Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  At once Mr Satterthwaite felt excited - pleasurably excited. His ræle was that of the looker-on, and he knew it, but sometimes when in the company of Mr Quin he had the illusion of being an actor - and the principal actor at that.

  "This is very pleasant," he said, beaming all over his dried-up little face. "Very pleasant indeed. You've no objection to my joining you, I hope?"

  "I shall be delighted," said Mr Quin. "As you see, I have not yet begun my meal."

  A deferential head waiter hovered up out of the shadows. Mr Satterthwaite, as befitted a man with a seasoned palate, gave his whole mind to the task of selection. In a few minutes, the head waiter, a slight smile of approbation on his lips, retired, and a young satellite began his ministrations. Mr Satterthwaite turned to Mr Quin.

  "I have just come from the Old Bailey," he began. "A sad business, I thought."

  "He was found guilty?" said Mr Quin.

  "Yes, the jury were out only half an hour."

  Mr Quin bowed his head.

  "An inevitable result - on the evidence," he said.

  "And yet," began Mr Satterthwaite - and stopped.

  Mr Quin finished the sentence for him.

  "And yet your sympathies were with the accused? Is that what you were going to say?"

  "I suppose it was. Martin Wylde is a nice-looking young fellow - one can hardly believe it of him. All the same, there have been a good many nice-looking young fellows lately who have turned out to be murderers of a particularly cold-blooded and repellent type."

  "Too many," said Mr Quin quietly.

  "I beg your pardon?" said Mr Satterthwaite, slightly startled.

  "Too many for Martin Wylde. There has been a tendency from the beginning to regard this as just one more of a series of the same type of crime - a man seeking to free himself from one woman in order to marry another."

  "Well," said Mr Satterthwaite doubtfully. "On the evidence -"

  "Ah!" said Mr Quin quickly. "I am afraid I have not followed all the evidence."

  Mr Satterthwaite's self-confidence came back to him with a rush. He felt a sudden sense of power. He was tempted to be consciously dramatic.

  "Let me try and show it to you. I have met the Barnabys, you understand. I know the peculiar circumstances. With me, you will come behind the scenes - you will see the thing from inside."

  Mr Quin leant forward with his quick encouraging smile.

  "If anyone can show me that, it will be Mr Satterthwaite," he murmured.

  Mr Satterthwaite gripped the table with both hands. He was uplifted, carried out of himself. For the moment, he was an artist pure and simple - an artist whose medium was words.

  Swiftly, with a dozen broad strokes, he etched in the picture of life at Deering Hill. Sir George Barnaby, elderly, obese, purse-proud. A man perpetually fussing over the little things of life. A man who wound up his clocks every Friday afternoon, and who paid his own house-keeping books every Tuesday morning, and who always saw to the locking of his own front door every night. A careful man.

  And from Sir George he went on to Lady Barnaby. Here his touch was gentler, but none the less sure. He had seen her but once, but his impression of her was definite and lasting. A vivid defiant creature - pitifully young. A trapped child, that was how he described her.

  "She hated him, you understand? She had married him before she knew what she was doing. And now -"

  She was desperate - that was how he put it. Turning this way and that. She had no money of her own, she was entirely dependent on this elderly husband. But all the same she was a creature at bay - still unsure of her own powers, with a beauty that was as yet more promise than actuality. And she was greedy. Mr Satterthwaite affirmed that definitely. Side by side with defiance there ran a greedy streak - a clasping and a clutching at life.

  "I never met Martin Wylde," continued Mr Satterthwaite. "But I heard of him. He lived less than a mile away. Farming, that was his line. And she took an interest in farming - or pretended to. If you ask me, it was pretending. I think that she saw in him her only way of escape - and she grabbed at him, greedily, like a child might have done. Well, there could only be one end to that. We know what that end was, because the letters were read out in court. He kept her letters - she didn't keep his, but from the text of hers one can see that he was cooling off. He admits as much. There was the other girl. She also lived in the village of Deering Vale. Her father was the doctor there.

  You saw her in court, perhaps? No, I remember, you were not there, you said. I shall have to describe her to you. A fair girl - very fair.

  Gentle. Perhaps - yes, perhaps a tiny bit stupid. But very restful, you know. And loyal. Above all, loyal."

  He looked at Mr Quin for encouragement, and Mr Quin gave it him by a slow appreciative smile. Mr Satterthwaite went on.

  "You heard that last letter read - you must have seen it, in the papers, I mean. The one written on the morning of Friday, September 13th. It was full of desperate reproaches and vague threats, and it ended by begging Martin Wylde to come to Deering Hill that same evening at six o'clock. 'I will leave the side door open for you, so that no one need know you have been here. I shall be in the music room.'

  It was sent by hand."

  Mr Satterthwaite paused for a minute or two.

  "When he was first arrested, you remember, Martin Wylde denied that he had been to the house at all that evening. His statement was that he had taken his gun and gone out shooting in the woods. But when the police brought forward their evidence, that statement broke down. They had found his finger-prints, you remember, both on the wood of the side door and on one of the two cocktail glasses on the table in the music room. He admitted then that he had come to see Lady Barnaby, that they had had a stormy interview, but that it had ended in his having managed to soothe her down. He swore that he left his gun outside leaning against the wall near the door, and that he left Lady Barnaby alive and well, the time being then a minute or two after a quarter past six. He went straight home, he says. But evidence was called to show that he did not reach his farm until a quarter to seven, and as I have just mentioned, it is barely a mile away. It would not take half an hour to get there. He forgot all about his gun, he declares. Not a very likely statement - and yet -"

  "And yet?" queried Mr Quin.

  "Well," said Mr Satterthwaite slowly, "it's a possible one, isn't it?

  Counsel ridiculed the supposition, of course, but I think he was wrong. You see, I've known a good many young men, and these emotional scenes upset them very much - especially the dark, nervous type like Martin Wylde. Women now, can go through a scene like that and feel positively better for it afterwards, with all their wits about them. It acts like a safety valve for them, steadies their nerves down and all that. But I can see Martin Wylde going away with his head in a whirl, sick and miserable, and without a thought of the gun he had left leaning up against the wall - He was silent for some minutes before he went on.

  "Not that it matters. For the next part is only too clear, unfortunately.

  It was exactly twenty minutes past six when the shot was heard. All the servants heard it, the cook, the kitchen-maid, the butler, the housemaid and Lady Barnaby's own maid. They came rushing to the music room. She was lying huddled over the arm of her chair. The gun had been discharged close to the back of her head, so that the shot hadn't a chance to scatter. At least two of them penetrated the brain."

  He paused again and Mr Quin asked casually.

  "The servants gave evidence, I suppose?"

  Mr Satterthwaite nodded.

  "Yes. The butler got there a second or two before the others, but their evidence was practically a repetition of each other's."

  "So they all gave evidence," said Mr Quin musingly. "There were no exceptions?"

  "Now I remember it," said Mr Satterthwaite, "the housemaid was only called at the inquest. She's gone to Canada since, I believe."

  "I see," said Mr Quin.

  There was a silence, and somehow the ai
r of the little restaurant seemed to be charged with an uneasy feeling. Mr Satterthwaite felt suddenly as though he were on the defensive.

  "Why shouldn't she?" he said abruptly.

  "Why should she?" said Mr Quin with a very slight shrug of the shoulders.

  Somehow, the question annoyed Mr Satterthwaite. He wanted to shy away from it - to get back on familiar ground.

  "There couldn't be much doubt who fired the shot. As a matter of fact the servants seemed to have lost their heads a bit. There was no one in the house to take charge. It was some minutes before anyone thought of ringing up the police, and when they did so they found that the telephone was out of order."

  "Oh!" said Mr Quin. "The telephone was out of order."

  "It was," said Mr Satterthwaite - and was struck suddenly by the feeling that he had said something tremendously important. "It might, of course, have been done on purpose," he said slowly. "But there seems no point in that. Death was practically instantaneous."

  Mr Quin said nothing, and Mr Satterthwaite felt that his explanation was unsatisfactory.

  "There was absolutely no one to suspect but young Wylde," he went on. "By his own account, even, he was only out of the house three minutes before the shot was fired. And who else could have fired it?

  Sir George was at a bridge party a few houses away. He left there at half-past six and was met just outside the gate by a servant bringing him the news. The last rubber finished at half-past six exactly - no doubt about that. Then there was Sir George's secretary, Henry Thompson. He was in London that day, and actually at a business meeting at the moment the shot was fired. Finally, there is Sylvia Dale who, after all, had a perfectly good motive, impossible as it seems that she should have had anything to do with such a crime.

  She was at the station of Deering Vale seeing a friend off by the 6.28 train. That lets her out. Then the servants. What earthly motive could any one of them have? Besides they all arrived on the spot practically simultaneously. No, it must have been Martin Wylde."

  But he said it in a dissatisfied kind of voice.

  They went on with their lunch. Mr Quin was not in a talkative mood, and Mr Satterthwaite had said all he had to say. But the silence was not a barren one. It was filled with the growing dissatisfaction of Mr Satterthwaite, heightened and fostered in some strange way by the mere acquiescence of the other man.

  Mr Satterthwaite suddenly put down his knife and fork with a clatter.

  "Supposing that that young man is really innocent," he said. "he's going to be hanged."

  He looked very startled and upset about it. And still Mr Quin said nothing.

  "It's not as though -" began Mr Satterthwaite, and stopped. "Why shouldn't the woman go to Canada?" he ended inconsequently.

  Mr Quin shook his head.

  "I don't even know what part of Canada she went to," continued Mr Satterthwaite peevishly.

  "Could you find out?" suggested the other.

  "I suppose I could. The butler, now. He'd know. Or possibly Thompson, the secretary."

  He paused again. When he resumed speech, his voice sounded almost pleading.

  "It's not as though it were anything to do with me?"

  "That a young man is going to be hanged in a little over three weeks?"

  "Well, yes - if you put it that way, I suppose. Yes, I see what you mean. Life and death. And that poor girl, too. It's not that I'm hardheaded - but, after all - what good will it do? Isn't the whole thing rather fantastic? Even if I found out where the woman's gone in Canada - why, it would probably mean that I should have to go out there myself." Mr Satterthwaite looked seriously upset. "And I was thinking of going to the Riviera next week," he said pathetically.

  And his glance towards Mr Quin said as plainly as it could be said, "Do let me off, won't you?"

  "You have never been to Canada?"

  "Never."

  "A very interesting country."

  Mr Satterthwaite looked at him undecidedly. "You think I ought to go?"

  Mr Quin leaned back in his chair and lighted a cigarette. Between puffs of smoke, he spoke deliberately.

  "You are, I believe, a rich man, Mr Satterthwaite. Not a millionaire, but a man able to indulge a hobby without counting the expense. You have looked on at the dramas of other people. Have you never contemplated stepping in and playing a part? Have you never seen yourself for a minute as the arbiter of other peoples' destinies standing in the centre of the stage with life and death in your hands?"

  Mr Satterthwaite leant forward. The old eagerness surged over him.

  "You mean - if I go on this wild-goose chase to Canada -?"

  Mr Quin smiled.

  "Oh! It was your suggestion, going to Canada, not mine," he said lightly.

  "You can't put me off like that," said Mr Satterthwaite earnestly.

  "Whenever I have come across you -" he stopped. "Well?"

  "There is something about you I do not understand. Perhaps I never shall. The last time I met you -"

  "On Midsummer's Eve."

  Mr Satterthwaite was startled, as though the words held a clue that he did not quite understand.

  "Was it Midsummer's Eve?" he asked confusedly.

  "Yes. But let us not dwell on that. It is unimportant, is it not?"

  "Since you say so," said Mr Satterthwaite courteously. He felt that elusive clue slipping through his fingers. "When I come back from Canada -" he paused a little awkwardly - "I - I - should much like to see you again."

  "I am afraid I have no fixed address for the moment," said Mr Quin regretfully. "But I often come to this place. If you also frequent it, we shall no doubt meet before very long."

  They parted pleasantly.

  Mr Satterthwaite was very excited. He hurried round to Cook's and inquired about boat sailings. Then he rang up Deering Hill. The voice of a butler, suave and deferential, answered him.

  "My name is Satterthwaite. I am speaking for a - er - firm of solicitors.

  I wished to make a few inquiries about a young woman who was recently housemaid in your establishment."

  "Would that be Louisa, sir? Louisa Bullard?"

  "That is the name," said Mr Satterthwaite, very pleased to be told it.

  "I regret she is not in this country, sir. She went to Canada six months ago."

  "Can you give me her present address?"

  The butler was afraid he couldn't. It was a place in the mountains she had gone to - a Scotch name - ah! Banff, that was it. Some of the other young women in the house had been expecting to hear from her, but she had never written or given them any address.

  Mr Satterthwaite thanked him and rang off. He was still undaunted.

  The adventurous spirit was strong in his breast.

  He would go to Banff. If this Louisa Bullard was there, he would track her down somehow or other.

  To his own surprise, he enjoyed the trip greatly. It was many years since he had taken a long sea voyage. The Riviera, Le Touquet and Deauville, and Scotland had been his usual round. The feeling that he was setting off on an impossible mission added a secret zest to his journey. What an utter fool these fellow travellers of his would think him did they but know the object of his quest! But then - they were not acquainted with Mr Quin.

  In Banff he found his objective easily attained. Louisa Bullard was employed in the large Hotel there. Twelve hours after his arrival he was standing face to face with her.

  She was a woman of about thirty-five, anaemic looking, but with a strong frame. She had pale brown hair inclined to curl, and a pair of honest brown eyes. She was, he thought, slightly stupid, but very trustworthy.

  She accepted quite readily his statement that he had been asked to collect a few further facts from her about the tragedy at Deering Hill.

  "I saw in the paper that Mr Martin Wylde had been convicted, sir.

  Very sad, it is, too."

  She seemed, however, to have no doubt as to his guilt. "A nice young gentleman gone wrong. But though I wouldn't speak ill of
the dead, it was her ladyship what led him on. Wouldn't leave him alone, she wouldn't. Well, they've both got their punishment. There's a text used to hang on my wall when I was a child, 'God is not mocked,' and it's very true. I knew something was going to happen that very evening and sure enough it did."

  "How was that?" said Mr Satterthwaite.

  "I was in my room, sir, changing my dress, and I happened to glance out of the window. There was a train going along, and the white smoke of it rose up in the air, and if you'll believe me it formed itself into the sign of a gigantic hand. A great white hand against the crimson of the sky. The fingers were crooked like, as though they were reaching out for something. It fair gave me a turn. 'Did you ever now?' I said to myself. 'That's a sign of something coming -' and sure enough at that very minute I heard the shot. "It's come," I said to myself, and I rushed downstairs and joined Carrie and the others who were in the hall, and we went into the music room and there she was, shot through the head - and the blood and everything. Horrible!

  I spoke up, I did, and told Sir George how I'd seen the sign beforehand, but he didn't seem to think much of it. An unlucky day, that was, I'd felt it in my bones from early in the morning. Friday, and the 13th - what could you expect?"

  She rambled on. Mr Satterthwaite was patient. Again and again he took her back to the crime, questioning her closely. In the end he was forced to confess defeat. Louisa Bullard had told all she knew, and her story was perfectly simple and straightforward.

  Yet he did discover one fact of importance. The post in question had been suggested to her by Mr Thompson, Sir George's secretary. The wages attached were so large that she was tempted, and accepted the job, although it involved her leaving England very hurriedly. A Mr Denman had made all the arrangements this end and had also warned her not to write to her fellow-servants in England, as this might get her into trouble with the immigration authorities, which statement she had accepted in blind faith.

  The amount of wages, casually mentioned by her, was indeed so large that Mr Satterthwaite was startled. After some hesitation he made up his mind to approach this Mr Denman.