THE IDOL HOUSE OF ASTARTE30 - Agatha Christie - short stories

"of course not, dear," said Miss Marple. "That is what I am telling you. Of course there is only one way that poor Sir Richard could have been stabbed, but I do wish I knew what causcd him to stumble in the first place. Of course, it might have been a tree root. He would be looking at the girl, of course, and when it is moonlight one does trip over things." "You say that there is only one way that Sir Richard could have been stabbed, Miss Marple," said the clergyman, looking at her curiously. "It is very sad and I don't like to think of it. He was a right-handed man, was he not? I mean to stab himself in the left shoulder he must have been. I was always so sorry for poor Jack Baynes in the War. He shot himself in the foot, you remember, after very severe fighting at Arras. He told me about it when I went to see him in the hospital, and very ashamed of it he was. I don't expect this poor man, Elliot Haydon, profited much by his wicked crime." "Elliot Haydon," cried Raymond. "You think he did it?" "I don't see how anyone else could have done it," said Miss Marple, opening her eyes in gentle surprise. "I mean if, as Mr. Petherick so wisely says, one looks at the facts and disregards all that atmosphere of heathen goddesses which I don't think is very nice. He went up to him first and turned him over, and of course to do that he would have to have had his back to them all, and being dressed as a brigand chief he would be sure to have a weapon of some kind in his belt. I remember dancing with a man dressed as a brigand chief when I was a young girl. He had five kinds of knives and daggers, and I can't tell you how awkward and uncomfortable it was for his partner." All eyes were turned towards Dr. Pender. "I knew the truth," said he, "five years after that tragedy Occurred. It came in the shape of a letter written to me by to down load complete story http://www.4shared.com/get/ouTsKRL4/Agatha_Christie-uk-Complete_sh.html Elliot Haydon. He said in it that he fancied that I had always