Free Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie

quiet? To shut her mouth? Nothing short of a dose of poison would do that, he thought bitterly.
    A wasp was buzzing close at hand. He stared abstractedly. It had got inside a cutglass jampot and was trying to get out.
    Like me, he thought, entrapped by sweetness and now - he can't get out, poor devil.
    But he, Stephen Farraday, was going to get out somehow. Time, he must play for time. Rosemary was down with 'flu at the moment. He'd sent conventional inquiries - a big sheaf of flowers. It gave him a respite.
    Next week Sandra and he were dining with the Bartons - a birthday party for Rosemary.
    Rosemary had said, “I shan't do anything until after my birthday - it would be too cruel to George. He's making such a fuss about it. He's such a dear. After it's all over we'll come to an understanding.”
    Supposing he were to tell her brutally that it was all over, that he no longer cared? He shivered. No, he dare not do that. She might go to George in hysterics. She might even come to Sandra. He could hear her tearful, bewildered voice.
    “He says he doesn't care any more, but I know it's not true. He's trying to be loyal - to play the game with you - but I know you'll agree with me that when people love each other honesty is the only way. That's why I'm asking you to give him his freedom.”
    That was just the sort of nauseating stuff she would pour out. And Sandra, her face proud and disdainful, would say, “He can have his freedom!”
    She wouldn't believe - how could she believe? If Rosemary were to bring out those letters - the letters he'd been asinine enough to write to her. Heaven knew what he had said in them. Enough and more than enough to convince Sandra - letters such as he had never written to her -
    He must think of something - some way of keeping Rosemary quiet. “It's a pity,” he thought grimly, “that we don't live in the days of the Borgias...”
    A glass of poisoned champagne was about the only thing that would keep Rosemary quiet.
    Yes, he had actually thought that.
    Cyanide of potassium in her champagne glass, cyanide of potassium in her evening bag.
    Depression after influenza.
    And across the table, Sandra's eyes meeting his.
    Nearly a year ago - and he couldn't forget.

Sparkling Cyanide

Chapter 5
    ALEXANDRA FARRADAY
    Sandra Farraday had not forgotten Rosemary Barton.
    She was thinking of her at this very minute - thinking of her slumped forward across the table in the restaurant that night.
    She remembered her own sharp indrawn breath and how then, looking up, she had found Stephen watching her...
    Had he read the truth in her eyes? Had he seen the hate, the mingling of horror and triumph?
    Nearly a year ago now - and as fresh in her mind as if it had been yesterday! Rosemary - that's for remembrance. How horribly true that was. It was no good a person being dead if they lived on in your mind. That was what Rosemary had done. In Sandra's mind - and in Stephen's too? She didn't know, but she thought it probable.
    The Luxembourg - that hateful place with its excellent food, deft swift service, and luxurious decor and setting. An impossible place to avoid, people were always asking you there.
    She would have liked to forget - but everything conspired to make her remember.
    Even Fairhaven was no longer exempt now that George Barton had come to live at Little Priors.
    It was really rather extraordinary of him. George Barton was altogether an odd man. Not at all the kind of neighbour she liked to have. His presence at Little Priors spoiled for her the charm and peace of Fairhaven.
    Always, up to this summer, it had been a place of healing and rest, a place where she and Stephen had been happy - that is, if they ever had been happy?
    Her lips pressed thinly together. Yes, a thousand times, yes! They could have been happy but for Rosemary. It was Rosemary who had shattered the delicate edifice of mutual trust and tenderness that she and Stephen were beginning to build. Something, some instinct, had bade her