Free Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie Page A

thought that was just sour grapes and the green-eyed monster, if you understand what I mean. But Joe turned out to be quite right in the end.”
    Calgary looked at her. He wondered if she still failed to understand the full implications of his story.
    “Right in exactly what way?” he asked.
    “Well, landing me up in the proper mess he did. I mean, we've always been respectable. Mother brought us up very careful. We've always had things nice and no talk. And there was the police arresting my husband! And all the neighbours knowing. In all the papers it was. News of the World and all the rest of them. And ever so many reporters coming round and asking questions. It put me in a very nasty position altogether.”
    “But, my dear child,” said Arthur Calgary, “you do realise now that he didn't do it?”
    For a moment the fair, pretty face looked bewildered.
    “Of course! I was forgetting. But all the same - well, I mean, he did go there and kick up a fuss and threaten her and all that. If he hadn't done that he wouldn't have been arrested at all, would he?”
    “No,” said Calgary, “no. That is quite true.”
    Possibly, he thought, this pretty, silly child was more of a realist than he was.
    “Oo, it was awful,” went on Maureen. “I didn't know what to do. And then Mum said better go over right away and see his people. They'd have to do something for me, she said. After all, she said, you've got your rights and you'd best show them as you know how to look after them. So off I went. It was that foreign lady help what opened the door to me and at first I couldn't make her understand. Seemed as if she couldn't believe it. 'It's impossible,' she kept saying. 'It's quite impossible that Jacko should be married to you.' Hurt my feelings a bit that did. 'Well married we are,' I said, 'and not in a registry office neither. In a church! It was the way my Mum wanted!' And she said, 'It's not true. I don't believe it' And then Mr. Argyle came and he was ever so kind. Told me not to worry more than I could help, and that everything possible would be done to defend Jackie. Asked me how I was off for money, and sent me a regular allowance every week. He keeps it up, too, even now. Joe doesn't like me taking it, but I say to him, 'Don't be silly. They can spare it, can't they?' Sent me a very nice cheque for a wedding present as well, he did, when Joe and I got married. And he said he was very glad and that he hoped this marriage would be happier than the last one. Yes, he's ever so nice, Mr. Argyle is.”
    She turned her head as the door opened. “Oh. Here's Joe now.”
    Joe was a thin-lipped, fair-haired young man. He received Maureen's explanations and introduction with a slight frown.
    “Hoped we'd done with all that,” he said disapprovingly. “Excusing me for saying so, sir. But it does no good to go raking up the past. That's what I feel. Maureen was unlucky, that's all there is to say about...”
    “Yes,” said Calgary. “I quite see your point of view.”
    “Of course,” said Joe Clegg, “she ought never to have taken up with a chap like that. I knew he was no good. There'd been stories about him already. He'd been under a Probation Officer twice. Once they begin like that, they go on. First it's embezzling, or swindling women out of their savings and in the end it's murder.”
    “But this,” said Calgary, “wasn't murder.”
    “So you say, sir,” said Joe Clegg. He sounded himself completely unconvinced.
    “Jack Argyle has a perfect alibi for the time the crime was committed. He was in my car being given a lift to Drymouth. So you see, Mr. Clegg, he could not possibly have committed this crime.”
    “Possibly not, sir,” said Clegg. “But all the same it's a pity raking it all up, if you'll excuse me. After all, he's dead now, and it can't matter to him. And it starts the neighbours talking again and making them think things.”
    Calgary rose. “Well, perhaps from your point of view that is one way