Agatha Christie. Philomel Cottage (in English, adapted for upper-intermediate)

Agatha Christie. Philomel Cottage (in English, for intermediate, 5)

A woman’s mind is a curious thing. When Alix went to bed that Thursday night, she felt calm and not at all worried. But by the evening of the following day, she realized that something was going wrong. Dick Windyford had not rung up again, however she felt his influence.

Again and again she thought of his words, «The man’s a perfect stranger. You know nothing about him.» And then she remembered her husband’s face, when he said: «Do you think it wise, Alix, this Bluebeard’s chamber business?» Why had he said that? What had he meant by those words?

There had been warning in them — a hint of menace, something like — «You had better not be so curious, Alix. You may get a shock if you are.» By Friday morning, Alix was almost sure that there had been a woman in Gerald’s life and he had wanted to hide it from her. She became jealous.

Was it a woman he had been going to meet that night, at 9 p.m.? Was his story of doing photography a lie? Three days ago she would have said that she knew her husband very well. Now it seemed to her that he was a stranger of whom she knew nothing.

It happened that on Friday Gerald went to the village to buy some little things for the weekend. Alix suggested that she should go with him. However, he opposed this idea bly and insisted on going alone. Alix agreed but his insistence surprised and alarmed her. Why was he worried when she said that she would like to go to the village with him?

Waiting for Gerald’s arrival, she felt uneasy and, finally, the temptation overcame her. She went upstairs to her husband’s dressing room with a duster as if she wanted to do some cleaning. «If I were only sure,» she repeated to herself.

Her cheeks — burning with the shame of her action, she began searching through packets of letters and documents, looked in the drawers, even in the pockets of her husband’s clothes. The lower drawer of the chest of drawers and the small drawer of the writing table were both locked. In one of those drawers she was sure that she would find something about this imaginary woman of the past. She knew the place where Gerald left his keys. She took them and tried them one by one. The third key fitted the writing table drawer. There was a check book and a wallet, and at the back of the drawer a packet of letters tied up with a piece of tape.

Breathless, Alix untied the tape. Then she blushed and she dropped the letters back into the drawer. For the letters were her own, written to Gerald Martin before she married him. She turned now to the chest of drawers, ashamed and almost convinced she was mad. One of the keys fitted the chest of drawers. She pulled it open. But there was nothing in it but a roll of newspaper clippings dirty and discolored with age.

Alix breathed a sigh of relief. However, she glanced at the clippings, curious to know what subject had interested Gerald so much that he had kept the dusty roll. They were nearly all American papers, dated some seven years ago. They were about some notorious swindler and bigamist, Charles Le Maitre, who had been suspected of killing women victims.

A skeleton had been found beneath the floor of one of the houses he had rented, and most of the women he had «married» had never been heard of again. He was put to prison and it had been discussed a lot in the English papers at the time. As Alix remembered he had escaped from the prison three years later and never been caught. That man had an extraordinary power over women. His passionate speeches had impressed everybody in the court, as well as his sudden physical collapses. He had a weak heart, though some people didn’t believe it at all.

There was a picture of him in one of the papers. Alix studied it with some interest — a long-bearded, scholarly looking gentleman. It reminded her of someone, but for the moment she could not tell who that someone was. Suddenly, with a shock, she realized that it was Gerald himself. Her eyes went on to the text beside the picture. One woman told that she had identified the prisoner by the fact that he had a mole on his left wrist, just below the palm of the left hand and…. Alix dropped the papers, and swayed as she stood. On his left wrist, just below the palm, Gerald had a small scar...

The room went round her… Gerald Martin was Charles Le Maitre!

She understood in a flash. Disjointed fragments went through her brain, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting into place. The money paid for the house — her money — her money only. The bonds she had entrusted to his keeping. Even her dream appeared in its true meaning. Deep down in her, she had always feared Gerald Martin and wished to escape from him. She was going to be another of Le Maitre’s victims. Very soon, perhaps. A cry escaped her as she remembered something. Thursday, 9 p.m. The cellar! Once before, he had buried one of his victims in a cellar. It had been all planned for Thursday night.

But what had saved her? Why had he changed his mind at the last minute? No — in a flash the answer came to her. Old George. She understood now her husband’s sudden anger. The reason was that he had told everyone he met that they were going to London the next day. Then George had come to work unexpectedly, had mentioned London to her, and she had contradicted the story. Too risky to do away with her that night.

But there was no time to be lost. She must get away at once — before he came back.