Midwinter Murder

by Agatha Christie

  From her place in the shadow she spoke again.

  ‘Mr—Capel?’

  ‘Yes. The man who originally owned this house. He shot himself you know—oh! very well, Tom dear, I won’t speak of it unless you like. It was a great shock for Tom, of course, because he was here when it happened. So were you, weren’t you, Sir Richard?’

  ‘Yes, Lady Laura.’

  An old grandfather clock in the corner groaned, wheezed, snorted asthmatically, and then struck twelve.

  ‘Happy New Year, Tom,’ grunted Evesham perfunctorily.

  Lady Laura wound up her knitting with some deliberation.

  ‘Well, we’ve seen the New Year in,’ she observed, and added, looking towards Mrs Portal, ‘What do you think, my dear?’

  Eleanor Portal rose quickly to her feet.

  ‘Bed, by all means,’ she said lightly.

  ‘She’s very pale,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite, as he too rose, and began busying himself with candlesticks. ‘She’s not usually as pale as that.’

  He lighted her candle and handed it to her with a funny little old-fashioned bow. She took it from him with a word of acknowledgment and went slowly up the stairs.

  Suddenly a very odd impulse swept over Mr Satterthwaite. He wanted to go after her—to reassure her—he had the strangest feeling that she was in danger of some kind. The impulse died down, and he felt ashamed. He was getting nervy too.

  She hadn’t looked at her husband as she went up the stairs, but now she turned her head over her shoulder and gave him a long searching glance which had a queer intensity in it. It affected Mr Satterthwaite very oddly.

  He found himself saying goodnight to his hostess in quite a flustered manner.

  ‘I’m sure I hope it will be a happy New Year,’ Lady Laura was saying. ‘But the political situation seems to me to be fraught with grave uncertainty.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said Mr Satterthwaite earnestly. ‘I’m sure it is.’

  ‘I only hope,’ continued Lady Laura, without the least change of manner, ‘that it will be a dark man who first crosses the threshold. You know that superstition, I suppose, Mr Satterthwaite? No? You surprise me. To bring luck to the house it must be a dark man who first steps over the door step on New Year’s Day. Dear me, I hope I shan’t find anything very unpleasant in my bed. I never trust the children. They have such very high spirits.’

  Shaking her head in sad foreboding, Lady Laura moved majestically up the staircase.

  With the departure of the women, chairs were pulled in closer round the blazing logs on the big open hearth.

  ‘Say when,’ said Evesham, hospitably, as he held up the whisky decanter.

  When everybody had said when, the talk reverted to the subject which had been tabooed before.

  ‘You knew Derek Capel, didn’t you, Satterthwaite?’ asked Conway.

  ‘Slightly—yes.’

  ‘And you, Portal?’

  ‘No, I never met him.’

  So fiercely and defensively did he say it, that Mr Satterthwaite looked up in surprise.

  ‘I always hate it when Laura brings up the subject,’ said Evesham slowly. ‘After the tragedy, you know, this place was sold to a big manufacturer fellow. He cleared out after a year—didn’t suit him or something. A lot of tommy rot was talked about the place being haunted of course, and it gave the house a bad name. Then, when Laura got me to stand for West Kidleby, of course it meant living up in these parts, and it wasn’t so easy to find a suitable house. Royston was going cheap, and—well, in the end I bought it. Ghosts are all tommy rot, but all the same one doesn’t exactly care to be reminded that you’re living in a house where one of your own friends shot himself. Poor old Derek—we shall never know why he did it.’

  ‘He won’t be the first or the last fellow who’s shot himself without being able to give a reason,’ said Alex Portal heavily.

  He rose and poured himself out another drink, splashing the whisky in with a liberal hand.

  ‘There’s something very wrong with him,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, to himself. ‘Very wrong indeed. I wish I knew what it was all about.’

  ‘Gad!’ said Conway. ‘Listen to the wind. It’s a wild night.’

  ‘A good night for ghosts to walk,’ said Portal with a reckless laugh. ‘All the devils in Hell are abroad tonight.’

  ‘According to Lady Laura, even the blackest of them would bring us luck,’ observed Conway, with a laugh. ‘Hark to that!’

  The wind rose in another terrific wail, and as it died away there came three loud knocks on the big nailed doorway.

  Everyone started.

  ‘Who on earth can that be at this time of night?’ cried Evesham.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘I will open it,’ said Evesham. ‘The servants have gone to bed.’

  He strode across to the door, fumbled a little over the heavy bars, and finally flung it open. An icy blast of wind came sweeping into the hall.

  Framed in the doorway stood a man’s figure, tall and slender. To Mr Satterthwaite, watching, he appeared by some curious effect of the stained glass above the door, to be dressed in every colour of the rainbow. Then, as he stepped forward, he showed himself to be a thin dark man dressed in motoring clothes.

  ‘I must really apologize for this intrusion,’ said the stranger, in a pleasant level voice. ‘But my car broke down. Nothing much, my chauffeur is putting it to rights, but it will take half an hour or so, and it is so confoundedly cold outside—’

  He broke off, and Evesham took up the thread quickly.

  ‘I should think it was. Come in and have a drink. We can’t give you any assistance about the car, can we?’

  ‘No, thanks. My man knows what to do. By the way, my name is Quin—Harley Quin.’

  ‘Sit down, Mr Quin,’ said Evesham. ‘Sir Richard Conway, Mr Satterthwaite. My name is Evesham.’

  Mr Quin acknowledged the introductions, and dropped into the chair that Evesham had hospitably pulled forward. As he sat, some effect of the firelight threw a bar of shadow across his face which gave almost the impression of a mask.

  Evesham threw a couple more logs on the fire.

  ‘A drink?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Evesham brought it to him and asked as he did so:

  ‘So you know this part of the world well, Mr Quin?’

  ‘I passed through it some years ago.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. This house belonged then to a man called Capel.’

  ‘Ah! yes,’ said Evesham. ‘Poor Derek Capel. You knew him?’

  ‘Yes, I knew him.’

  Evesham’s manner underwent a faint change, almost imperceptible to one who had not studied the English character. Before, it had contained a subtle reserve, now this was laid aside. Mr Quin had known Derek Capel. He was the friend of a friend, and, as such, was vouched for and fully accredited.

  ‘Astounding affair, that,’ he said confidentially. ‘We were just talking about it. I can tell you, it went against the grain, buying this place. If there had been anything else suitable, but there wasn’t you see. I was in the house the night he shot himself—so was Conway, and upon my word, I’ve always expected his ghost to walk.’

  ‘A very inexplicable business,’ said Mr Quin, slowly and deliberately, and he paused with the air of an actor who has just spoken an important cue.

  ‘You may well say inexplicable,’ burst in Conway. ‘The thing’s a black mystery—always will be.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Mr Quin, non-committally. ‘Yes, Sir Richard, you were saying?’

  ‘Astounding—that’s what it was. Here’s a man in the prime of life, gay, light-hearted, without a care in the world. Five or six old pals staying with him. Top of his spirits at dinner, full of plans for the future. And from the dinner table he goes straight upstairs to his room, takes a revolver from a drawer and shoots himself. Why? Nobody ever knew. Nobody ever will know.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather a sweeping stateme
nt, Sir Richard?’ asked Mr Quin, smiling.

  Conway stared at him.

  ‘What d’you mean? I don’t understand.’

  ‘A problem is not necessarily unsolvable because it has remained unsolved.’

  ‘Oh! Come, man, if nothing came out at the time, it’s not likely to come out now—ten years afterwards?’

  Mr Quin shook his head gently.

  ‘I disagree with you. The evidence of history is against you. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. It is a question of getting the true perspective, of seeing things in proportion. If you like to call it so, it is, like everything else, a question of relativity.’

  Alex Portal leant forward, his face twitching painfully.

  ‘You are right, Mr Quin,’ he cried, ‘you are right. Time does not dispose of a question—it only presents it anew in a different guise.’

  Evesham was smiling tolerantly.

  ‘Then you mean to say, Mr Quin, that if we were to hold, let us say, a Court of Inquiry tonight, into the circumstances of Derek Capel’s death, we are as likely to arrive at the truth as we should have been at the time?’

  ‘More likely, Mr Evesham. The personal equation has largely dropped out, and you will remember facts as facts without seeking to put your own interpretation upon them.’

  Evesham frowned doubtfully.

  ‘One must have a starting point, of course,’ said Mr Quin in his quiet level voice. ‘A starting point is usually a theory. One of you must have a theory, I am sure. How about you, Sir Richard?’

  Conway frowned thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, of course,’ he said apologetically, ‘we thought—naturally we all thought—that there must be a woman in it somewhere. It’s usually either that or money, isn’t it? And it certainly wasn’t money. No trouble of that description. So—what else could it have been?’

  Mr Satterthwaite started. He had leant forward to contribute a small remark of his own and in the act of doing so, he had caught sight of a woman’s figure crouched against the balustrade of the gallery above. She was huddled down against it, invisible from everywhere but where he himself sat, and she was evidently listening with strained attention to what was going on below. So immovable was she that he hardly believed the evidence of his own eyes.

  But he recognized the pattern of the dress easily enough—an old-world brocade. It was Eleanor Portal.

  And suddenly all the events of the night seemed to fall into pattern—Mr Quin’s arrival, no fortuitous chance, but the appearance of an actor when his cue was given. There was a drama being played in the big hall at Royston tonight—a drama none the less real in that one of the actors was dead. Oh! yes, Derek Capel had a part in the play. Mr Satterthwaite was sure of that.

  And, again suddenly, a new illumination came to him. This was Mr Quin’s doing. It was he who was staging the play—was giving the actors their cues. He was at the heart of the mystery pulling the strings, making the puppets work. He knew everything, even to the presence of the woman crouched against the woodwork upstairs. Yes, he knew.

  Sitting well back in his chair, secure in his role of audience, Mr Satterthwaite watched the drama unfold before his eyes. Quietly and naturally, Mr Quin was pulling the strings, setting his puppets in motion.

  ‘A woman—yes,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘There was no mention of any woman at dinner?’

  ‘Why, of course,’ cried Evesham. ‘He announced his engagement. That’s just what made it seem so absolutely mad. Very bucked about it he was. Said it wasn’t to be announced just yet—but gave us the hint that he was in the running for the Benedick stakes.’

  ‘Of course we all guessed who the lady was,’ said Conway. ‘Marjorie Dilke. Nice girl.’

  It seemed to be Mr Quin’s turn to speak, but he did not do so, and something about his silence seemed oddly provocative. It was as though he challenged the last statement. It had the effect of putting Conway in a defensive position.

  ‘Who else could it have been? Eh, Evesham?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tom Evesham slowly. ‘What did he say exactly now? Something about being in the running for the Benedick stakes—that he couldn’t tell us the lady’s name till he had her permission—it wasn’t to be announced yet. He said, I remember, that he was a damned lucky fellow. That he wanted his two old friends to know that by that time next year he’d be a happy married man. Of course, we assumed it was Marjorie. They were great friends and he’d been about with her a lot.’

  ‘The only thing—’ began Conway and stopped.

  ‘What were you going to say, Dick?’

  ‘Well, I mean, it was odd in a way, if it were Marjorie, that the engagement shouldn’t be announced at once. I mean, why the secrecy? Sounds more as though it were a married woman—you know, someone whose husband had just died, or who was divorcing him.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Evesham. ‘If that were the case, of course, the engagement couldn’t be announced at once. And you know, thinking back about it, I don’t believe he had been seeing much of Marjorie. All that was the year before. I remember thinking things seemed to have cooled off between them.’

  ‘Curious,’ said Mr Quin.

  ‘Yes—looked almost as though someone had come between them.’

  ‘Another woman,’ said Conway thoughtfully.

  ‘By jove,’ said Evesham. ‘You know, there was something almost indecently hilarious about old Derek that night. He looked almost drunk with happiness. And yet—I can’t quite explain what I mean—but he looked oddly defiant too.’

  ‘Like a man defying Fate,’ said Alex Portal heavily.

  Was it of Derek Capel he was speaking—or was it of himself? Mr Satterthwaite, looking at him, inclined to the latter view. Yes, that was what Alex Portal represented—a man defying Fate.

  His imagination, muddled by drink, responded suddenly to that note in the story which recalled his own secret preoccupation.

  Mr Satterthwaite looked up. She was still there. Watching, listening—still motionless, frozen—like a dead woman.

  ‘Perfectly true,’ said Conway. ‘Capel was excited—curiously so. I’d describe him as a man who had staked heavily and won against well nigh overwhelming odds.’

  ‘Getting up courage, perhaps, for what he’s made up his mind to do?’ suggested Portal.

  And as though moved by an association of ideas, he got up and helped himself to another drink.

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said Evesham sharply. ‘I’d almost swear nothing of that kind was in his mind. Conway’s right. A successful gambler who has brought off a long shot and can hardly believe in his own good fortune. That was the attitude.’

  Conway gave a gesture of discouragement.

  ‘And yet,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes later—’

  They sat in silence. Evesham brought his hand down with a bang on the table.

  ‘Something must have happened in that ten minutes,’ he cried. ‘It must! But what? Let’s go over it carefully. We were all talking. In the middle of it Capel got up suddenly and left the room—’

  ‘Why?’ said Mr Quin.

  The interruption seemed to disconcert Evesham.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I only said: Why?’ said Mr Quin.

  Evesham frowned in an effort of memory.

  ‘It didn’t seem vital—at the time—Oh! of course—the Post. Don’t you remember that jangling bell, and how excited we were. We’d been snowed up for three days, remember. Biggest snowstorm for years and years. All the roads were impassable. No newspapers, no letters. Capel went out to see if something had come through at last, and got a great pile of things. Newspapers and letters. He opened the paper to see if there was any news, and then went upstairs with his letters. Three minutes afterwards, we heard a shot . . . Inexplicable—absolutely inexplicable.’

  ‘That’s not inexplicable,’ said Portal. ‘Of course the fellow got some unexpected news in a letter. Obvious, I should
have said.’

  ‘Oh! Don’t think we missed anything so obvious as that. It was one of the Coroner’s first questions. But Capel never opened one of his letters. The whole pile lay unopened on his dressing-table.’

  Portal looked crestfallen.

  ‘You’re sure he didn’t open just one of them? He might have destroyed it after reading it?’

  ‘No, I’m quite positive. Of course, that would have been the natural solution. No, every one of the letters was unopened. Nothing burnt—nothing torn up—There was no fire in the room.’

  Portal shook his head.

  ‘Extraordinary.’

  ‘It was a ghastly business altogether,’ said Evesham in a low voice. ‘Conway and I went up when we heard the shot, and found him—It gave me a shock, I can tell you.’

  ‘Nothing to be done but telephone for the police, I suppose?’ said Mr Quin.

  ‘Royston wasn’t on the telephone then. I had it put in when I bought the place. No, luckily enough, the local constable happened to be in the kitchen at the time. One of the dogs—you remember poor old Rover, Conway?—had strayed the day before. A passing carter had found it half buried in a snowdrift and had taken it to the police station. They recognized it as Capel’s, and a dog he was particularly fond of, and the constable came up with it. He’d just arrived a minute before the shot was fired. It saved us some trouble.’

  ‘Gad, that was a snowstorm,’ said Conway reminiscently. ‘About this time of year, wasn’t it? Early January.’

  ‘February, I think. Let me see, we went abroad soon afterwards.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it was January. My hunter Ned—you remember Ned?—lamed himself the end of January. That was just after this business.’

  ‘It must have been quite the end of January then. Funny how difficult it is to recall dates after a lapse of years.’

  ‘One of the most difficult things in the world,’ said Mr Quin, conversationally. ‘Unless you can find a landmark in some big public event—an assassination of a crowned head, or a big murder trial.’

  ‘Why, of course,’ cried Conway, ‘it was just before the Appleton case.’