Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  "I get back about half-past-six."

  "Capital. We'll have a pow-wow, and then perhaps you'll let me take you out to dinner. We ought to celebrate. So long, then. Tomorrow at half-past-six."

  Major Wilbraham arrived punctually on the following day. He rang the bell and inquired for Miss Clegg. A maid-servant had answered the door.

  "Miss Clegg? She's out."

  "Oh!" Wilbraham did not like to suggest that he come in and wait. I'll call back presently," he said.

  He hung about in the street outside, expecting every minute to see Freda tripping towards him. The minutes passed. Quarter to seven.

  Seven. Quarter past seven. Still no Freda. A feeling of uneasiness swept over him. He went back to the house and rang the bell again.

  "Look here" he said, "I had an appointment with Miss Clegg at halfpast-six. Are you sure she isn't in, or hasn't - er - left any message?"

  "Are you Major Wilbraham?" asked the servant.

  "Yes."

  "Then there's a note for you. It come by hand."

  Wilbraham took it from her and tore it open. It ran as follows:

  Dear Major Wilbraham:

  Something rather strange has happened. I won't write more now, but will you meet me at Whitefriars?

  Go there as soon as you get this.

  Yours sincerely, Freda Clegg Wilbraham drew his brows together as he thought rapidly. His hand drew a letter absent-mindedly from his pocket. It was to his tailor. "I wonder," he said to the maidservant, "if you could let me have a stamp."

  "I expect Mrs Parkins could oblige you."

  She returned in a moment with the stamp. It was paid for with a shilling. In another minute Wilbraham was walking towards the tube station, dropping the envelope in a box as he passed.

  Freda's letter had made him most uneasy. What could have taken the girl, alone, to the scene of yesterday's sinister encounter?

  He shook his head. Of all the foolish things to do! Had Reid reappeared? Had he somehow or other prevailed upon the girl to trust him? What had taken her to Hampstead?

  He looked at his watch. Nearly half-past-seven. She would have counted on his starting at half-past-six. An hour late. Too much. If only she had had the sense to give him some hint.

  The letter puzzled him. Somehow, its independent tone was not characteristic of Freda Clegg.

  It was ten minutes to eight when he reached Friars Lane. It was getting dark. He looked sharply about him; there was no one in sight. Gently he pushed the rickety gate so that it swung noiselessly on its hinges. The drive was deserted. The house was dark. He went up the path cautiously, keeping a lookout from side to side. He did not intend to be caught by surprise.

  Suddenly he stopped. Just for a minute a chink of light had shone through one of the shutters. The house was not empty. There was someone inside.

  Softly Wilbraham slipped into the bushes and worked his way round to the back of the house. At last he found what he was looking for.

  One of the windows on the ground floor was unfastened. It was the window of a kind of scullery. He raised the sash, flashed a torch (he had bought it at a shop on the way over) around the deserted interior and climbed in.

  Carefully he opened the scullery door. There was no sound. He flashed the torch once more. A kitchen - empty. Outside the kitchen were half a dozen steps and a door evidently leading to the front part of the house. He pushed open the door and listened. Nothing.

  He slipped through. He was now in the front hall. Still there was no sound. There was a door to the right and a door to the left. He chose the right-hand door, listened for a time, then turned the handle. It gave. Inch by inch he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Again he flashed the torch. The room was unfurnished and bare.

  Just at that moment he heard a sound behind him, whirled round too late. Something came down on his head and he pitched forward into unconsciousness.

  How much time elapsed before he regained consciousness Wilbraham had no idea. He returned painfully to life, his head aching. He tried to move and found it impossible. He was bound with ropes.

  His wits came back to him suddenly. He remembered now. He had been hit on the head.

  A faint light from a gas jet high up on the wall showed him that he was in a small cellar. He looked around and his heart gave a leap. A few feet away lay Freda, bound like himself. Her eyes were closed, but even as he watched her anxiously, she sighed and they opened.

  Her bewildered gaze fell on him and joyous recognition leaped into them.

  "You, too!" she said. "What has happened?"

  "I've let you down badly," said Wilbraham. "Tumbled headlong into the trap. Tell me, did you send me a note asking me to meet you here?"

  The girl's eyes opened in astonishment. "I? But you sent me one."

  "Oh, I sent you one, did I?"

  "Yes. I got it at the office. It asked me to meet you here instead of at home."

  "Same method for both of us," he groaned, and he explained the situation.

  "I see," said Freda. "Then the idea was -"

  "To get the paper. We must have been followed yesterday. That's how they got on to me."

  "And - have they got it?" asked Freda.

  "Unfortunately, I can't feel and see," said the soldier, regarding his bound hands ruefully.

  And then they both started. For a voice spoke, a voice that seemed to come from the empty air.

  "Yes, thank you," it said. "I've got it, all right. No mistake about that."

  The unseen voice made them both shiver.

  "Mr Reid," murmured Freda.

  "Mr Reid is one of my names, my dear young lady," said the voice.

  "But only one of them. I have a great many. Now, I am sorry to say that you two have interfered with my plans - a thing I never allow.

  Your discovery of this house is a serious matter. You have not told the police about it yet, but you might do so in the future.

  "I very much fear that I cannot trust you in the matter. You might promise - but promises are seldom kept. And you see, this house is very useful to me. It is, you might say, my clearing house. The house from which there is no return. From here you pass on elsewhere. You, I am sorry to say, are so passing on. Regrettable but necessary."

  The voice paused for a brief second, then resumed:

  "No bloodshed. I abhor bloodshed. My method is much simpler. And really not too painful, so I understand. Well, I must be getting along.

  Good evening to you both."

  "Look here!" It was Wilbraham who spoke. "Do what you like to me, but this young lady has done nothing - nothing. It can't hurt you to let her go."

  But there was no answer.

  At that moment there came a cry from Freda. "The water - the water!"

  Wilbraham twisted himself painfully and followed the direction of her eyes. From a hole up near the ceiling a steady trickle of water was pouring in.

  Freda gave a hysterical cry. "They're going to drown us!"

  The perspiration broke out on Wilbraham's brow.

  "We're not done yet," he said. "We'll shout for help. Surely somebody will hear. Now, both together."

  They yelled and shouted at the top of their voices. Not till they were hoarse did they stop.

  "No use, I'm afraid," said Wilbraham sadly. "We're too far underground and I expect the doors are muffled. After all, if we could be heard, I've no doubt that brute would have gagged us."

  "Oh!" cried Freda. "And it's all my fault. I got you into this."

  "Don't worry about that, little girl. It's you I'm thinking about. I've been in tight corners before now and got out of them. Don't you lose heart. I'll get you out of this. We've plenty of time. At the rate that water's flowing in, it will be hours before the worst happens."

  "How wonderful you are!" said Freda. "I've never met anybody like you - except in books."

  "Nonsense - just common sense. Now, I've got to loosen these infernal ropes."

  At the end of a quarter of an hou
r, by dint of straining and twisting, Wilbraham had the satisfaction of feeling that his bonds were appreciably loosened. He managed to bend his head down and his wrists up till he was able to attack the knots with his teeth.

  Once his hands were free, the rest was only a matter of time.

  Cramped, stiff, but free, he bent over the girl. A minute later she also was free.

  So far the water was only up to their ankles.

  "And now," said the soldier, "to get out of here."

  The door of the cellar was up a few stairs. Major Wilbraham examined it.

  "No difficulty here," he said. "Flimsy stuff, it will soon give at the hinges." He set his shoulders to it and heaved.

  There was the cracking of wood - a crash, and the door burst from its hinges.

  Outside was a flight of stairs. At the top was another door - a very different affair - of solid wood, with iron.

  "A bit more difficult, this," said Wilbraham. "Hello, here's a piece of luck. It's unlocked."

  He pushed it open, peered round it, then beckoned the girl to come on. They emerged into a passage behind the kitchen. In another moment they were standing under the stars in Friars Lane.

  "Oh!" Freda gave a little sob. "Oh, how dreadful it's been!"

  "My poor darling." He caught her in his arms. "You've been so wonderfully brave. Freda - darling angel - could you ever - I mean, would you - I love you, Freda. Will you marry me?"

  After a suitable interval, highly satisfactory to both parties, Major Wilbraham said with a chuckle:

  "And what's more, we've still got the secret of the ivory cache."

  "But they took it from you!"

  The major chuckled again. "That's just what they didn't do! You see, I wrote out a spoof copy, and before joining you here tonight, I put the real thing in a letter I was sending to my tailor and posted it.

  They've got the spoof copy - and I wish them joy of it! Do you know what we'll do, sweetheart? We'll go to East Africa for our honeymoon and hunt out the cache."

  Mr Parker Pyne left his office and climbed two flights of stairs. Here in a room at the top of the house sat Mrs Oliver, the sensational novelist, now a member of Mr, Pyne's staff.

  Mr. Parker Pyne tapped at the door and entered.

  Mrs Oliver sat at a table on which were a typewriter, several notebooks, a general confusion of loose manuscripts and a large bag of apples.

  "A very good story, Mrs Oliver," said Mr Parker Pyne genially.

  "It went off well?" said Mrs Oliver. "I'm glad."

  "That water-in-the-cellar business," said Mr Parker Pyne. "You don't think, on a future occasion, that something more original perhaps?" He made the suggestion with proper diffidence.

  Mrs Oliver shook her head and took an apple from the bag. "I think not Mr Pyne. You see, people are used to reading about such things. Water rising in a cellar, poison gas, et cetera. Knowing about it beforehand gives it an extra thrill when it happens to oneself. The public is conservative, Mr Pyne; it likes the old wellworn gadgets."

  "Well, you should know," admitted Mr Parker Pyne, mindful of the authoress' forty-six successful works of fiction, all best sellers in England and America, and freely translated into French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese and Abyssinian. "How about expenses?"

  Mrs Oliver drew a paper towards her. "Very moderate, on the whole. The two Negroes, Percy and Jerry, wanted very little. Young Lorrimer, the actor, was willing to enact the part of Mr Reid for five guineas. The cellar speech was a phonograph record, of course."

  "Whitefriars has been extremely useful to me," said Mr Pyne. "I bought it for a song and it has already been the scene of eleven exciting dramas."

  "Oh, I forgot," said Mrs Oliver. "Johnny's wages. Five shillings."

  "Johnny?"

  "Yes. The boy who poured the water from the watering cans through the hole in the wall."

  "Ah, yes. By the way, Mrs Oliver how did you happen to know Swahili?"

  "I didn't."

  "I see. The British Museum, perhaps?"

  "No. Delfridge's Information Bureau."

  "How marvelous are the resources of modern commerce!" he murmured.

  "The only thing that worries me," said Mrs Oliver, "is that those two young people won't find any cache when they get there."

  "One cannot have everything in this world," said Mr Parker Pyne.

  "They will have had a honeymoon."

  Mrs Wilbraham was sitting in a deck chair. Her husband was writing a letter. "What's the date, Freda?"

  "The sixteenth."

  "The sixteenth. By Jove!"

  "What is it, dear?"

  "Nothing. I just remembered a chap named Jones."

  However happily married, there are some things one never tells.

  "Dash it all," thought Major Wilbraham, "I ought to have called at that place and got my money back."

  And then, being a fair-minded man, he looked at the other side of the question. "After all, it was I who broke the bargain. I suppose if I'd gone to see Jones something would have happened. And anyway, as it turns out, if I hadn't been going to see Jones, I should never have heard Freda cry for help, and we might never have met.

  So, indirectly, perhaps they have a right to the fifty pounds!"

  Mrs Wilbraham was also following out a train of thought. "What a silly little fool I was to believe in that advertisement and pay those people three guineas. Of course, they never did anything for it and nothing else happened. If I'd only known what was coming - first Mr Reid, and then the queer, romantic way that Charlie came into my life. And to think that but for pure chance I might never have met him!"

  She turned and smiled adoringly at her husband.

  THE CASE OF THE DISTRESSED LADY

  The buzzer on Mr Parker Pyne's desk purred discreetly.

  "Yes?" said the great man.

  "A young lady wishes to see you," announced his secretary. "She has no appointment."

  "You may send her in, Miss Lemon." A moment later he was shaking hands with his visitor. "Good morning," he said. "Do sit down."

  The girl sat dow and looked at Mr Parker Pyne. She was a pretty girl and quite young. Her hair was dark and wavy with a row of curls at the nape of the neck. She was beautifully turned out from the white knitted cap on her head to the cobweb stockings and dainty shoes.

  Clearly she was nervous.

  "You are Mr Parker Pyne?" she asked.

  "I am."

  "The one who - who - advertises?"

  "The one who advertises."

  "You say that if people aren't - aren't happy - to - to come to you."

  "Yes."

  She took the plunge. "Well, I'm frightfully unhappy. So I thought I'd come along and just - and just see."

  Mr Parker Pyne waited. He felt there was more to come.

  "I - I'm in frightful trouble." She clenched her hands nervously.

  "So I see," said Mr Parker Pyne. "Do you think you could tell me about it7"

  That, it seemed, was what the girl was by no means sure of. She stared at Mr Parker Pyne with a desperate intentness. Suddenly she spoke with a rush.

  "Yes, I will tell you. - I've made up my mind now. I've been nearly crazy with worry. I didn't know what to do or whom to go to. And then I saw your advertisement. I thought it was probably just a ramp, but it stayed in my mind. It sounded so comforting, somehow.

  And then I thought - well, it would do no harm to come and see. I could always make an excuse and get away again if I didn't - well, if didn't -"

  "Quite so; quite so," said Mr Pyne.

  "You see," said the girl, "it means - well, trusting somebody."

  "And you feel you can trust me?" he said, smiling.

  "It's odd," said the girl with unconscious rudeness, "but I do.

  Without knowing anything about you! I'm sure I can trust you."

  "I can assure you," said Mr Pyne, "that your trust will not be misplaced."

  "Then," said the girl, "I'll tell you about it. My name
is Daphne St.

  John."

  "Yes, Miss St. John."

  "Mrs. I'm - I'm married."

  "Pshaw!" muttered Mr Pyne, annoyed with himself as he noted the platinum circlet on the third finger of her heft hand. "Stupid of me."

  "If I weren't married," said the girl, "I shouldn't mind so much. I mean, it wouldn't matter so much. It's the thought of Gerald - Well, here - here's what all the trouble's about!"

  She dived in her bag, took something out and flung it down on the desk where, gleaming and flashing, it rolled over to Mr Parker Pyne.

  It was a platinum ring with a large solitaire diamond. Mr Pyne picked it up, took it to the window, tested it on the pane, applied a jeweler's lens to his eye an d examined it closely.

  "An exceedingly fine diamond," he remarked, coming back to the table; "worth, I should say, about two thousand pounds at least."

  "Yes. And it's stolen! I stole it! And I don't know what to do."

  "Dear me!" said Mr Parker Pyne. "This is very interesting."

  His client broke down and sobbed into an inadequate handkerchief.

  "Now, now," said Mr Pyne. "Everything's going to be all right."

  The girl dried her eyes and sniffed. "Is it?" she said. "Oh, is it?"

  "Of course it is. Now, just tell me the whole story."

  "Well, it began by my being hard up. You see, I'm frightfully extravagant. And Gerald gets so annoyed about it. Gerald's my husband. He's a lot older than I am, and he's got very - well, very austere ideas. He thinks running into debt is dreadful. So I didn't tell him. And I went over to Le Touquet with some friends and I thought perhaps I might be lucky at chemmy and get straight again. I did win at first. And then I lost, and then I thought I must go on. And I went on. And - and -"

  "Yes, yes," said Mr Parker Pyne. "You need not go into details. You were in a worse plight than ever. That is right, is it not?"

  Daphne St. John nodded. "And by then, you see, I simply couldn't tell Gerald. Because he hates gambling. Oh, I was in an awful mess.

  Well, we went down to stay with the Dortheimers near Cobham.

  He's frightfully rich, of course. His wife, Naomi, was at school with me. She's pretty and a dear. While we were there, the setting of this ring got loose. On the morning we were leaving, she asked me to take it up to town and drop it at her jeweler's in Bond Street." She paused.