The Golden Ball and Other Stories

by Agatha Christie

Hamer found an odd difficulty in beginning his conversation.

  "Look here," he said awkwardly, "I want to know--what was that thing you were playing just now?"

  The man smiled .... With his smile the world seemed suddenly to leap into joyousness ....

  188 Agatha Christie

  "It was an old tune--a very old tune Years

  old--

  centuries

  old."

  He

  spoke with an odd purity and distinctness of enunciation,

  giving equal value to each syllable. He was clearly not

  an Englishman, yet Hamer was puzzled as to his nationality.

  "You're

  not English? Where do you come from?"

  Again

  the broad joyful smile.

  "From

  over the sea, sir. I came--a long time ago--a very

  long time ago."

  "You

  must have had a bad accident. Was it lately?"

  "Some

  time now, sir."

  "Rough

  luck to lose both legs."

  "It

  was well," said the man very calmly. He turned his eyes

  with a strange solemnity on his interlocutor. "They were

  evil."

  Hamer

  dropped a shilling in his hand and turned away. He

  was puzzled and vaguely disquieted. "They were evil!" What

  a strange thing to say! Evidently an operation for some form

  of disease, but--how odd it had sounded.

  Hamer

  went home thoughtful. He tried in vain to dismiss the

  incident from his mind. Lying in bed, with the first incipient

  sensation of drowsiness stealing over him, he heard

  a neighbouring clock strike one. One clear stroke and then

  silence--silence that was broken by a faint familiar sound.

  ·.. Recognition came leaping. Hamer felt his heart beating

  quickly. It was the man in the passageway playing, somewhere

  not far distant ....

  The notes came gladly, the slow turn with its joyful call,

  the same haunting little phrase .... "It's uncanny," murmured

  Hamer; "it's uncanny. It's got wings to it .... "

  Clearer and clearer, higher and higher--each wave rising

  above the last, and catching him up with it. This time he

  did not struggle; he let himself go .... Up--up .... The

  waves of sound were carrying him higher and higher.

  ... Triumphant and free, they swept on.

  Higher and higher They

  had passed the limits of human

  sound now, but they still continued--rising, ever rising

  .... Would they reach the final goal, the full perfection of

  height?

  Rising...

  THE CALL OF WINGS

  189

  Something was pulling--pulling him downwards. Something big and heavy and insistent. It pulled remorse-lessly--pulled

  him back, and down.., down ....

  He lay in bed gazing at the window opposite. Then, breathing heavily and painfully, he stretched an arm out of

  bed. The movement seemed curiously cumbrous to him.

  The softness of the bed was oppressive; oppressive, too,

  were the heavy curtains over the window that blocked out

  light and air. The ceiling seemed to press down upon him.

  He felt stifled and choked. He moved slightly under the bedclothes, and the weight of his body seemed to him the

  most oppressive of all ....

  II

  "I want your advice, Seldon."

  Seldon pushed back his chair aninch or so from the table. He had been wondering what was the object of this

  t6te-h-tte dinner. He had seen little of Hamer since the

  winter, and he was aware tonight of some indefinable change

  in his friend.

  "It's just this," said the millionaire. "I'm worried about myself."

  Seldon smiled as he looked across the table.

  "You're looking in the pink of condition."

  "It's not that." Hamer paused a minute, then added quietly, "I'm afraid I'm going mad.".

  The nerve specialist glanced up with a sudden keen interest. He poured himself out a glass of port with a rather

  slow movement, and then said quietly, but with a sharp

  glance at the other man: "What makes you think that?"

  "Something that's happened to me; Something inexplicable, unbelievable. It can't be true, so I must be going

  mad."

  "Take your time," said Seldon, '"and tell me about it." "I don't believe in the supernatural," began Hamer. "I

  never have. But this thing... Well, I'd better tell you the

  whole story from the beginning. It began last winter one

  evening after I had dined with you."

  Then briefly and concisely he narrated the events of his

  190 Agatha Christie

  walk home and the strange sequel.

  "That was the beginning of it all. I can't explain it to

  you properly--thc feeling, I mcan--but it was wonderful!

  Unlike anything I've cvcr felt or dreamed. Well, it's gone

  on ever since. Not every night, just now and then. The

  music, the feeling of being uplifted, the soaring flight.., and

  then the terrible drag, the pull back to earth, and afterwards the pain, the actual physical pain of the awakening. It's like

  coming down from a high mountain--you know the pains

  in the cars one gets? Well, this is the same thing, but in-tcnsified--and

  with it goes the awful sense of weight--of being hemmed in, stifled .... "

  He broke off and there was a pause.

  "Already the servants think I'm mad. I couldn't bear the

  roof and the walls--I've had a place arranged up at the top

  of the house, open to the sky, with no furniture or carpets,

  or any stifling things .... But even then the houses all round

  arc nearly as bad. It's open country I want, somewhere

  wberc one can breathe .... "He looked across at Seldon.

  "Well, what do you say? Can you explain it?"

  "H'm," said Seldon. "Plenty of explanations. You've been hypnotized, or you've hypnotized yourself. Your nerves

  have gone wrong. Or it may be merely a dream."

  Hamer shook his head. "None of those explanations will

  do."

  "And there are others," said Seldon slowly, "but they're

  not generally admitted."

  "You arc prepared to admit them?"

  "On the whole, yes! There's a great deal we can't understand

  which can't possibly be explained normally. We've

  any amount to find out still, and I for one believe in keeping

  an open mind."

  "What do you advise me to do?" asked Hamer after a

  silence.

  Scldon leaned forward briskly. "One of several things. Go away from London, seek out your 'open country.' The

  dreams may cease."

  "I can't do that," said Hamer quickly. "It's come to this

  that I can't do without them. I don't want to do without

  THE CALL OF WINGS

  191

  "Ah! I guessed as much. Another alternative, find this

  fellow, this cripple. You're endowing him now with all

  sorts of supernatural attributes. Talk to him. Break the spell."

  Hamer shook his head again.

  "Why not?"

  "I'm afraid," said Hamer simply.

  Seldon made a gesture of impatience. "Don't believe in

  it all so blindly! This tune now, the medium that starts it

  all, what is it like?"

  Hamer hummed it, and Seldon listened with a puzzled

  frown.

  "Rat
her like a bit out of the overture to Rienzi. There is something uplifting about it--it had wings. But I'm not

  carried off the earth! Now, these flights of yours, are they

  all exactly the same?"

  "No, no." Hamer leaned forward eagerly. "They develop.

  Each time I see a little more. It's difficult to explain.

  You see, I'm always conscious of reaching a certain point--the

  music carded me there--not direct, but by a succession

  of waves, each reaching higher than the last, until the highest

  point where one can go no further. I stay there until I'm

  dragged back. It isn't a place, it's more a state. Well, not

  just at first, but after a little while, I began to understand

  that there were other things all round me waiting until I was

  able to perceive them. Think of a kitten. It has eyes, but at

  first it can't see with them. It's blind and had to learn to

  see. Well, that was what it was to me. Mortal eyes and ears

  were no good to me, but there was something corresponding

  to them that hadn't yet been developed--something that

  wasn't bodily at all. And little by little that grew.., there

  were sensations of light.., then of sound.., then of colour

  .... All very vague and unformulated. It was more the

  knowledge of things than seeing or hearing them. First it

  was light, a light that grew stronger and clearer.., then

  sand, great stretches of reddish sand.., and here and there

  straight, long lines of water like canals--"

  Seldon drew in his breath sharply. "Canals! That's interesting.

  Go on."

  "But these things didn't matter--they didn't count any

  longer. The real things were the things I couldn't see yet--

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  Agatha Christie

  but I heard them .... It was a sound like the rushing of

  wings... Somehow, I can't explain why, it was glorious!

  There's nothing like it here. And then came another glory--

  I saw them--thc Wings! Oh, Seldon, the Wings!"

  "But what were they? Men--angels--birds?"

  "I don't know. I couldn't see--not yet. But the colour

  of them! Wing colour--we haven't got it here--it's a wonderful

  colour."

  "Wing colour?" repeated Seldon. "What's it like?"

  Hamer flung up his hand impatiently. "How can I tell

  you? Explain the colour blue to a blind person! It's a colour

  you've never seen--Wing colour!"

  "Well?"

  "Well? That's all. That's as far as I've got. But each

  time the coming back has been worse--more painful. I

  can't understand that. I'm convinced my body never leaves

  the bed. In this place I get to I'm convinced I've got no

  physical presence. Why should it hurt so confoundedly thenT'

  Seldon shook his head in silence.

  "It's something awful--the coming back. The pull of

  it--then the pain, pain in every limb and every nerve, and

  my ears feel as though they were bursting. Then everything

  presses so, the weight of it all, the dreadful sense of im-prisonmenL'I

  want light, air, space--above all space to

  breathe in! And I want freedom."

  "And what," asked Seldon, "of all the other things that

  used to mean so much to you?"

  "That's the worst of it. I care for them still as much as,

  if not more than, ever. And these things, comfort, luxury,

  pleasure, seem to pull opposite ways to the Wings. It's a

  perpetual struggle between them--and I can't see how it's

  going to end."

  Seldon sat silent. The strange tale be had been listening

  to was fantastic enough in all truth. Was it all a delusion,

  a wild hallucination--or could it by any possibility be true?

  And if so, why Hamer, of all men... ? Surely the materialist,

  the man who loved the flesh and denied the spirit,

  was the last man to see the sights of another world.

  Across the table Hamer watched him anxiously.

  "I suppose," said Seidon slowly, "that you can only wait.

  Wait and see what happens."

  THE CALL OF WINGS

  193

  "I can't! 'tell you I can't! Your saying that shows you

  don't understand. It's tearing me in two, this awful strug

  gle-this killing, long-drawn-out fight between--be

  tween--'' He hesitated.

  "The flesh and the spirit?" suggested Seldon.

  Hamer stared heavily in front of him. "I suppose one

  might call it that. Anyway, it's unbearable I

  can't get

  free .... "

  Again

  Bernard Seldon shook his head. He was caught up

  in the grip of the inexplicable. He made one more suggestion.

  "If

  I were you," he advised, "I would get hold of that cripple."

  But

  as he went home, he muttered to himself: "Canals--I

  wonder."

  III

  Silas

  Hamer went out of the house the following morning with

  a new determination in his step. He had decided to take

  Seldon's advice and find the legless man. Yet inwardly he

  was convinced that his search would be in vain and that the

  man would have vanished as completely as though the earth

  had swallowed him up.

  The

  dark buildings on either side of the passageway shut out

  the sunlight and left it dark and mysterious. Only in one place,

  halfway up it, there was a break in the wall, and through

  it there fell a shaft of golden light that illuminated with

  radiance a figure sitting on the ground. A figure--yes, it

  was the man!

  The

  instrument of pipes leaned against the wall beside his

  crutches, and he was covering the paving stones with designs

  in coloured chalk. Two were completed, sylvan scenes

  of marvellous beauty and delicacy, swaying trees and

  a leaping brook that seemed alive.

  And again

  Hamer doubted. Was this man a mere street musician, a

  pavement artist? Or was he something more... ?

  Suddenly

  the millionaire's self-control broke down, and he

  cried fiercely and angrily: "Who are you? For God's sake,

  who are you?"

  194 Agatha Christie

  The man's eyes met is, smiling.

  "Why don't you answer? Speak, man, speak!"

  Then he noticed that the man was drawing with incredible

  rapidity on a bare slab of stone. Hamer followed the movement

  with his eyes .... A few bold strokes, and giant trees

  took form. Then, seated on a boulder.., a man.., playing

  an instrument of pipes. A man with a strangely beautiful

  face--and goat's legs ....

  The cripple's hand made a swift movement. The man

  still sat on the rock, but the goat's legs were gone. Again

  his eyes met Hamer's.

  "They were evil," he said.

  Hamer stared, fascinated. For the face before him was

  the face of the picture, but strangely and incredibly beautified

  Purified

  from all but an intense and exquisite joy

  of

  living.

  Hamer

  turned and almost fled down the passageway into the

  bright sunlight, repeating to himself incessantly: "It's impossible.

  Impossible .... I'm
mad--dreaming!" But the face

  haunted him--the face of Pan ....

  He

  went into the park and sat on a bench. It was a deserted hour.

  A few nursemaids with their charges sat in the shade of

  the trees, and dotted here and there in the stretches of green,

  like islands in a sea, lay the recumbent forms of men

  ....

  The

  words "a wretched tramp" were to Hamer an epitome of

  misery. But suddenly, today, he envied them ....

  They

  seemed to him of all created beings the only free ones.

  The earth beneath them, the sky above them, the world to wander

  in... they were not hemmed in or chained.

  Like a

  flash it came to him that that which bound him so remorselessly

  was the thing he had worshipped and prized above all

  others--wealth! He had thought it the strongest thing on

  earth, and now, wrapped round by its golden strength, he

  saw the truth of his words. It was his money that held

  him in bondage ....

  But was

  it? Was that really, it? Was there a deeper and more

  pointed truth that he had not seen? Was it the money or

  was it his own love of the money? He was bound in fetters

  of his own making; not wealth itself, but love of wealth

  was the chain.

  THE CALL OF WINGS

  19

  He knew now clearly the two forces that were tearing

  him, the warm composite strength of materialism that er

  closed and surrounded him, and, opposed to it, the cle

  imperative call--he named it to himself the Call of th

  Wings.

  And while the one fought and clung, the other scome

  war and would not stoop to struggle. It only called--calle

  unceasingly He

  heard it so clearly that it almost spok

  in

  words.

  "You

  cannot make terms with Me," it seemed to say

  "For

  I am above all other things. If you follow my call

  you

  must give up all else and cut away the forces that hol

  you.

  For only the Free shall follow where I lead "

  "I