Ordeal by innocence – Agatha Christie
With a soft-spoken good night 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 splash 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 cafe 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…
“I suppose,” he thought, “they learn never to show what they are thinking.”
The whole thing was pretty frightful when one came right down to it. He must do what had to be done – and after that –
He frowned as he remembered the conversation yesterday. That pleasant, quiet, non-committal voice, saying: “You’re quite determined on your course of action, Dr. Calgary?”
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