort of woman who’s never had a row with anyone in her life—but rows always happen where she is! She makes them happen. She’s a kind of female Iago. She must have drama. But she doesn’t want to be involved herself. She’s always outside pulling strings—looking on—enjoying it. Oh, do you see at all what I mean?’
‘I see, perhaps, more than you know, mademoiselle,’ said Poirot.
I couldn’t make his voice out. He didn’t sound indignant. He sounded—oh, well, I can’t explain it.
Sheila Reilly seemed to understand, for she flushed all over her face.
‘You can think what you choose,’ she said. ‘But I’m right about her. She was a clever woman and she was bored and she experimented—with people—like other people experiment with chemicals. She enjoyed working on poor old Johnson’s feelings and seeing her bite on the bullet and control herself like the old sport she is. She liked goading little Mercado into a white-hot frenzy. She liked flicking me on the raw—and she could do it too, every time! She liked finding out things about people and holding it over them. Oh, I don’t mean crude blackmail—I mean just letting them know that she knew—and leaving them uncertain what she meant to do about it. My God, though, that woman was an artist! There was nothing crude about her methods!’
‘And her husband?’ asked Poirot.
‘She never wanted to hurt him,’ said Miss Reilly slowly. ‘I’ve never known her anything but sweet to him. I suppose she was fond of him. He’s a dear—wrapped up in his own world—his digging and his theories. And he worshipped her and thought her perfection. That might have annoyed some women. It didn’t annoy her. In a sense he lived in a fool’s paradise—and yet it wasn’t a fool’s paradise because to him she was what he thought her. Though it’s hard to reconcile that with—’
She stopped.
‘Go on, mademoiselle,’ said Poirot.
She turned suddenly on me.
‘What have you said about Richard Carey?’
‘About Mr Carey?’ I asked, astonished.
‘About her and Carey?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve mentioned that they didn’t hit it off very well—’
To my surprise she broke into a fit of laughter.
‘Didn’t hit it off very well! You fool! He’s head over ears in love with her. And it’s tearing him to pieces—because he worships Leidner too. He’s been his friend for years. That would be enough for her, of course. She’s made it her business to come between them. But all the same I’ve fancied—’
‘Eh bien?’
She was frowning, absorbed in thought.
‘I’ve fancied that she’d gone too far for once—that she was not only biter but bit! Carey’s attractive. He’s as attractive as hell…She was a cold devil—but I believe she could have lost her coldness with him…’
‘I think it’s just scandalous what you’re saying,’ I cried. ‘Why, they hardly spoke to each other!’
‘Oh, didn’t they?’ She turned on me. ‘A hell of a lot you know about it. It was “Mr Carey” and “Mrs Leidner” in the house, but they used to meet outside. She’d walk down the path to the river. And he’d leave the dig for an hour at a time. They used to meet among the fruit trees.
‘I saw him once just leaving her, striding back to the dig, and she was standing looking after him. I was a female cad, I suppose. I had some glasses with me and I took them out and had a good look at her face. If you ask me, I believe she cared like hell for Richard Carey…’
She broke off and looked at Poirot.
‘Excuse my butting in on your case,’ she said with a sudden rather twisted grin, ‘but I thought you’d like to have the local colour correct.’