Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  "It's impossible," he murmured. "Impossible! It's against all science - all nature..." His voice tailed off in a shudder. "That mouse last night," he said. "But - oh, it couldn't be!"

  "Lady Carmichael," I said, "is a very strange woman. She has occult powers - hypnotic powers. Her forebears came from the East. Can we know what use she might have made of these powers over a weak lovable nature such as Arthur Carmichael's? And remember, Settle, if Arthur Carmichael remains a hopeless imbecile, devoted to her, the whole property is practically hers and her son's - whom you have told me she adores. And Arthur was going to be married!"

  "But what are we going to do, Carstairs?"

  "There's nothing to be done," I said. "We'll do our best, though, to stand between Lady Carmichael and vengeance."

  Lady Carmichael improved slowly. Her injuries healed themselves as well as could be expected - the scars of that terrible assault she would probably bear to the end of her life.

  I had never felt more helpless. The power that defeated us was still at large, undefeated, and though quiescent for the minute we could hardly regard as doing otherwise than biding its time. I was determined upon one thing. As soon as Lady Carmichael was well enough to be moved, she must be taken away from Wolden. There was just a chance that the terrible manifestation might be unable to follow her. So the days went on.

  I had fixed September 18 as the date of Lady Carmichael's removal. It was on the morning of the 14th when the unexpected crisis arose.

  I was in the library discussing details of Lady Carmichael's case with Settle when an agitated housemaid rushed into the room.

  "Oh, sir!" she cried. "Be quick! Mr Arthur - he's fallen into the pond. He stepped on the punt and it pushed off with him, and he overbalanced and fell in! I saw it from the window."

  I waited for no more, but ran straight out of the room followed by Settle.

  Phyllis was just outside and had heard the maid's story. She ran with us.

  "But you needn't be afraid," she cried. "Arthur is a magnificent swimmer."

  I felt forebodings, however, and redoubled my pace. The surface of the pond was unruffled. The empty punt floated lazily about - but of Arthur there was no sign.

  Settle pulled off his coat and his boots. "I'm going in," he said. "You take the boat hook and fish about from the other punt. It's not very deep."

  Very long the time seemed as we searched vainly.

  Minute followed minute. And then, just as we were despairing, we found him, and bore the apparently lifeless body of Arthur Carmichael to shore.

  As long as I live I shall never forget the hopeless agony of Phyllis's face.

  "Not - not -" Her lips refused to frame the dreadful word.

  "No, no, my dear," I cried. "We'll bring him round, never fear."

  But inwardly I had little hope. He had been under water for half an hour.

  I sent off Settle to the house for hot blankets and other necessaries, and began myself to apply artificial respiration.

  We worked vigorously with him for over an hour, but there was no sign of life. I motioned to Settle to take my place again, and I approached Phyllis.

  "I'm afraid," I said gently, "that it is no good. Arthur is beyond our help."

  She stayed quite still for a moment and then suddenly flung herself down on the lifeless body.

  "Arthur!" she cried desperately. "Arthur! Come back to me! Arthur come back - come back!"

  Her voice echoed away into silence. Suddenly I touched Settle's arm.

  "Look!" I said.

  A faint tinge of colour had crept into the drowned man's face. I felt his heart.

  "Go on with the respiration," I cried. "He's coming round!"

  The moments seemed to fly now. In a marvellously short time his eyes opened.

  Then suddenly I realized a difference. These were intelligent eyes, human eyes...

  They rested on Phyllis.

  "Hallo! Phil," he said weakly. "Is it you? I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow."

  She could not yet trust herself to speak, but she smiled at him. He looked around with increasing bewilderment.

  "But, I say, where am I? And - how rotten I feel! What's the matter with me? Hallo, Dr Settle!"

  "You've been nearly drowned - that's what's the matter," returned Settle grimly.

  Sir Arthur made a grimace.

  "I've always heard it was beastly coming back afterwards! But how did it happen? Was I walking in my sleep?"

  Settle shook his head.

  "We must get him to the house," I said, stepping forward.

  He stared at me, and Phyllis introduced me. "Dr Carstairs, who is staying here."

  We supported him between us and started for the house. He looked up suddenly as though struck by an idea.

  "I say, doctor, this won't knock me up for the twelfth, will it?"

  "The twelfth?" I said slowly, "you mean the twelfth of August?"

  "Yes - next Friday."

  "Today is the fourteenth of September," said Settle abruptly.

  His bewilderment was evident.

  "But - but I thought it was the eighth of August? I must have been ill then?"

  Phyllis interposed rather quickly in her gentle voice.

  "Yes," she said, "you've been very ill."

  He frowned. "I can't understand it. I was perfectly all right when I went to bed last night - at least of course it wasn't really last night. I had dreams, though. I remember, dreams..." His brow furrowed itself still more as he strove to remember. "Something - what was it? - something dreadful - someone had done it to me - and I was angry - desperate...

  And then I dreamed I was a cat - yes, a cat! Funny, wasn't it? But it wasn't a funny dream. It was more - horrible! But I can't remember. It all goes when I think."

  I laid my hand on his shoulder. "Don't try to think, Sir Arthur, I said gravely. "Be content - to forget."

  He looked at me in a puzzled way and nodded. I heard Phyllis draw a breath of relief. We had reached the house.

  "By the way," said Sir Arthur suddenly, "where's the mater?"

  "She has been - ill," said Phyllis after a momentary pause.

  "Oh! Poor old mater!" His voice rang with genuine concern. "Where is she? In her room?"

  "Yes," I said, "but you had better not disturb -"

  The words froze on my lips. The door of the drawing room opened and Lady Carmichael, wrapped in a dressing gown, came out into the hall.

  Her eyes were fixed on Arthur, and if ever I have seen a look of absolute guilt-stricken terror, I saw it then. Her face was hardly human in its frenzied terror. Her hand went to her throat.

  Arthur advanced towards her with boyish affection.

  "Hallo, mater! So you've been ill too? I say, I'm awfully sorry."

  She shrank back before him, her eyes dilating. Then suddenly, with the shriek of a doomed soul, she fell backwards through the open door.

  I rushed and bent over her, then beckoned to Settle.

  "Hush," I said. "Take him upstairs quietly and then come down again.

  Lady Carmichael is dead."

  He returned in a few minutes.

  "What was it?" he asked. "What caused it?"

  "Shock." I said grimly. "The shock of seeing Arthur Carmichael, the real Arthur Carmichael, restored to life! Or you may call it, as I prefer to, the judgment of God!"

  "You mean -" He hesitated.

  I looked at him in the eyes so that he understood.

  "A life for a life," I said significantly.

  "But -"

  "Oh! I know that a strange and unforeseen accident permitted the spirit of Arthur Carmichael to return to his body. But, nevertheless, Arthur Carmichael was murdered."

  He looked at me half fearfully. "With prussic acid?" he asked in a low tone.

  "Yes," I answered. "With prussic acid."

  Settle and I have never spoken of our belief. It is not one likely to be credited. According to the orthodox point of view Arthur Carmichael merely suffered from
loss of memory, Lady Carmichael lacerated her own throat in a temporary fit of mania, and the apparition of the Grey Cat was mere imagination.

  But there are two facts that to my mind are unmistakable. One is the ripped chair in the corridor. The other is even more significant. A catalogue of the library was found, and after exhaustive search it was proved that the missing volume was an ancient and curious work on the possibilities of the metamorphosis of human beings into animals!

  One thing more. I am thankful to say that Arthur knows nothing. Phyllis has locked the secret of those weeks in her own heart, and she will never, I am sure, reveal them to the husband she loves so dearly, and who came back across the barrier of the grave at the call of her voice.

  THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

  Mr Mayherne adjusted his pince-nez and cleared his throat with a little dry-as-dust cough that was wholly typical of him. Then he looked again at the man opposite him, the man charged with willful murder. Mr Mayherne was a small man, precise in manner, neatly, not to say foppishly dressed, with a pair of very shrewd and piercing gray eyes. By no means a fool. Indeed, as a solicitor, Mr Mayherne's reputation stood very high. His voice, when he spoke to his client, was dry but not unsympathetic. "I must impress upon you again that you are in very grave danger, and that the utmost frankness is necessary." Leonard Vole, who had been staring in a dazed fashion at the blank wall in front of him, transferred his glance to the solicitor. "I know," he said hopelessly. "You keep telling me so. But I can't seem to realize yet that I'm charged with murder - murder. And such a dastardly crime too." Mr Mayherne was practical, not emotional. He coughed again, took off his pince-nez, polished them carefully, and replaced them on his nose. Then he said: "Yes, yes, yes. Now, my dear Mr Vole, we're going to make a determined effort to get you off - and we shall succeed - we shall succeed. But I must have all the facts. I must know just how damaging the case against you is likely to be. Then we can fix upon the best line of defense."

  Still the young man looked at him in the same dazed, hopeless fashion.

  To Mr Mayherne the case had seemed black enough, and the guilt of the prisoner assured. Now, for the first time, he felt a doubt.

  "You think I'm guilty," said Leonard Vole, in a low voice. "But, by God, I swear I'm not! It looks pretty black against me, I know that. I'm like a man caught in a net - the meshes of it all round me, entangling me whichever way I turn. But I didn't do it, Mr Mayherne, I didn't do it!"

  In such a position a man was bound to protest his innocence. Mr Mayherne knew that. Yet, in spite of himself, he was impressed. It might be, after all, that Leonard Vole was innocent "You are right, Mr Vole," he said gravely. "The case does look very black against you. Nevertheless, I accept your assurance. Now, let us get to facts. I want you to tell me in your own words exactly how you came to make the acquaintance of Miss Emily French."

  "It was one day in Oxford Street. I saw an elderly lady crossing the road.

  She was carrying a lot of parcels. In the middle of the street she dropped them, tried to recover them, found a bus was almost on top of her and just managed to reach the curb safely, dazed and bewildered by people having shouted at her. I recovered her parcels, wiped the mud off them as best I could, retied the string of one, and returned them to her."

  "There was no question of your having saved her life?"

  "Oh, dear me, no! All I did was to perform a common act of courtesy.

  She was extremely grateful, thanked me warmly, and said something about my manners not being those of most of the younger generation - I can't remember the exact words. Then I lifted my hat and went on. I never expected to see her again. But life is full of coincidences. That very evening I came across her at a party at a friend's house. She recognized me at once and asked that I should be introduced to her. I then found out that she was a Miss Emily French and that she lived at Cricklewood. I talked to her for some time. She was, I imagine, an old lady who took sudden and violent fancies to people. She took one to me on the strength of a perfectly simple action which anyone might have performed. On leaving, she shook me warmly by the hand, and asked me to come and see her. I replied, of course, that I should be very pleased to do so, and she then urged me to name a day. I did not want particularly to go, but it would have seemed churlish to refuse, so I fixed on the following Saturday. After she had gone, I learned something about her from my friends. That she was rich, eccentric, lived alone with one maid and owned no less than eight cats."

  "I see," said Mr Mayherne. "The question of her being well off came up as early as that?"

  "If you mean that I inquired -" began Leonard Vole hotly, but Mr Mayherne stilled him with a gesture.

  "I have to look at the case as it will be presented by the other side. An ordinary observer would not have supposed Miss French to be a lady of means. She lived poorly, almost humbly. Unless you had been told the contrary, you would in all probability have considered her to be in poor circumstances - at any rate to begin with. Who was it exactly who told you that she was well off?"

  "My friend, George Harvey, at whose house the party took place."

  "Is he likely to remember having done so?"

  "I really don't know. Of course it is some time ago now."

  "Quite so, Mr Vole. You see, the first aim of the prosecution will be to establish that you were in low water financially - that is true, is it not?"

  Leonard Vole flushed.

  "Yes," he said, in a low voice. "I'd been having a run of infernal bad luck just then."

  "Quite so," said Mr Mayherne again. "That being, as I say, in low water financially, you met this rich old lady and cultivated her acquaintance assiduously. Now if we are in a position to say that you had no idea she was well off, and that you visited her out of pure kindness of heart -"

  "Which is the case."

  "I dare say. I am not disputing the point. I am looking at it from the outside point of view. A great deal depends on the memory of Mr Harvey. Is he likely to remember that conversation or is he not? Could he be confused by counsel into believing that it took place later?"

  Leonard Vole reflected for some minutes. Then he said steadily enough, but with a rather paler face:

  "I do not think that that line would be successful, Mr Mayherne. Several of those present heard his remark, and one or two of them chaffed me about my conquest of a rich old lady."

  The solicitor endeavored to hide his disappointment with a wave of the hand.

  "Unfortunate," he said. "But I congratulate you upon your plain speaking, Mr Vole. It is to you I look to guide me. Your judgment is quite right. To persist in the line I spoke of would have been disastrous. We must leave that point. You made the acquaintance of Miss French, you called upon her, the acquaintanceship progressed. We want a clear reason for all this. Why did you, a young man of thirty-three, goodlooking, fond of sport, popular with your friends, devote so much of your time to an elderly woman with whom you could hardly have anything in common?"

  Leonard Vole flung out his hands in a nervous gesture.

  "I can't tell you - I really can't tell you. After the first visit, she pressed me to come again, spoke of being lonely and unhappy. She made it difficult for me to refuse. She showed so plainly her fondness and affection for me that I was placed in an awkward position. You see, Mr Mayherne, I've got a weak nature - I drift - I'm one of those people who can't say 'No.' And believe me or not, as you like, after the third or fourth visit I paid her I found myself getting genuinely fond of the old thing. My mother died when I was young, an aunt brought me up, and she too died before I was fifteen. If I told you that I genuinely enjoyed being mothered and pampered, I dare say you'd only laugh."

  Mr Mayherne did not laugh. Instead he took off his pince-nez again and polished them, a sign with him that he was thinking deeply.

  "I accept your explanation, Mr Vole," he said at last "I believe it to be psychologically probable. Whether a jury would take that view of it is another matter. Please continue your narrative.
When was it that Miss French first asked you to look into her business affairs?"

  "After my third or fourth visit to her. She understood very little of money matters, and was worried about some investments."

  Mr Mayherne looked up sharply.

  "Be careful, Mr Vole. The maid, Janet Mackenzie, declares that her mistress was a good woman of business and transacted all her own affairs, and this is borne out by the testimony of her bankers."

  "I can't help that," said Vole earnestly. "That's what she said to me."

  Mr Mayherne looked at him for a moment or two in silence. Though he had no intention of saying so, his belief in Leonard Vole's innocence was at that moment strengthened. He knew something of the mentality of elderly ladies. He saw Miss French, infatuated with the good-looking young man, hunting about for pretexts that would bring him to the house. What more likely than that she should plead ignorance of business, and beg him to help her with her money affairs? She was enough of a woman of the world to realize that any man is slightly flattered by such an admission of his superiority. Leonard Vole had been flattered. Perhaps, too, she had not been averse to letting this young man know that she was wealthy. Emily French had been a strong-willed old woman, willing to pay her price for what she wanted.

  All this passed rapidly through Mr Mayherne's mind, but he gave no indication of it, and asked instead a further question.

  "And you did handle her affairs for her at request?"

  "I did."

  "Mr Vole," said the solicitor, "I am going to ask you a very serious question, and one to which it is vital I should have a truthful answer.

  You were in low water financially. You had the handling of an old lady's affairs - an old lady who, according to her own statement, knew little or nothing of business. Did you at any time, or in any manner, convert to your own use the securities which you handled? Did you engage in any transaction for your own pecuniary advantage which will not bear the light of day?" He quelled the other's response. "Wait a minute before you answer. There are two courses open to us. Either we can make a feature of your probity and honesty in conducting her affairs whilst pointing out how unlikely it is that you would commit murder to obtain money which you might have obtained by such infinitely easier means.