I .S.A. $21.95
Canada $29.50


THE
HARLEQUIN
TEA SET


AND OTHER STORIES


Agatha Christie


Nine previously uncollected gems from
the world's most popular mystery writer,
available for the first time in this stellar
collection.


Agatha Christie is one of the most successful
authors of all time. Her works have
been translated into more languages than
Shakespeare's and are second only to the
Bible in the number of tongues in which
they can be read. Although she died in 1976,
leaving behind a prodigious body of work,
her popularity has remained constant, and
her books are a treasured legacy enjoyed
by mystery lovers the world over. With the
publication of The Harlequin Tea Set and
Other Stories, fans are treated to nine quintessential
examples of Christie's brilliance.
With the exception of one, all are new to
American readers and have never been
published before in the United States.

In "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest,"
Hercule Poirot unravels the psychological
conundrums that motivate a killer. In "The
Edge," a woman must decide whether to
follow her heart or her conscience. And in
"The Harlequin Tea Set," Mr. Harley Quin,
another o1' Christie's famed detectives,
helps a man save his loved ones from the
greedy hand of murder. Six other stories
about the darker side of human nature
complete the collection.





G. P. Putnam's Sons
Publishers Since 1838 200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

All stories copyright © 1997 by Agatha Christie Limited
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

"The Actress" fast appeared in Novel magazine, 1923, London. "The Edge"
first appeared in Pearson's magazine, 1927, London. "The Lonely God" first
appeared in Royal magazine, 1926, London. "Manx Gold" fast appeared
in The Daily Dispatch, 1930, London. "The House of Dreams" first appeared in Sovereign magazine, 1926, London. "While the Light Lasts" first appeared
in Novel magazine, 1923, London. "Within a Wall" first appeared in Royal magazine, 1925, London. "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest" first appeared
as "The Mystery of the Bagdad Chest" in The Regatta Mystery and Other
Stories, Dodd, Mead, New York, 1939. "The Harlequin Tea Set" first appeared
in Winter's Crimes, Macmillan UK, London, 1971.

Foreword and afterword to Agatha Christie's "Manx Gold"
by Tony Medawar.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Christie, Agatha, 18901976.
The harlequin tea set and other stories / Agatha Christie.
p. cm.
Contents: The edge--The actressWhile the light lasts--The house
of dreams--The lonely god--Manx gold--Within a wall--The mystery
of the Spanish chest--The harlequin tea set.
ISBN 0-399-14287-8 (acid-free paper)
1. Detective and mystery stories, English. I. Title.
	PR6066.H66H37 1997
		96-51140 CIP

		823'.912--dc21

Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

BOOK DESIGN BY CAROL MALCOLM RUSSO/SIGNET M DESIGN, INCl.



C o n'lze n'tzc


1


29


G. P. Putnam's Sons
Publishers Since 1838 200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

All stories copyright © 1997 by Agatha Christie Limited
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

"The Actress" fa'st appeared in Novel magazine, 1923, London. "The Edge"
first appeared in Pearson's magazine, 1927, London. "The Lonely God" first
appeared in Royal magazine, 1926, London. "Manx Gold" first appeared
in The Daily Dispatch, 1930, London. "The House of Dreams" fa'st appeared in Sovereign magazine, 1926, London. "While the Light Lasts" first appeared
in Novel magazine, 1923, London. "Within a Wall" first appeared in Royal magazine, 1925, London. "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest" first appeared
as "The Mystery of the Bagdad Chest" in The Regatta Mystery and Other
Stories, Dodd, Mead, New York, 1939. "The Harlequin Tea Set" first appeared
in Winter's Crimes, Macmillan UK, London, 1971.

Foreword and afterword to Agatha Christie's "Manx Gold"
by Tony Medawar.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Christie, Agatha, 18901976.
The harlequin tea set and other stories / Agatha Christie.
p. cm.
Contents: The edge--The actress--While the light lasts--The house
of dreams--The lonely god--Manx gold--Within a wall--The mystery
of the Spanish chest--The harlequin tea set.
ISBN 0-399-14287-8 (acid-free paper)
1. Detective and mystery stories, English. L Title.
	PR6066.H66H37 1997
		96-51140 CIP

		823'.912--dc21

Printed in the United States of America
I 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

BOOK DESIGN BY CAROL MALCOLM RUSSO/SIGNET M DESIGN, INI;.



C o n-lze n'tzc

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

	VII.
	x/ic k i n ,:,,

	VIII.
	The [v19:- o

IX.
	Tk--a"r'le,uin Tea

1

29

43

59

85

107

143

171

235



CLARE HALLIVVELL WALKED DOWN THE
short path that led from her cottage door to the gate.
On her arm was a basket, and in the basket was a bot-tle
of soup, some home-made jelly, and a few grapes.
There were not many poor people in the small village
of Daymer's End, but such as there were were assidu-ously
looked after, and Clare was one of the most effi-cient
of the parish workers.


Clare Halliwell was thirty-two. She had an upright
carriage, a healthy color, and nice brown eyes. She
was not beautiful, but she looked fresh and pleasant
and very English. Everybody liked her and said she
was a good sort. Since her mother's death, two years
ago, she had lived alone in the cottage with her dog,
Rover. She kept poultry and was fond of animals and of
a healthy outdoor life.


As she unlatched the gate, a two-seater car swept
past, and the driver, a girl in a red hat, waved a greet-ing.
Clare responded, but for a moment her lips tight-ened.
She felt that pang at her heart which always
came when she saw Vivien Lee. Gerald's wife!



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Medenham Grange, which lay just a mile outside
the village, had belonged to the Lees for many genera-tions.
Sir Gerald Lee, the present owner of the Grange,
was a man old for his years and considered by many
stiff in manner. His pomposity really covered a good
deal of shyness. He and Clare had played together as
children. Later they had been friends, and a closer and
dearer tie had been confidently expected by many--including,
it may be said, Clare herself. There was no
hurry, of course--but someday-- She left it so in her
own mind. Someday.

And then, just a year ago, the village had been star-tled
by the news of Sir Gerald's marriage to a Miss
Harper--a girl nobody had ever heard of!.


The new Lady Lee had not been popular in the vil-lage.
She took not the faintest interest in parochial
matters, was bored by hunting, and loathed the coun-try
and outdoor sports. Many of the wiseacres shook
their heads and wondered how it would end. It was
easy to see where Sir Gerald's infatuation had come in.
Vivien was a beauty. From head to foot she was a com-plete
contrast to Clare Halliwell--small, elfin, dainty,
with golden-red hair that curled enchantingly over her
pretty ears, and big violet eyes that could shoot a side-ways
glance of provocation to the manner born.


Gerald Lee, in his simple man's way, had been
anxious that his wife and Clare should be great
friends. Clare was often asked to dine at the Grange,
and Vivien made a pretty pretence of affectionate inti


macy whenever they met. Hence that gay salutation of
hers this morning.

Clare walked on and did her errand. The vicar was
also visiting the old woman in question, aOd he and
Clare walked a few yards together afterwards before
their ways parted. They stood still for a voinute dis-cussing
parish affairs.

"Jones has broken out again, I'm afraid," said the
vicar. "And I had such hopes after he had volunteered,

of his own accord, to take the pledge."

"Disgusting," said Clare crisply.

"It seems so to us," said Mr. Wilmot, ,,bUt we must
remember that it is very hard to put ourselves in his
place and realize his temptation. The desi'e for drink
is unaccountable to us, but we all have our own temp-tations,
and thus we can understand."

"I suppose we have," said Clare uncertainly.

The vicar glanced at her.

"Some of us have the good fortune to le very little
tempted," he said gently. "But even to tlose people
their hour comes. Watch and pray, remenaber, that ye
enter not into temptation."

Then bidding her good-bye, he walked briskly
away. Clare went on thoughtfully, and presently she al-most
bumped into Sir Gerald Lee.

"Hullo, Clare. I was hoping to run ac'OSS you. YoO
look jolly fit. What a color you've got."

The coler had not been there a minute before. Lee


went on:



AGATHA CHRIS

TIE



"As I say, I was hoping to run acZross you. Vivien's
got to go off to Bournemouth for tlqe weekend. Her
mother's not well. Can you dine wi- t.h us Tuesday instead
of tonight?"
"Oh, yes! Tuesday will suit me jtt as well."
"That's all right, then. Splendid. I -rust hurry along."
Clare went home to find her one faithful domestic
standing on the doorstep looking ou for her.
"There you are, miss. Such a to-dO- They've brought
Rover home. He went off on his own this niorning, and
a car ran clean over him."
Clare hurried to the dog's side- She adored animals,
and Rover was her especial dorling. She felt his
legs one by one, and then ran her ha-ds over his body.
He groaned once or twice and licked her hand.
"If there's any serious injury, it's internal," she said
at last. "No bones seem to be brokero
"Shall we get the vet to see him, iss?"
Clare shook her head. She had little faith in the local
vet.
"We'll wait until tomorrow. He d°esn't seem to be
in great pain, and his gums are a good color, so there
can't be much internal bleeding. Tofn°rr°w, if I don't
like the look of him, I'll take him over to Skippington in
the car and let Reeves have a look at him. He's far and
away the best man."

On the following day, Rover seemed weaker, and Clare
duly carried out her project. The sroall town of Skip

pington was about forty miles away, a long run, but
Reeves, the vet there, was celebrated for many miles
around.

He diagnosed certain internal injuries but held out
good hopes of recovery, and Clare went away quite
content to leave Rover in his charge.


There was only one hotel of any pretensions in
Skippington, the County Arms. It was mainly fre-quented
by commercial travelers, for there was no
good hunting country near Skippington, and it was off
the track of the main roads for motorists.

Lunch was not served till one o'clock, and as it
wanted a few minutes of that hour, Clare amused herself
by glancing over the entries in the open visitors' book.

Suddenly she gave a stifled exclamation. Surely
she knew that handwriting, with its loops and whirls
and flourishes? She had always considered it unmis-takable.
Even now she could have sworn--but of
course it was clearly impossible. Vivien Lee was at
Bournemouth. The entry itself showed it to be impos-sible:
Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Brown, London.

But in spite of herself her eyes strayed back again
and again to that curly writing, and on an impulse she
could not quite define she asked abruptly of the
woman in the office:

"Mrs. Cyril Brown? I wonder if that is the same one
I know?"

"A small lady? Reddish hair? Very pretty. She came
in a red two-seater car, madam. A Peugeot, I believe."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


Then it was! A coincidence would be too remark-able.
As if in a dream, she heard the woman go on:

"They were here just over a month ago for a week-end,
and liked it so much that they have come again.
Newly married, I should fancy."


Clare heard herself saying: "Thank you. I don't
think that could be my friend."


Her voice sounded different, as though it belonged
to someone else. Presently she was sitting in the dining
room, quietly eating cold roast beef, her mind a maze
of conflicting thought and emotions.


She had no doubts whatever. She had summed Vivien
up pretty correctly on their first meeting. Vivien was
that kind. She wondered vaguely who the man was.
Someone Vivien had known before her marriage? Very
likely--it didn't matter--nothing mattered but Gerald.


What was she--Clare--to do about Gerald? He
ought to know--surely he ought to know. It was clearly
her duty to tell him. She had discovered Vivien's secret
by accident, but she must lose no time in acquainting
Gerald with the facts. She was Gerald's friend, not
Vivien's.


But somehow or other she felt uncomfortable. Her
conscience was not satisfied. On the face of it, her rea-soning
was good, but duty and inclination jumped sus-piciously
together. She admitted to herself that she
disliked Vivien. Besides, if Gerald Lee were to divorce



his wife--and Clare had no doubts at all that that was
exactly what he would do, he was a man with an al-most
fanatical view of his own honor--then--well, the
way would lie open for Gerald to come to her. Put like
that, she shrank back fastidiously. Her own proposed
action seemed naked and ugly.

The personal element entered in too much. She
could not be sure of her own motives. Clare was es-sentially
a high-minded, conscientious woman. She
strove now very earnestly to see where her duty lay.
She wished, as she had always wished, to do right.
What was right in this case? What was wrong?

By a pure accident she had come into possession of
facts that affected vitally the man she loved and the
woman whom she disliked and--yes, one might as
well be frank--of whom she was bitterly jealous. She
could ruin that woman. Was she justified in doing so?


Clare had always held herself aloof from the back-biting
and scandal which is an inevitable part of village
life. She hated to feel that she now resembled one of
those human ghouls she had always professed to de-spise.

Suddenly the vicar's words that morning flashed
across her mind:

"Even to those people their hour comes. '

Was this her hour? Was this her temptation? Had it
come insidiously disguised as a duty? She was Clare
I4alliwell, a Christian, in love and charity with all



AGATHA CHRISTIE


men--and women. If she were to tell Gerald, she must
be quite sure that only impersonal motives guided her.
For the present she would say nothing.


She paid her bill for luncheon and drove away,
feeling an indescribable lightening of spirit. Indeed,
she felt happier than she had done for a long time. She
felt glad that she had had the strength to resist tempta-tion,
to do nothing mean or unworthy. Just for a second
it flashed across her mind that it might be a sense of
power that had so lightened her spirits, but she dis-missed
the idea as fantastic.


By Tuesday night she was strengthened in her resolve.
The revelation could not come through her. She must
keep silence. Her own secret love for Gerald made
speech impossible. Rather a high-minded view to
take? Perhaps; but it was the only one possible for her.


She arrived at the Grange in her own little car. Sir
Gerald's chauffeur was at the front door to drive it
round to the garage after she had alighted, as the night
was a wet one. He had just driven off when Clare re-membered
some books which she had borrowed and
had brought with her to return. She called out, but the
man did not hear her. The butler ran out after the car.

So, for a minute or two, Clare was alone in the hall,
close to the door of the drawing room, which the butler
had just unlatched prior to announcing her. Those in-side
the room, however, knew nothing of her arrival,
and so it was that Vivien's voice, high-pitched--not



quite the voice of a lady--rang out clearly and dis
tinctly.


"Oh, we're only waiting for Clare Halliwell. Yot
must know her--lives in the village--supposed to be
one of the local belles, but frightfully urattractive
really. She tried her best to catch Gerald, but he wasn't
having any."

"Oh, yes, darling"--this in answer to a murmured
protest from her husband. "She did--you mayn't be
aware of the fact--but she did her very utmost. Poor
old Clare! A good sort, but such a dump!"

Clare's face went dead white, her hands, hanging
against her sides, clenched themselves in anger such
as she had never known before. At that moment she
could have murdered Vivien Lee. It was only by a
supreme physical effort that she regained control of
herself. That, and the half-formed thought that she
held it in her power to punish Vivien for those cruel
words.


The butler had returned with the books. He opened the
door, announced her, and in another moment she was
greeting a roomful of people in her usual pleasant
manner.

Vivien, exquisitely dressed in some dark wine
color that showed off her white fragility, was particu-larly
affectionate and gushing. They didn't see half
enough of Clare. She, Vivien, was going to learn golf,
and Clare must come out with her on the links.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Gerald was very attentive and kind. Though he had
no suspicion that she had overheard his wife's words,
he had some vague idea of making up for them. He
was very fond of Clare, and he wished Vivien wouldn't
say the things she did. He and Clare had been friends,
nothing more--and if there was an uneasy suspicion at
the back of his mind that he was shirking the truth in
that last statement, he put it away from him.

After dinner the talk fell on dogs, and Clare re-counted
Rover's accident. She purposely waited for a
lull in the conversation to say:


"--so, on Saturday, I took him to Skippington."

She heard the sudden rattle of Vivien Lee's coffee

cup on the saucer, but she did not look at her--yet.
"To see that man, Reeves?"

"Yes. He'll be all right, I think. I had lunch at the
County Arms afterwards. Rather a decent little pub."
She turned now to Vivien. "Have you ever stayed
there?"

If she had had any doubts, they were swept aside.

Vivien's answer came quick--in stammering haste.
"I? Oh! N-no, no."

Fear was in her eyes. They were wide and dark
with it as they met Clare's. Clare's eyes told nothing.
They were calm, scrutinizing. No one could have
dreamed of the keen pleasure that they veiled. At that
moment Clare almost forgave Vivien for the words she
had overheard earlier in the evening. She tasted in that



moment a fullness of power that almost made her head
reel. She held Vivien Lee in the hollow of her hand.

The following day, she received a note from the
other woman. Would Clare come up and have tea with
her quietly that afternoon? Clare refused.

Then Vivien called on her. Twice she came at
hours when Clare was almost certain to be at home.
On the first occasion, Clare really was out; on the sec-ond,
she slipped out by the back way when she saw
Vivien coming up the path.


"She's not sure yet whether I know or not," she
said to herself. "She wants to find out without commit-ting
herself. But she shan't--not until I'm ready."


Clare hardly knew herself what she was waiting
for. She had decided to keep silence--that was the only
straight and honorable course. She felt an additional
glow of virtue when she remembered the extreme
provocation she had received. After overhearing the
way Vivien talked of her behind her back, a weaker
character, she felt, might have abandoned her good
resolutions.

She went twice to church on Sunday. First to early
communion, from which she came out strengthened
and uplifted. No personal feelings should weigh with
her--nothing mean or petty. She went again to morn-ing
service. Mr. Wilmot preached on the famous
prayer of the Pharisee. He sketched the life of that
man, a good man, pillar of the church. And he pictured



AGATHA CHRISTIE


the slow, creeping blight of spiritual pride that dis-torted
and soiled all that he was.


Clare did not listen very attentively. Vivien was in the
big square pew of the Lee family, and Clare knew by
instinct that the other intended to get hold of her after--wards.


So it fell out. Vivien attached herself to Clare,
walked home with her, and asked if she might come
in. Clare, of course, assented. They sat in Clare's little
sitting room, bright with flowers and old-fashioned
chintzes. Vivien's talk was desultory and jerky.

"I was at Bournemouth, you know, last weekend,"
she remarked presently.

"Gerald told me so," said Clare.

They looked at each other. Vivien appeared almost
plain today. Her face had a sharp, foxy look that robbed
it of much of its charm.

"When you were at Skippington--" began Vivien.
"When I was at Skippington?" echoed Clare politely.
"You were speaking about some little hotel there."

"The County Arms. Yes. You didn't know it, you
said?"


"I--I have been there once."

"Oh!"

She had only to keep still and wait. Vivien was
quite unfitted to bear a strain of any kind. Already she
was breaking down under it. Suddenly she leaned for-ward
and spoke vehemently.



"You don't like me. You never have. You've always
hated me. You're enjoying yourself now, playing with
me like a cat with a mouse. You're cruel--cruel. That's
why I'm afraid of you, because deep down you're
cruel."
"Really, Vivien!" said Clare sharply.

"You know, don't you? Yes, I can see that you know.
You knew that night--when you spoke about Skipping-ton.
You've found out somehow. Well, I want to know
what you are going to do about it. What are you going
Io do?"
Clare did not reply for a minute, and Vivien sprang
to her feet.
"What are you going to do? I must know. You're not
going to deny thatyou know all about it?"
"I do not propose to deny anything," said Clare
coldly.

"You saw me there that day?"

"No. I saw your handwriting in the book--Mr, and
Mrs. Cyril Brown."
Vivien flushed darkly.
"Since then," continued Clare quietly, "I have made
inquiries, l find that you were not at Bournemouth that
weekend. Your mother never sent for you. Exactly the
ca,ne thing happened about six weeks previously."
Vivien sank down again on the sofa. She burst into
furious crying, the crying of a frightened child.
"What are you going to do?" she gasped. "Are you
going to tell Gerald?"



	AGATHA
	C I RISTIE

"I do't know yet," said Cia. re.
She felt calm, omnipotert.
Vivien sat up, pushing the 'ed curls back from her
forehead.
"Would you like to hear all about it?"
"It would be as well, I thin.,,
Vivien poured out the whle story. There was no
reticence in her. Cyril "Brovv', was Cyril Haviland, a
young engineer to whom she [lad previously been er-gaged.
Iis health failed, and lae lost his job, whereupon
hemade no bones abott jilting the penniless
Vivien and marrying a rich widow many years older
than hiIself. Soon afterwards Vivien married Gerald
lee.

She had Ret Cyril again by chance. That was the first
of many meetings. Cyril, backed by his wife's money,
was prospering in his career, and becoming a wel1 known figure. It was a sordid story, a story of backstairs
meeting, of ceaseless lying and intrigue.
"I love him so," Vivien repeated again and agaii,
with a sudden moan, and each time the words made
Glare feel physically sick.
At last the stammering recital came to an end.
Vivien muttered a shamefaced: "Well?"
"What am I going to do?" asked Clare. "I can't tell
yOU. I must have time to think."
"You Won't give me away to Gerald?"
"It may be my duty to do so.',



"No, no." Vivien's voice rose to a hysterical shriek.
"He'll divorce me. He won't listen to a word. He'll find
out from that hotel, and Cyril will be dragged into it.
And then his wife will divorce him. Everything will
go--his career, his health--he'll be penniless again.
He'd never forgive me--never."
"If you'll excuse my saying so," said Clare, "I don't

think much of this Cyril of yours."
Vivien paid no attention.
"I tell you he'll hate me--hate me. I can't bear it.
Don't tell Gerald. I'll do anything you like, but don't tell
Gerald."
"I must have time to decide," said Clare gravely. "I
can't promise anything offhand. In the meantime, you
and Cyril mustn't meet again."

"No, no, we won't. I swear it."
"When I know what's the right thing to do," said
Clare, I'll let you know."

She got up. Vivien went out of the house in a
furtive, slinking way, glancing back over her shoulder.
Clare wrinkled her nose in disgust. A beastly affair.
Would Vivien keep her promise not to see Cyril? Probably
not. She was weak--rotten all through.
That afternoon Clare went for a long walk. There
was a path which led along the downs. On the left the
green hills sloped gently down to the sea far below,
while the path wound steadily upward. This walk was
known locally as the Edge. Though safe enough if you
kept to the path, it was dangerous to wander from it.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Those insidious gentle slopes were dangerous. Clare
had lost a dog there once. The animal had gone racing
over the smooth grass, gaining momentum, had been
unable to stop and had gone over the edge of the cliff
to be dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks below.


The afternoon was clear and beautiful. From far below
there came the ripple of the sea, a soothing murmur.
Clare sat down on the short green turf and stared out
over the blue water. She must face this thing clearly.
What did she mean to do?

She thought of Vivien with a kind of disgust. How
the girl had crumpled up, how abjectly she had sur-rendered!
Clare felt a rising contempt. She had no
pluck--no grit.


Nevertheless, much as she disliked Vivien, Clare
decided that she would continue to spare her for the
present. When she got home she wrote a note to her,
saying that although she could make no definite
promise for the future, she had decided to keep silence
for the present.


Life went on much the same in Daymer's End. It
was noticed locally that Lady Lee was looking far from
well. On the other hand, Clare Halliwell bloomed. Her
eyes were brighter, she carried her head higher, and
there was a new confidence and assurance in her man-ner.
She and Lady Lee often met, and it was noticed on
these occasions that the younger woman watched the
older with a flattering attention to her slightest word.



Te je


Sometimes Miss Halliwell would make remarks
that seemed a little ambiguous--not entirely relevant
to the matter at hand. She would suddenly say that she
had changed her mind about many things lately--that
it r cas curious how a little thing might alter entirely
oe's point of view. One was apt to give way too much
topity--and that was really quite wrong.

When she said things of that kind she usually
looked at Lady Lee in a peculiar way, and the latter
would suddenly grow quite white, and look almost ter-rified.

But as the year drew on, these little subtleties be-came
less apparent. Clare continued to make the same
remarks, but Lady Lee seemed less affected by them.
She began to recover her looks and spirits. Her old gay
manner returned.


One morning, when she was taking her dog for a walk,
Clare met Gerald in a lane. The latter's spaniel frater-nized
with Rover, while his master talked to Clare.

"Heard our news?" he said buoyantly. "[ expect
Vivien's told you."


"What sort of news? Vivien hasn't mentioned any-thing
in particular."


"We're going abroad--for a year--perhaps longer.
Vien's fed up with this place. She never has cared for
it, you know." He sighed; for a moment or two he
looked downcast. Gerald Lee was very proud of his
home. "Anyway, I've promised her a change. I've taken



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


a villa near Algiers. A wonderful place, by all accounts."
He laughed a little self-consciously. "Quite a second
honeymoon, eh?"


For a minute or two Clare could not speak. Some-thing
seemed to be rising up in her throat and suffo-cating
her. She could see the white walls of the villa,
the orange trees, smell the soft perfumed breath of the
South. A second honeymoon!


They were going to escape. Vivien no longer be-lieved
in her threats. She was going away, carefree,
gay, happy.


Clare heard her own voice, a little hoarse in tim-bre,
saying the appropriate things. How lovely! She en-vied
them!


Mercifully at that moment Rover and the spaniel
decided to disagree. In the scuffle that ensued, further
conversation was out of the question.


That afternoon Clare sat down and wrote a note to
Vivien. She asked her to meet her on the Edge the fol-lowing
day, as she had something very important to say
to her.


The next morning dawned bright and cloudless. Clare
walked up the steep path of the Edge with a lightened
heart. What a perfect day! She was glad that she had
decided to say what had to be said out in the open, un-der
the blue sky, instead of in her stuffy little sitting
room. She was sorry for Vivien, very sorry indeed, but
the thing had got to be done.



She saw a yellow dot, like some yellow flower
higher up by the side of the path. As she came nearer,
it resolved itself into the figure of Vivien, dressed in a
yellow knitted frock, sitting on the short turf, her
hands clasped round her knees.


"Good morning," said Clare. "Isn't it a perfect
morning?"


"Is it?" said Vivien. "I haven't noticed. What was it
you wanted to say to me?"


Clare dropped down on the grass beside her.

"I'm quite out of breath," she said apologetically.
"It's a steep pull up here."


"Damn you!" cried Vivien shrilly. "Why can't you

say it, you smooth-faced devil, instead of torturing me?"
Clare looked shocked, and Vivien hastily recanted.
"I didn't mean that. I'm sorry, Clare. I am indeed.
Only--my nerves are all to pieces, and your sitting
here and talking about the weather--well, it got me all
rattled."


"You'll have a nervous breakdown if you're not
careful," said Clare coldly.


Vivien gave a short laugh.


"Go over the edge? No--I'm not that kind. I'll never
be a loony. Now tell me--what's all this about?"

Clare was silent for a moment, then she spoke,
looking not at Vivien but steadily out over the sea.

"I thought it only fair to warn you that I can no
longer keep silence about--about what happened last
year."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"You mean--you'll go to Gerald with that story?"

"Unless you'll tell him yourself. That would be infinitely
the better way."
Vivien laughed sharply.

"You know well enough I haven't got the pluck to
do that."
Clare did not contradict the assertion. She had had
proof before of Vivien's utterly craven temper.

"It would be infinitely better," she repeated.
Again Vivien gave that short, ugly laugh.
"It's your precious conscience, I suppose, that
drives you to do this?" she sneered.

"I dare say it seems very strange to you," said Clare
quietly. "But it honestly is that."

Vivien's white, set face stared into hers.
"My God!" she said. "I really believe you mean it,

too. You actually think that's the reason."
"It is the reason."
"No, it isn't. If so, you'd have done it before--long
ago. Why didn't you? No, don't answer. I'll tell you. You
got more pleasure out of holding it over me--that's
why. You liked to keep me on tenterhooks, and make
me wince and squirm. You'd say things--diabolical
things--just to torment me and keep me perpetually
on the jump. And so they did for a bit--till I got used to
them."
"You got to feel secure," said Clare.

"You saw that, didn't you? But even then, you held
back, enjoying your sense of power. But now we're go

ing away, escaping from you, perhaps even going to be
happy--you couldn't stick that at any price. So your
convenient conscience wakes up!"

She stopped, panting. Clare said, still very quietly:

"I can't prevent your saying all these fantastical
things, but I can assure you they're not true."

Vivien turned suddenly and caught her by the hand.

"Clare--for God's sake! I've been straight--I've
done what you said. I've not seen Cyril again--I swear
it."
"That's nothing to do with it."

"Clare--haven't you any pity--any kindness? I'll go
down on my knees to you."

"Tell Gerald yourself. If you tell him, he may forgive
you."

Vivien laughed scornfully.

"You know Gerald better than that. He'll be rabid--vindictive.
He'll make me suffer--he'll make Cyril suffer.
That's what I can't bear. Listen, Clare--he's doing
so well. He's invented something--machinery, I don't
understand about it, but it may be a wonderful success.
He's working it out now--his wife supplies the money
for it, of course. But she's suspicious--jealous. If she
finds out, and she will find out if Gerald starts proceedings
for divorce--she'll chuck Cyril--his work,
everything. Cyril will be ruined."

"I'm not thinking of Cyril," said Clare. "I'm thinking
of Gerald. xVhy don't you think a little of him, too?"



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"Gerald? I don't care that"--she snapped her fingers--"for
Gerald. I never have. We might as well
have the truth now we're at it. But I do care for Cyril.
I'm a rotter, through and through, I admit it. I dare say
he's a rotter, too. But my feeling for him--that isn't rotten.
I'd die for him, do you hear? I'd die for him!"
"That is easily said," said Clare derisively.

"You think I'm not in earnest? Listen, if you go on
with this beastly business, I'll kill myself. Sooner than

have Cyril brought into it and ruined, I'd do that."
Clare remained unimpressed.
"You don't believe me?" said Vivien, panting.
"Suicide needs a lot of courage."

Vivien flinched back as though she had been struck.

"You've got me there. Yes, I've no pluck. If there
were an easy way--"
"There's an easy way in front of you," said Clare.
"You've only got to run straight down the green slope.
It would be all over in a couple of minutes. Remember
that child last year."

"Yes," said Vivien thoughtfully. "That would be
easy--quite easy--if one really wanted to--"
Clare laughed.
Vivien turned to her.
"Let's have this out once more. Can't you see that
by keeping silence as long as you have, you've--you've
no right to go back on it now? I'll not see Cyril again.
I'll be a good wife to Gerald---I swear I will. Or I'll go



away and never see him again. Whichever you like.
Clare--"


Clare got up.


"I advise you," she said, "to tell your husband your-self....
Otherwise--I shall."


"I see," said Vivien softly. "Well--I can't let Cyril

suffer 	"


She
got up--stood still as though considering for a minute
or two, then ran lightly down to the path, but instead
of stopping, crossed it and went down the slope.
Once she half turned her head and waved a hand
gaily to Clare, then she ran on gaily, lightly, as a child might
run, out of sight ....

Clare stood
petrified. Suddenly she heard cries, shouts, a
clamor of voices. Then--silence.
She picked
her way stiffly down to the path. About a hundred
yards away a party of people coming up it had stopped.
They were staring and pointing. Clare ran down
and joined them.

"Yes, miss,
someone's fallen over the cliff. Two men have
gone down--to see."

She waited.
Was it an hour, or eternity, or only a few minutes?


A man
came toiling up the ascent. It was the vicar in his
shirtsleeves. His coat had been taken offto cover what lay
below.
"Horrible," he
said, his face very white. "Merci-fully, death
must have been instantaneous."

He saw
Clare, and came over to her.


	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"This must have been a terrible shock to you. You
were taking a walk together, I understand?"


Clare heard herself answering mechanically.


Yes. They had just parted. No, Lady Lee's manner
had been quite normal. One of the group interposed
the information that the lady was laughing and waving
her hand. A terribly dangerous place--there ought to
be a railing along the path.


The vicar's voice rose again.


"An accident--yes, clearly an accident."


And then suddenly Clare laughed--a hoarse, rau-cous
laugh that echoed along the cliff.


"That's a damned lie, ' she said. "I killed her."

She felt someone patting her shoulder, a voice
spoke soothingly.


"There, there. It's all right. You'll be all right
presently."


But Clare was not all right presently. She was never all
right again. She persisted in the delusion--certainly a
delusion, since at least eight persons had witnessed
the scene--that she had killed Vivien Lee.


She was very miserable till Nurse Lauriston came
to take charge. Nurse Lauriston was very successful
with mental cases.


"Humor them, poor things," she would say com-fortably.


So she told Clare that she was a wardress from
Pentonville Prison. Clare's sentence, she said, had


2



been commuted to penal servitude for life. A room was
fitted up as a cell.


"And now, I think, we shall be quite happy and
comfortable," said Nurse Lauriston to the doctor.
"Round-bladed knives if you like, doctor, but I don't
think there's the least fear of suicide. She's not the
type. Too self-centered. Funny how those are often the
ones who go over the edge most easily."



II


-fie



THE SHABBY MAN IN THE FOURTH ROW OF
the pit leaned forward and stared incredulously at the
stage. His shifty eyes n0rrowed furtively.
"Nancy Taylor!" he muttered. "By the Lord, little
Nancy Taylor!"
His glance dropped to the program in his hand.
One name was printed in slightly larger type than the
rest.

"Olga Stormer! So that'S what she calls herself.
Fancy yourself a star, don't you, rny lady? And you must
be making a pretty little pot of money, too. Quite forgotten
your name was eve Nancy Taylor, I daresay. I
wonder now--I wonder now what you'd say if Jake
Levitt should remind yOU of' the fact?"
The curtain fell on the close of the first act. Hearty
applause filled the auditoritlm' Olga Stormer, the great
emotional actress, whoe laame in a few short years had
become a household woral, ,vas adding yet another triumph
to her list of successes as "Cora," in The Avenging
Artgel.
Jake Levitt did not join in the clapping, but a slow,



	AGATHA
	C HRISTIE


appreciative grin gradually distended his mouth. God!
What luck! Just when he was on his beam-ends, too.
She'd try to bluff it out, he supposed, but she couldn't
put it over on him. Properly worked, the thing was a
gold mine!


On the following morning the first workings of Jake
Levitt's gold mine became apparent. In her drawing
room, with its red lacquer and black hangings, Olga
Stormer read and reread a letter thoughtfully. Her pale
face, with its exquisitely mobile features, was a little
more set than usual, and every now and then the grey-green
eyes under the level brows steadily envisaged
the middle distance, as though she contemplated the
threat behind rather than the actual words of the let-ter.


In that wonderful voice of hers, which could throb
with emotion or be as clear cut as the click of a type-writer,
Olga called: "Miss Jones!"


A neat young woman with spectacles, a shorthand
pad and a pencil clasped in her hand, hastened from
an adjoining room.


"Ring up Mr. Danahan, please, and ask him to
come round, immediately."


Syd Danahan, Olga Stormer's manager, entered
the room with the usual apprehension of the man
whose life it is to deal with and overcome the vagaries
of the artistic feminine. To coax, to soothe, to bully, one
at a time or all together, such was his daily routine. To



his relief, Olga appeared cairn and %reposed, and
merely flicked a note across the table to him.
"Read that."
The letter was scrawled in an illiterate hand, of
cheap paper.

Dear Madam,
I much appreciated your perforrance in The Avenging Angel last night. I
fancy we have a mutual friend in Miss Nancy Taylor, late of Chicago. A article
regarding her is to be pub,lisloed shortly. If you would tare to discuss same,
I could call upon you at any iime convenient to yourself.

Yours respectfully,

Jake Levitt

Danahan looked lightly bewildered,
"I don't quite get 5it. Who is this Many Taylor?"
"A girl who would be better dead, lanny." There
was bitterness in he' voice anO a wea,iness that
vealed her thirty-four"' 3rears' "A girl who was dead un
til this carrion crow b · vought her to life a gain."
"Oh! Then..."
"Me, Danny. Just rte."
"This means blact;aail' of course?"
She nodded. "Of c-ourse, and by a run who knows
the art thoroughly."
Danahan frownecl, considering the matter. Olga,
her cheek pillowed or- a long, slender tkand' watched
him with unfathomab!-lle eyes.
"What about blu Deny everything. He can't



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


sure that he hasn't been misled by a chance resem-blance.''

Olga shook her head.


"Levitt makes his living by blackmailing women.
He's sure enough."


"The police?" hinted Danahan doubtfully.

Her faint, derisive smile was answer enough. Be-neath
her self-control, though he did not guess it, was
the impatience of the keen brain watching a slower
brain laboriously cover the ground it had already tra-versed
in a flash.


"You don't--er--think it might be wise for you to--er--say
something yourself to Sir Richard? That would
partly spike his guns."


The actress's engagement to Sir Richard Everard,
M.P., had been announced a few weeks previously.


"I told Richard everything when he asked me to
marry him."


"My word, that was clever of you!" said Danahan
admiringly.


Olga smiled a little.


"It wasn't cleverness, Danny dear. You wouldn't
understand. All the same, if this man Levitt does what
he threatens, my number is up, and incidentally
Richard's Parliamentary career goes smash, too. No, as

far as I can see, there are only two things to do."
"Well?"


"To pay--and that of course is endless! Or to disap-pear,
start again."



The weariness was again very apparent in her
voice.
"It isn't even as though I'd done anything I regretted. I was a half-starved little gutter waif, Danny, striving
to keep straight. I shot a man, a beast of a man who
deserved to be shot. The circumstances under which I
killed him were such that no jury on earth would have
convicted me. I know that now, but at the time I was
only a frightened kid--and--I ran."

Danahan nodded.
"I suppose," he said doubtfully, "there's nothing
against this man Levitt we could get hold of?."

Olga shook her head.

"Very unlikely. He's too much of a coward to go in
for evildoing." The sound of her own words seemed to
strike her. "A coward! I wonder if we couldn't work on
that in some way."

"If Sir Richard were to see him and frighten him,"
suggested Danahan.

"Richard is too fine an instrument. You can't handle
that sort of man with gloves on."

"Well, let me see him."
"Forgive me, Danny, but I don't think you're subtle
enough. Something between gloves and bare fists is
needed. Let us say mittens! That means a woman! Yes,
I rather fancy a woman might do the trick. A woman
with a certain amount of finesse, but who knows the
baser side of life from bitter experience. Olga Stormer,
for instance! .Don't talk to me, I've got a plan coming."



AGATHA CHRISTIE


She leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. She
lifted it suddenly.


"What's the name of that girl who wants to under-study
me? Margaret Ryan, isn't it? The girl with the
hair like mine?"

"Her hair's all right," admitted Danahan grudg-ingly,
his eyes resting on the bronze-gold coil sur-rounding
Olga's head. "It's just like yours, as you say.
But she's no good any other way. I was going to sack
her next week."


"If all goes well, you'll probably have to let her un-derstudy
'Cora.'" She smothered his protests with a
wave of her hand. "Danny, answer me one question
honestly. Do you think I can act? Really act, I mean. Or
am I just an attractive woman who trails round in
pretty dresses?"


"Act? My God! Olga, there's been nobody like you
since Duse!"

"Then if Levitt is really a coward, as I suspect, the
thing will come off. No, I'm not going to tell you about
it. I want you to get hold of the Ryan girl. Tell her I'm
interested in her and want her to dine here tomorrow

night. She'll come fast enough."


"I should say she would!"


"The other thing I want is some good strong
knockout drops, something that will put anyone out of
action for an hour or two, but leave them none the
worse the next day."



Danahan grinned.

"I can't guarantee our friend won't have a headache,
but there will be no permanent damage done."

"Good! Run away now, Danny, and leave the rest to
me." She raised her voice: "Miss Jones!"
The spectacled young woman appeared with her
usual alacrity.

"Take down this, please."

Walking slowly up and down, Olga dictated the
day's correspondence. But one answer she wrote with
her own hand.
Jake Levitt, in his dingy room, grinned as he tore
open the expected envelope.

Dear Sir,
I cannot recall the lady of whom you speak, but I meet so many people that my
memory is necessarily uncertain. I am always pleased to help any fellow actress,
and shall be at home if you will call this evening at nine o'clock.
Yours faithfully,
Olga Stormer

Levitt nodded appreciatively. Clever note! She admitted
nothing. Nevertheless she was willing to treat.
The gold mine was developing.

At nine o'clock precisely Levitt stood outside the door
of the actress's flat and pressed the bell. No one answered
the summons, and he was about to press it
again when he realized that the door was not latched.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


He pushed the door open and entered the hall. To his
right was an open door leading into a brilliantly lighted
room, a room decorated in scarlet and black. Levitt
walked in. On the table under the lamp lay a sheet of
paper on which were written the words: "Please wait
until I return. --O. Stormer."

Levitt sat down and waited. In spite of himself a
feeling of uneasiness was stealing over him. The flat
was so very quiet. There was something eerie about
the silence.

Nothing wrong, of course, how could there be? But
the room was so deadly quiet; and yet, quiet as it was,
he had the preposterous, uncomfortable notion that he
wasn't alone in it. Absurd! He wiped the perspiration
from his brow. And still the impression grew stronger.
He wasn't alone! With a muttered oath he sprang up
and began to pace up and down. In a minute the
woman would return and then--

He stopped dead with a muffled cry. From beneath
the black velvet hangings that draped the window a
hand protruded! He stooped and touched it. Cold--horribly
cold--a dead hand.

With a cry he flung back the curtains. A woman
was lying there, one arm flung wide, the other doubled
under her as she lay face downwards, her golden-bronze
hair lying in dishevelled masses on her neck.

Olga Stormer! Tremblingly his fingers sought the
icy coldness of that wrist and felt for the pulse. As he



thought, there was none. She was dead. She had
caped him, then, by taking the simplest way out.

Suddenly his eyes were arrested by two ends of red
cord finishing in fantastic tassels, and half hidden by
the masses of her hair. He touched them gingerly; the
head sagged as he did so, and he caught a glimpse of a
horrible purple face. He sprang back with a cry, his
head whirling. There was something here he did not
understand. His brief glimpse of the face, disfigured as
it was, had shown him one thing. This was murder, not
suicide. The woman had been strangled and--she was
not Olga Stormer!

Ah! What was that? A sound behind him. He
wheeled round and looked straight into the terrified
eyes of a maidservant crouching against the wall. Her
face was as white as the cap and apron she wore, but
he did not understand the fascinated horror in her
eyes until her half-breathed words enlightened him to
the peril in which he stood.
"Oh, my Gord! You've killed 'er!"

Even then he did not quite realize. He replied:
"No, no, she was dead when I found her."
"I saw yer do it! You pulled the cord and strangled
her. I 'card the gurgling cry she give."
The sweat broke out upon his brow in earnest. His
mind went rapidly over his actions of the previous few
minutes. She must have come in just as he had the two
ends of cord in his hands; she had seen the sagging



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

head and had taken his own cry as coming from the
victim. He stared at her helplessly. There was no
doubting what he saw in her face--terror and stupidity.
She would tell the police she had seen the crime
committed, and no cross-examination would shake
her, he was sure of that. She would swear away his life
with the unshakable conviction that she was speaking
the truth.
What a horrible, unforeseen chain of circumstances!
Stop, was it unforeseen? Was there some devilry
here? On an impulse he said, eyeing her narrowly:
"That's not your mistress, you know."

Her answer, given mechanically, threw a light
upon the situation.

"No, it's 'er actress friend--if you can call 'em
friends, seeing that they fought like cat and dog. They

were at it tonight, 'ammer and tongs."
A trap! He saw it now.
"Where's your mistress?"
"Went out ten minutes ago."

A trap! And he had walked into it like a lamb. A clever devil, this Olga Stormer; she had rid herself of a
rival, and he was to suffer for the deed. Murder! My
God, they hung a man for murder! And he was innocent-innocent!
A stealthy rustle recalled him. The little maid was
sidling towards the door. Her wits were beginning to
work again. Her eyes wavered to the telephone, then



back to the door. At all costs he must silence her. It was
the only way. As well hang for a real crime as a ficti-tious
one. She had no weapon, neither had he. But he
had his hands! Then his heart gave a leap. On the table
beside her, almost under her hand, lay a small, jew-eled
revolver. If he could reach it first--

Instinct or his eyes warned her. She caught it up as
he sprang and held it pointed at his breast. Awkwardly
as she held it, her finger was on the trigger, and she
could hardly miss him at that distance. He stopped
dead. A revolver belonging to a woman like Olga
Stormer would be pretty sure to be loaded.

But there was one thing, she was no longer directly
behind him and the door. So long as he did not attack
her, she might not have the nerve to shoot. Anyway, he
must risk it. Zigzagging, he ran for the door, through
the hall and out through the outer door, banging it be-hind
him. He heard her voice, faint and shaky, calling,
"Police, Murder!" She'd have to call louder than that
before anyone was likely to hear her. He'd got a start,
anyway. Down the stairs he went, running down the
open street, then slacking to a walk as a stray pedes-trian
turned the corner. He had his plan cut and dried.
To Gravesend as quickly as possible. A boat was sailing
from there that night for the remoter parts of the
world. He knew the captain, a man who, for a consid-eration,
would ask no questions. Once on board and
out to sea he would be safe.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

At eleven o'clock Danahan's telephone rang. Olga's
voice spoke.

"Prepare a contract for Miss Ryan, will you? She's
to understudy 'Cora.' It's absolutely no use arguing. I
owe her something after all the things I did to her
tonight! What? Yes, I think I'm out of my troubles. By
the way, if she tells you tomorrow that I'm an ardent
spiritualist and put her into a trance tonight, don't
show open incredulity. How? Knockout drops in the
coffee, followed by scientific passes! After that I
painted her face with purple grease paint and put a
tourniquet on her left arm! Mystified? Well, you must
stay mystified until tomorrow. I haven't time to explain
now. I must get out of the cap and apron before my
faithful Maud returns from the pictures. There was a
'beautiful drama' on tonight, she told me. But she
missed the best drama of all. I played my best part
tonight, Danny. The mittens won! Jake Levitt is a coward
all right, and oh, Danny, Danny--I'm an actress!"



THE FORD CAR BUMPED FROM RUT TO RUT,
and the hot African sun poured down unmercifully. On
either side of the so-called road stretched an unbroken
line of trees and scrub, rising and falling in gently
undulating lines as far as the eye could reach, the
coloring a soft, deep yellow-greea, the whole effect
languorous and strangely quiet. Few birds stirred the
slumbering silence. Once a snake wriggled across the
road in front of the car, escaping the driver's efforts at
destruction with sinuous ease. Once a native stepped
out from the bush, dignified and upright, behind him a
woman with an infant bound closely to her broad back
and a complete household equipraent, including a fry-ing
pan, balanced magnificently on her head.

All these things George Crozier had not failed to
point out to his wife, who had answered him with a
monosyllabic lack of attention which irritated him.

"Thinking of that fellow," he deduced wrathfully. It
was thus that he was wont to allude in his own mind to
Deirdre Crozier's first husband, killed in the first year
of the war. Killed, too, in the campaign against Ger


	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

man West Africa. Natural she should, perhaps--he
stole a glance at her, her fairness, the pink and white
smoothness of her cheek, the rounded lines of her fig-ure--rather
more rounded perhaps than they had
been in those far-off days when she had passively permitted
him to become engaged to her, and then, in that
first emotional scare of war, had abruptly cast him
aside and made a war wedding of it with that lean,
sunburned boy lover of hers, Tim Nugent.
Well, well, the fellow was dead--gallantly dead--and
he, George Crozier, had married the girl he had
always meant to marry. She was fond of him, too; how
could she help it when he was ready to gratify her
every wish and had the money to do it, too! He reflected
with some complacency on his last gift to her,
at Kimberley, where, owing to his friendship with
some of the directors of De Beers, he had been able to
purchase a diamond which, in the ordinary way, would
not have been in the market, a stone not remarkable as
to size, but of a very exquisite and rare shade, a peculiar
deep amber, almost old gold, a diamond such as
you might not find in a hundred years. And the look in
her eyes when he gave it to her! Women were all the
same about diamonds.
The necessity of holding on with both hands to prevent
himself being jerked out brought George Crozier
back to the realities. He ejaculated for perhaps the
fourteenth time, with the pardonable irritation of a
man who owns two Rolls-Royce cars and who has ex

ercised his stud on the highways of civilization: "6ood
Lord, what a car! What a road!" He wet on- angrily:
"Where the devil is this tobacco estate, anywvay? It's
over an hour since we left Bulawayo."
"Lost in Rhodesia," said Deirdre lightly between
two involuntary leaps into the air.

But the coffee-colored driver, appaled to, responded
with the cheering news that thei-r dstination
was just round the next bend of the roa.

The manager of the estate, Mr. Walter$,Vts waiting on
the stoop to receive them with the touch of deference
due to George Crozier's prominencein U--nion Tobacco.
He introduced his daughter-in-lawv, who shepherded
Deirdre through the cool, darkin:-ner o hall to a
bedroom beyond, where she could re,-ove the veil
with which she was always careful to shiceld -- her complexion
when motoring. As she unfastene d dx-ne pits in
her usual leisurely, graceful fashion, Dirdlre's eyes
swept round the whitewashed ugline& of the bare
room. No luxuries here, and Deirdre, whoo looved comfort
as a cat loves cream, shivered a little. Orca the wall
a text confronted her. "What shall it profit I a nman if he
gain the whole world and lose his o; s soutal?" it demanded
of all and sundry, and Deirdr¢,pleaeasrantly conscious
that the question had nothingt0clllo will her,
turned to accompany her shy and rathrs-- sileent guide.
She noted, but not in the least maliciousl!; d, th.ae Slreading
hips and the unbecoming cheap c0tt01 rm ggow. And



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


rcith a glow of quiet appreciation her eyes dropped to
the exquisite, costly simplicity of her own French
4white linen. Beautiful clothes, especially when worn

y herself, roused in her the joy of the artist.

The two men were waiting for her.

"It won't bore you to come round, too, Mrs.
Crozier?"

"Not at all. I've never been over a tobacco factory."
They stepped out into the still Rhodesian after

1Oon.

"These
are the seedlings here; we plant them out
eCs required. You see--"

The manager's voice droned on, interpolated by
ler husband's sharp staccato questions--output, stamp
cluty, problems of colored labor. She ceased to listen.

This was Rhodesia, this was the land Tim had
lVed, where he and she were to have gone together
oter the war was over. If he had not been killed! As al-v/ays,
the bitterness of revolt surged up in her at that
ti/fought. TWo short months--that was all they had had.
C*vo months of happiness--if that mingled rapture and
ptain were happiness. Was love ever happiness? Did
rDt a thousand tortures beset the lover's heart? She
lPd lived intensely in that short space, but had she
eYer known the peace, the leisure, the quiet content-rpent
of her present life? And for the first time she ad-roitted,
somewhat unwillingly, that perhaps all had
ien for the best.

"I wouldn't have liked living out here. I mightn't



have been able to make Tim happy. I might have dis-appointed
him. George loves me, and I'm very fond of
him, and he's very, very good to me. Why, look at that
diamond he bought me only the other day." And, think-ing
of it, her eyelids drooped a little in pure pleasure.


"This is where we thread the leaves." Walters led
the way into a low, long shed. On the floor were vast
heaps of green leaves, and white-clad black "boys"
squatted round them, picking and rejecting with deft
fingers, sorting them into sizes, and stringing them by
means of primitive needles on a long line of string.
They worked with a cheerful leisureliness, jesting
amongst themselves, and showing their white teeth as
they laughed.


"Now, out here--"

They passed through the shed into the daylight
again, where the lines of leaves hung drying in the
sun. Deirdre sniffed delicately at the faint, almost im-perceptible
fragrance that filled the air.


Walters led the way into other sheds where the to-bacco,
kissed by the sun into faint yellow discoloration,
underwent its further treatment. Dark here, with the
brown swinging masses above, ready to fall to powder
at a rough touch. The fragrance was stronger, almost
overpowering it seemed to Deirdre, and suddenly a
sort of terror came upon her, a fear of she knew not
what, that drove her from that menacing, scented ob-scurity
out into the sunlight. Crozier noted her pallor.


"What's the matter, my dear, don't you feel well?



AGATHA CHRISTIE


The sun, perhaps. Better not come with us round the
plantations? Eh?"


Walters was solicitous. Mrs. Crozier had better go
back to the house and rest. He called to a man a little
distance away.


"Mr. Arden--Mrs. Crozier. Mrs. Crozier's feeling a
little done up with the heat, Arden. Just take her back
to the house, will you?"


The momentary feeling of dizziness was passing.
Deirdre walked by Arden's side. She had as yet hardly

glanced at him.


"Deirdre!"

Her heart gave a leap, and then stood still. Only
one person had ever spoken her name like that, with
the faint stress on the first syllable that made of it a ca-ress.


She turned and stared at the man by her side. He
was burned almost black by the sun, he walked with a
limp, and on the cheek nearer her was a long scar


which altered his expression, but she knew him.
"Tim!"


For an eternity, it seemed to her, they gazed at each
other, mute and trembling, and then, without knowing
how or why, they were in each other's arms. Time
rolled back for them. Then they drew apart again, and
Deirdre, conscious as she put it of the idiocy of the
question, said: "Then you're not dead?"


"No, they must have mistaken another chap for



me. I was badly knocked on the head, but I came to
and managed to crawl into the bush. After that I don't
know what happened for months and months, but a
friendly tribe looked after me, and at last I got my
proper wits again and managed to get back to civilization.''
He paused. "I found you'd been married six
months."

Deirdre cried out:
"Oh, Tim, understand, please understand! It was so
awful, the loneliness--and the poverty. I didn't mind
being poor with you, but when I was alone I hadn't the
nerve to stand up against the sordidness of it all."

"It's all right, Deirdre; I did understand. I know you
always have had a hankering after the fleshpots. I took
you from them once--but the second time, well--my
nerve failed. I was pretty badly broken up, you see,
could hardly walk without a crutch, and then there
was this scar."

She interrupted him passionately.

"Do you think I would have cared for that?"

"No, I know you wouldn't. I was a fool. Some
women did mind, you know. I made up my mind I'd
manage to get a glimpse of you. If you looked happy, if
I thought you were contented to be with Crozier--why,
then I'd remain dead. I did see you. You were just getting
into a big car. You had on some lovely sable furs--things
I'd never be able to give you if I worked my
fingers to the bone--and--well--you seemed happy



AGATHA CHRISTIE

enough. I hadn't the same strength and courage, the
same belief in myself, that I'd had before the war. All I
could see was myself, broken and useless, barely able
to earn enough to keep you--and you looked so beaul
tiful, Deirdre, such a queen amongst women, so worthy
to have furs and jewels and lovely clothes and all
the hundred and one luxuries Crozier could give you.
That--and--well, the pain--of seeing you together, decided
me. Everyone believed me dead. I would stay
dead."

"The pain!" repeated Deirdre in a low voice.

"Well, damn it all, Deirdre, it hurt! It isn't that I
blame you. I don't. But it hurt."

They were both silent. Then Tim raised her face to
his and kissed it with a new tenderness.

"But that's all over now, sweetheart. The only thing
to decide is how we're going to break it to Crozier."

"Oh!" She drew herself away abruptly. "I hadn't
thought--" She broke off as Crozier and the manager
appeared round the angle of the path. With a swift turn
of the head she whispered:
"Do nothing now. Leave it to me. I must prepare
him. Where could I meet you tomorrow?"

Nugent reflected.

"I could come in to Bulawayo. How about the cafe
near the Standard Bank? At three o'clock it would be
pretty empty."

Deirdre gave a brief nod of assent before turning
her back on him and joining the other two men. Tim



Nugent looked after her with a faint frown. Something
in her manner puzzled him.


Deirdre was very silent during the drive home. Shel-tering
behind the fiction of a "touch of the sun," she
deliberated on her course of action. How should she
tell him? How would he take it? A strange lassitude
seemed to possess her, and a growing desire to post-pone
the revelation as long as might be. Tomorrow
would be soon enough. There would be plenty of time
before three o'clock.

The hotel was uncomfortable. Their room was on
the ground floor, looking out onto an inner court.
Deirdre stood that evening sniffing the stale air and
glancing distastefully at the tawdry furniture. Her
mind flew to the easy luxury of Monkton Court amidst
the Surrey pinewoods. When her maid left her at last,
she went slowly to her jewel case. In the palm of her
hand the golden diamond returned her stare.


With an almost violent gesture she returned it to
the case and slammed down the lid. Tomorrow morn-ing
she would tell George.


She slept badly. It was stifling beneath the heavy
folds of the mosquito netting. The throbbing darkness
was punctuated by the ubiquitous ping she had
learned to dread. She awoke white and listless. Impos-sible
to start a scene so early in the day!


She lay in the small, close room all the morning,
resting. Lunchtime came upon her with a sense of



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


shock. As they sat drinking coffee, George Crozier pro-posed
a drive to the Matopos.

"Plenty of time if we start at once."


Deirdre shook her head, pleading a headache, and
she thought to herself: "That settles it. I can't rush the
thing. After all, what does a day more or less matter?
I'll explain to Tim."


She waved good-bye to Crozier as he rattled off in
the battered Ford. Then, glancing at her watch, she
walked slowly to the meeting place.


The cafe was deserted at this hour. They sat down
at a little table and ordered the inevitable tea that
South Africa drinks at all hours of the day and night.
Neither of them said a word till the waitress brought it
and withdrew to her fastness behind some pink cur-tains.
Then Deirdre looked up and started as she met


the intense watchfulness in his eyes.


"Deirdre, have you told him?"


She shook her head, moistening her lips, seeking

for words that would not come.

"Why not?"


"I haven't had a chance; there hasn't been time."

Even to herself the words sounded halting and un-convincing.

"It's not that. There's something else. I suspected it


yesterday. I'm sure of it today. Deirdre, what is it?"
She shook her head dumbly.


"There's some reason why you don't want to leave



George Crozier, why you don't want to come back to
me. What is it?"

It was true. As he said it she knew it, knew it with
sudden scorching shame, but knew it beyond any pos-sibility
of doubt. And still his eyes searched her.


"It isn't that you love him! You don't. But there's
something."


She thought: "In another moment he'll see! Oh,
God, don't let him!"

Suddenly his face whitened.


"Deirdre--is it--is it that there's going to be a--child?"

In a flash she saw the chance he offered her. A
wonderful way! Slowly, almost without her own voli-tion,
she bowed her head.

She heard his quick breathing, then his voice,
rather high and hard.


"That--alters things. I didn't know. We've got to
find a different way out." He leaned across the table
and caught both her hands in his. "Deirdre, my dar-ling,
never think--never dream that you were in any
way to blame. Whatever happens, remember that. I
should have claimed you when I came back to Eng-land.
I funked it, so it's up to me to do what I can to put
things straight now. You see? Whatever happens, don't
fret, darling. Nothing has been your fault."

He lifted first one hand, then the other to his lips.
Then she was alone, staring at the untasted tea. And,



AGATHA CHRISTIE


strangely enough, it was only one thing that she saw--a
gaudily illuminated text hanging on a whitewashed
wall. The words seemed to spring out from it and hurl
themselves at her. "What shall it profit a man--" She
got up, paid for her tea, and went out.


On his return George Crozier was met by a request
that his wife might not be disturbed. Her headache, the
maid said, was very bad.


It was nine o'clock the next morning when he en-tered
her bedroom, his face rather grave. Deirdre was
sitting up in bed. She looked white and haggard, but
her eyes shone.


"George, I've got something to tell you, something
rather terrible--"

He interrupted her brusquely.


"So you've heard. I was afraid it might upset you."
"Upset me?"


"Yes. You talked to the poor young fellow that day."
He saw her hand steal to her heart, her eyelids
flicker, then she said in a low, quick voice that some-how
frightened him:

"I've heard nothing. Tell me quickly."
"I thought--"
"Tell me!"


"Out at that tobacco estate. Chap shot himself.
Badly broken up in the war, nerves all to pieces, I sup-pose.
There's no other reason to account for it."


"He shot himself in that dark shed where the to-bacco
was hanging." She spoke with certainty, her



eyes like a sleepwalker's as she saw before her in the
odorous darkness a figure lying there, revolver in
hand.
"Why, to be sure; that's where you were taken
queer yesterday. Odd thing, that!"
Deirdre did not answer. She saw another picture--a
table with tea things on it, and a woman bowing her
head in acceptance of a lie.
"Well, well, the war has a lot to answer for," said
Crozier, and stretched out his hand for a match, lighting
his pipe with careful puffs.
His wife's cry startled him.
"Ah! don't, don't! I can't bear the smell!"
He stared at her in kindly astonishment.

"My dear girl, you mustn't be nervy. After all, you
can't escape from the smell of tobacco. You'll meet it
everywhere."

"Yes, everywhere!" She smiled a slow, twisted
smile, and murmured some words that he did not
catch, words that she had chosen for the original obituary
notice of Tim Nugent's death. "While the light
lasts I shall remember, and in the darkness I shall not
forget."

Her eyes widened as they followed the ascending
spiral of smoke, and she repeated in a low, monotonous
voice: "Everywhere, everywhere."



HIS IS THE STORY OF JOHN SEGRAVE--OF
his life, which was unsatisfactory; of his love, which


was unsatisfied; of his dreams, and of his death; and if
in the two latter he found what was denied in the two
former, then his life may, after all, be taken as a suc-cess.
Who knows?

John Segrave came of a family which had been
slowly going down the hill for the last century. They
had been landowners since the days of Elizabeth, but
their last piece of property was sold. It was thought
well that one of the sons at least should acquire the
useful art of money-making. It was an unconscious
irony of Fate that John should be the one chosen.


With his strangely sensitive mouth, and the long
dark blue slits of eyes that suggested an elf or a faun,
something wild and of the woods, it was incongruous
that he should be offered up, a sacrifice on the altar of
Finance. The smell of the earth, the taste of the sea salt
on one's lips, and the free sky above one's head--these
were the things beloved by John Segrave, to which he
was to bid farewell.



	AGATHA
	( /-I RI S TI E

At the age of eighteen be became a junior clerk in
a big business house. SeveO years later he was still a
clerk, not quite so junior, got with status otherwise unchanged.
The faculty for ,,getting on in the world" had
been omitted from his makeup. He was punctual, industrious,
plodding--a clerk and nothing but a clerk.
And yet he might have been--what? He could
hardly answer that questioO himself, but he could not
rid himself of the conviction that somewhere there
was a life in which he could have--counted. There was
power in him, swiftness of vision, a something of
which his fellow toilers had never had a glimpse. They
liked him. He was popular because of his air of careless
friendship, and they ,ever appreciated the fact
that he barred them out by that same manner from any
real intimacy.

The dream came to him suddenly. It was no childish
fantasy growing and developing through the years.
It came on a midsummer night, or rather early morning,
and he woke from it tiagling all over, striving to
hold it to him as it fled, slipping from his clutch in the
elusive way dreams have.

Desperately he clung to it. It must not go--it must
not-- He must remember the house. It was the House,
of course! The House he koew so well. Was it a real
house, or did he merely knOW it in dreams? He didn't
remember--but he certainly knew it--knew it very
well.
The faint grey light of the early morning was steal6¢




ing into the room. The stillness was extraordinary. At
4:50 ,.M. London, weary London, found her brief in-stant
of peace.


John Segrave lay quiet, wrapped in the joy, the ex-quisite
wonder and beauty of his dream. How clever it
had been of him to remember it! A dream flitted so
quickly as a rule, ran past you just as with waking con-sciousness
your clumsy fingers sought to stop and hold
it. But he had been too quick for this dream! He had
seized it as it was slipping swiftly by him.

It was really a most remarkable dream! There was
the house and-- His thoughts were brought up with a
jerk, for when he came to think of it, he couldn't re-member
anything but the house. And suddenly, with a
tinge of disappointment, he recognized that, after all,
the house was quite strange to him. He hadn't even
dreamed of it before.

It was a white house, standing on high ground.
There were trees near it, blue hills in the distance, but
its peculiar charm was independent of surroundings
for (and this was the point, the climax of the dream) it
was a beautiful, a strangely beautiful house. His pulses
quickened as he remembered anew the strange beauty
of the house.

The outside of it, of course, for he hadn't been in-side.
There had been no question of that--no question
of it whatsoever.

Then, as the dingy outlines of his bed-sitting room
began to take shape in the growing light, he experi


	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


enced the disillusion of the dreamer. Perhaps, after all,
his dream hadn't been so very wonderful--or had the
wonderful, the explanatory part, slipped past him, and
laughed at his ineffectual clutching hands? A white
house, standing on high ground--there wasn't much
there to get excited about, surely. It was rather a big
house, he remembered, with a lot of windows in it, and
the blinds were all down, not because the people were
away (he was sure of that), but because it was so early
that no one was up yet.


Then he laughed at the absurdity of his imagin-ings,
and remembered that he was to dine with Mr.
Wetterman that night.


Maisie Wetterman was RudolfWetterman's only daugh-ter,
and she had been accustomed all her life to having
exactly what she wanted. Paying a visit to her father's
office one day, she had noticed John Segrave. He had
brought in some letters that her father had asked for.
When he had departed again, she asked her father
about him. Wetterman was communicative.

"One of Sir Edward Segrave's sons. Fine old family,
but on its last legs. This boy will never set the Thames
on fire. I like him all right, but there's nothing to him.
No punch of any kind."


Maisie was, perhaps, indifferent to punch. It was a
quality valued more by her parent than herself. Any-way,
a fortnight later she persuaded her father to ask



N of

John Segrave to dinner. It was an intimate diner, herself
and her father, John Segrave, and a girlfriern- d who
was staying with her.

The girlfriend was moved to make a few re: marks.
"On approval, I suppose, Maisie? Later, fathner will
do it up in a nice little parcel and bring it hon e from
the city as a present to his dear little daughte-r, duly
bought and paid for."

"Allegra! You are the limit."

Allegra Kerr laughed.
"You do take fancies, you know, Maisie. I lilke that
hat--I must have it! If hats, why not husbands?,,,
"Don't be absurd. I've hardly spoken to hir:rn yet."
"No. But you've made up your mind," smaid the
other girl. "What's the attraction, Maisie?"

"I don't know," said Maisie Wetterma a slowly.
"He's--different."
"Different?"
"Yes. ICan't explain. He's good-looking, You a know,
in a queer sort of way, but it's not that. He's a Wayy of not
seeing you're there. Really, I don't believe he as s much
as glanced at me that day in father's office."

Allegra laughed.

"That's an old trick. Rather an astute young: man, 1
should say."

"Allegra, you're hateful!"
"Cheer up, darling. Father will buy a wo011.-y lamb
for his little Maisiekins."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"I don't want it to be like that."

"Love with a capital L. Is that it?"

"Why shouldn't he fall in love with me?"


"No reason at all. I expect he will."


Allegra smiled as she spoke, and let her glance
sweep over the other. Maisie Wetterman was short--inclined
to be plump--she had dark hair, well shingled
and artistically waved. Her naturally good complexion
was enhanced by the latest colors in powder and lip-stick.
She had a good mouth and teeth, dark eyes,
rather small and twinkly, and a jaw and chin slightly
on the heavy side. She was beautifully dressed.


"Yes," said Allegra, finishing her scrutiny. "I've no
doubt he will. The whole effect is really very good,
Maisie."


Her friend looked at her doubtfully.


"I mean it," said Allegra. "I mean it--honor bright.
But just supposing, for the sake of argument, that he
shouldn't. Fall in love, I mean. Suppose his affection to
become sincere, but platonic. What then?"


"I may not like him at all when I know him better."


"Quite so. On the other hand you may like him very

much indeed. And in that latter case--"

Maisie shrugged her shoulders.

"I should hope I've too much pride--"


Allegra interrupted.


"Pride comes in handy for masking one's feel-ings-it
doesn't stop you from feeling them."



"Well," said Maisie, flushed. "I don't see why 1
shouldn't say it. I am a very good match. I mean from
his point of view, father's daughter and everything."


"Partnership in the offing, et cetera," said Allegra.
"Yes, Maisie. You're father's daughter, all right. I'm aw-fully
pleased. I do like my friends to run true to type."

The faint mockery of her tone made the other un-easy.


"You are hateful, Allegra."


"But stimulating, darling. That's why you have me
here. I'm a student of history, you know, and it always
intrigued me why the court jester was permitted and
encouraged. Now that I'm one myself, I see the point.
It's rather a good role, you see, I had to do something.
There was I, proud and penniless like the heroine of a
novelette, well born and badly educated. 'What to do,
girl? God wot,' saith she. The poor relation type of girl,
all willingness to do without a fire in her room and
content to do odd jobs and 'help dear Cousin So and
So,' I observed to be at a premium. Nobody really
wants her--except those people who can't keep their
servants, and they treat her like a galley slave.


"So I became the court fool. Insolence, plain
speaking, a dash of wit now and again (not too much
lest I should have to live up to it), and behind it all, a
very shrewd observation of human nature. People
rather like being told how horrible they really are.
That's why they flock to popular preachers. It's been a



AGATHA CHRISTIE


great success. I'm always overwhelmed with invita-tions.
I can live on my friends with the greatest ease,
and I'm careful to make no pretence of gratitude."


"There's no one quite like you, Allegra. You don't
mind in the least what you say."


"That's where you're wrong. I mind very much--I
take care and thought about the matter. My seeming
outspokenness is always calculated. I've got to be care-ful.
This job has got to carry me on to old age."


"Why not marry? I know heaps of people have
asked you."


Allegra's face grew suddenly hard.

"I can never marry."

"Because--" Maisie left the sentence unfinished,
looking at her friend. The latter gave a short nod of as-sent.


Footsteps were heard on the stairs. The butler

threw open the door and announced:


"Mr. Segrave."

John came in without any particular enthusiasm.
He couldn't imagine why the old boy had asked him. If
he could have got out of it he would have done so. The
house depressed him, with its solid magnificence and
the soft pile of its carpet.


A girl came forward and shook hands with him. He
remembered vaguely having seen her one day in her
father's office.

"How do you do, Mr. Segrave? Mr. Segrave--Miss
Kerr."



Then he woke. Who was she? Where did she come
from? From the flame-colored draperies that floated
round her, to the tiny Mercury wings on her small
Greek head, she was a being transitory and fugitive,
standing out against the dull background with an effect
of unreality.

Rudolph Wetterman came in, his broad expanse of
gleaming shirtfront creaking as he walked. They went
down informally to dinner.

Allegra Kerr talked to her host. John Segrave had
to devote himse|fto Maisie. But his whole mind was on
the girl on the other side of him. She was marvelously
effective. Her effectiveness was, he thought, more
studied than natural. But behind all that, there lay
something else. Flickering fire, fitful, capricious, like
the will-o'-the-wisps that of old lured men into the
marshes.

At last he got a chance to speak to her. Maisie was
giving her father a message from some friend she had
met that day. Now that the moment had come, he was
tongue-tied. His glance pleaded with her dumbly.

"Dinner-table topics," she said lightly. "Shall we
start with the theatres, or with one of those innumerable
openings, beginning, 'Do you like--?'"
John laughed.

"And if we find we both like dogs and dislike sandy

cats, it will form what is called a 'bond' between us?"
"Assuredly," said Allegra gravely.
"It is, I think, a pity to begin with a catechism."



AGATHA CHRISTIE

"Yet it puts conversation within the reach of all."
"True, but with disastrous results."
"It is useful to know the rules--if only to break
them."

John smiled at her.
"I take it, then, that you and I will indulge our personal
vagaries. Even though we display thereby the
genius that is akin to madness."

With a sharp unguarded movement, the girl's hand
swept a wineglass off the table. There was the tinkle of
broken glass. Maisie and her father stopped speaking.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Wetterman. I'm throwing glasses
on the floor."

"My dear Allegra, it doesn't matter at all, not at all."
Beneath his breath John Segrave said quickly:
"Broken glass. That's bad luck. I wish--it hadn't
happened."

"Don't worry. How does it go? 'Ill luck thou canst
not bring where ill luck has its home.'"
She turned once more to Wetterman. John, resuming
conversation with Maisie, tried to place the quotation.
He got it at last. They were the words used by
Sieglinde in the Walkiire when Sigmund offers to leave
the house.
He thought: "Did she mean--"
But Maisie was asking his opinion of the latest revue.
Soon he had admitted that he was fond of music.
"After dinner," said Maisie, "we'll make Allegra
play for us."



They all went up to the drawing room together. Se-cretly,
Wetterman considered it a barbarous custom.
He liked the ponderous gravity of the wine passing
round, the handed cigars. But perhaps it was as well
tonight. He didn't know what on earth he could find
to say to young Segrave. Maisie was too bad with her
whims. It wasn't as though the fellow were good-looking--really
good-looking--and certainly he wasn't
amusing. He was glad when Maisie asked Allegra Kerr
to play. They'd get through the evening sooner. The
young idiot didn't even play bridge.

Allegra played well, though without the sure touch
of a professional. She played modern music, Debussy
and Strauss, a little Scriabine. Then she dropped into
the first movement of Beethoven's Pathtique, that ex-pression
of a grief that is infinite, a sorrow that is end-less
and vast as the ages, but in which from end to end
breathes the spirit that will not accept defeat. In the
solemnity of undying woe, it moves with the rhythm of
the conqueror to its final doom.


Towards the end she faltered, her fingers struck a
discord, and she broke off abruptly. She looked across
at Maisie and laughed mockingly.


"You see," she said. "They won't let me."


Then, without waiting for a reply to her somewhat
enigmatical remark, she plunged into a strange haunt-ing
melody, a thing of weird harmonies and curious
measured rhythm, quite unlike anything Segrave had
ever heard before. It was delicate as the flight of a bird,



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


poised, hovering-- Suddenly, without the least warn-ing,
it turned into a mere discordant jangle of notes,
and Allegra rose laughing from the piano.


In spite of her laugh, she looked disturbed and al-most
frightened. She sat down by Maisie, and John
heard the latter say in a low tone to her:


"You shouldn't do it. You really shouldn't do it."
"What was the last thing?" John asked eagerly.
"Something of my own."

She spoke sharply and curtly. Wetterman changed
the subject.


That night John Segrave dreamed again of the
House.


John was unhappy. His life was irksome to him as never
before. Up to now he had accepted it patiently--a dis-agreeable
necessity, but one which left his inner free-dom
essentially untouched. Now all that was changed.
The outer world and the inner intermingled.

He did not disguise to himself the reason for the
change. He had fallen in love at first sight with Allegra
Kerr. What was he going to do about it?

He had been too bewildered that first night to
make any plans. He had not even tried to see her
again. A little later, when Maisie Wetterman asked him
down to her father's place in the country for a week-end,
he went eagerly, but he was disappointed, for A1-legra
was not there.


He mentioned her once, tentatively, to Maisie, and



she told him that Allegra was up in Scotland paying a
visit. He left it at that. He would have liked to go on
talking about her, but the words seemed to stick in his
throat.
Maisie was puzzled by him that weekend. He didn't
appear to see--well, to see what was so plainly to be
seen. She was a direct young woman in her methods,
but directness was lost upon John. He thought her
kind, but a little overpowering.
Yet the Fates were stronger than Maisie. They
willed that John should see Allegra again.

They met in the park one Sunday afternoon. He
had seen her from far off, and his heart thumped
against the side of his ribs. Supposing she should have
forgotten him--
But she had not forgotten. She stopped and spoke.
In a few minutes they were walking side by side, striking
out across the grass. He was ridiculously happy.

He said suddenly and unexpectedly: "Do you believe
in dreams?"
"I believe in nightmares."
The harshness of her voice startled him.
"Nightmares," he said stupidly. "I didn't mean
nightmares."
Allegra looked at him.

"No," she said. "There have been no nightmares in
your life. I can see that."
Her voice was gentle--different--
He told her then of his dream of the white house,



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

stammering a little. He had had it now six--no, seven

times. Always the same. It was beautiful--so beautiful!
He went on.
"You see--it's to do with you--in some way. I had it
first the night before I met you--"

"To do with me?" She laughed--a short bitter
laugh. "Oh, no, that's impossible. The house was beautiful.''

"So are you," said John Segrave.

Allegra flushed a little with annoyance.
"I'm sorry--I was stupid. I seemed to ask for a
compliment, didn't I? But I didn't really mean that at
all. The outside of me is all right, I know."

"I haven't seen the inside of the house yet," said
John Segrave. "When I do I know it will be quite as
beautiful as the outside."

He spoke slowly and gravely, giving the words a
meaning that she chose to ignore.

"There is something more I want to tell you--if you
will listen."

"I will listen," said Allegra.

"I am chucking up this job of mine. I ought to have
done it long ago--I see that now. I have been content to
drift along knowing I was an utter failure, without caring
much, just living from day to day. A man shouldn't
do that. It's a man's business to find something he can
do and make a success of it. I'm chucking this, and taking
on something else--quite a different sort of thing.
It's a kind of expedition in West Africa--I can't tell you



the details. They're not supposed to be known; but if it
comes off well, I shall be a rich man."

"So you, too, count success in terms of money?"

"Money," said John Segrave, "means just one thing
to me--you! When I come back--" he paused.

She bent her head. Her face had grown very pale.
"I won't pretend to misunderstand. That's why I
must tell you now, once and for all: I shall never
marry."


He stayed a little while considering, then he said
very gently:

"Can't you tell me why?"


"I could, but more than anything in the world I
want not to tell you."

Again he was silent, then he looked up suddenly
and a singularly attractive smile illumined his faun's
face.

"I see," he said. "So you won't let me come inside
the House--not even to peep in for a second? The
blinds are to stay down."


Allegra leaned forward and laid her hand on his.
"I will tell you this much. You dream of your
House. But I--I don't dream. My dreams are night-mares!"

And on that she left him, abruptly, disconcertingly.
That night, once more, he dreamed. Of late, he had
realized that the House was most certainly tenanted.
He had seen a hand draw aside the blinds, had caught
glimpses of moving figures within.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


Tonight the House seemed fairer than it had ever
done before. Its white walls shone in the sunlight. The
peace and the beauty of [t were complete.


Then, suddenly, he became aware of a fuller ripple
of the waves of joy. Someone was coming to the win-dow.
He knew it. A hand, the same hand that he had
seen before, laid hold of the blind, drawing it back. In
a minute he would see--


He was awake--still quivering with the horror, the un-utterable
loathing of the Thing that had looked out at
him from the window of the House.

It was a Thing utterly and wholly horrible, a Thing
so vile and loathsome that the mere remembrance of it
made him feel sick. And he knew that the most unut-terably
and horribly vile thing about it was its presence
in that House--the House of Beauty.

For where that Thing abode was horror--horror
that rose up and slew the peace and the serenity which
were the birthright of the House. The beauty, the won-derful
immortal beauty of the House was destroyed for
ever, for within its holy consecrated walls there dwelt
the Shadow of an Unclean Thing!

If ever again he should dream of the House,
Segrave knew he would awake at once with a start of
terror, lest from its white beauty that Thing might sud-denly
look out at him.


The following evening, when he left the office, he
went straight to the Wettermans' house. He must see



Allegra Kerr. Maisie would tell him where she was to
be found.

He never noticed the eager light that flashed into
Maisie's eyes as he was shown in, and she jumped up
to greet him. He stammered out his request at once,
with her hand still in his.

"Miss Kerr. I met her yesterday, but I don't know
where she's staying."

He did not feel Maisie's hand grow limp in his as
she withdrew it. The sudden coldness of her voice told
him nothing.

"Allegra is here--staying with us. But I'm afraid


you can't see her."

"But--"

"You see, her mother died this morning. We've just
had the news."

"Oh!" He was taken aback.

"It is all very sad," said Maisie. She hesitated just a
minute, then went on. "You see, she died in--well,
practically an asylum. There's insanity in the family.
The grandfather shot himself, and one of Allegra's
aunts is a hopeless imbecile, and another drowned
herself."

John Segrave made an inarticulate sound.

"I thought I ought to tell you," said Maisie virtu-ously.
"We're such friends, aren't we? And of course A1-legra
is very attractive. Lots of people have asked her
to marry them, but naturally she won't marry at all--she
couldn't, could she?"



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"She's all right," said Segrave. "There's nothing
wrong with her."


His voice sounded hoarse and unnatural in his own
ears.

"One never knows; her mother was quite all right
when she was young. And she wasn't just--peculiar,
you know. She was quite raving mad. It's a dreadful
thing--insanity."


"Yes," he said, "it's a most awful Thing--"


He knew now what it was that had looked at him
from the window of the House.


Maisie was still talking on. He interrupted her
brusquely.


"I really came to say good-bye--and to thank you
for all your kindness."


"You're not--going away?"

There was alarm in her voice.

He smiled sideways at her--a crooked smile, pa-thetic
and attractive.

"Yes," he said. "To Africa."

"Africa!"

Maisie echoed the word blankly. Before she could
pull herself together he had shaken her by the hand
and gone. She was left standing there, her hands
clenched by her sides, an angry spot of color in each
cheek.

Below, on the doorstep, John Segrave came face to
face with Allegra coming in from the street. She was in



black, her face white and lifeless. She took one glance


at him then drew him into a small morning room.
"Maisie told you," she said. "You know?"
He nodded.

"But what does it matter? You're all right. It--it
leaves some people out."

She looked at him somberly, mournfully.


"You are all right," he repeated.


"I don't know," she almost whispered it. "I don't
know. I told you--about my dreams. And when I play--when
I'm at the piano--those others come and take
hold of my hands."


He was staring at her--paralyzed. For one instant,
as she spoke, something looked out from her eyes. It
was gone in a flash--but he knew it. It was the Thing
that had looked out from the House.

She caught his momentary recoil.

"You see," she whispered. "You see-- But I wish

Maisie hadn't told you. It takes everything from you."
"Everything?"


"Yes. There won't even be the dreams left. For
now--you'll never dare to dream of the House again."


The West African sun poured down, and the heat was
intense.

John Segrave continued to moan.

"I can't find it. I can't find it."

The little English doctor with the red head and the



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


tremendous iaw scowled down upon his patient in that
bullying manner which he had made his own.


"He's always saying that. What does he mean?"
"He speaks, I think, of a house, monsieur." The
soft-voiced Sister of Charity from the Roman Catholic
Mission spoke with her gentle detachment, as she too
looked down on the stricken man.


"A house, eh? Well, he's got to get it out of his
head, or we shan't pull him through. It's on his mind.
Segrave! Segrave!"


The wandering attention was fixed. The eyes
rested with recognition on the doctor's face.


"Look here, you're going to pull through. I'm going
to pull you through. But you've got to stop worrying
about this house. It can't run away, you know. So don't
bother about looking for it now."


"All right." He seemed obedient. "I suppose it can't
very well run away if it's never been there at all."


"Of course not!" The doctor laughed his cheery
laugh. "Now you'll be all right in no time." And with a
boisterous bluntness of manner he took his departure.


Segrave lay thinking. The fever had abated for the
moment, and he could think clearly and lucidly. He
must find that House.


For ten years he had dreaded finding it--the
thought that he might come upon it unawares had
been his greatest terror. And then, he remembered,
when his fears were quite lulled to rest, one day it had
found him. He recalled clearly his first haunting terror,



and then his sudden, his exquisite, relief. For, after all,
the House was empty!


Quite empty and exquisitely peaceful. It was as he
remembered it ten years before. He had not forgotten.
There was a huge black furniture van moving slowly
away from the House. The last tenant, of course, mov-ing
out with his goods. He went up to the men in
charge of the van and spoke to them. There was some-thing
rather sinister about that van, it was so very
black. The horses were black, too, with freely flowing
manes and tails, and the men all wore black clothes
and gloves. It all reminded him of something else,
something that he couldn't remember.


Yes, he had been quite right. The last tenant was
moving out, as his lease was up. The House was to
stand empty for the present, until the owner came
back from abroad.

And waking, he had been full of the peaceful
beauty of the empty House.


A month after that, he had received a letter from
Maisie (she wrote to him perseveringly, once a
month). In it she told him that Allegra Kerr had died in
the same home as her mother, and wasn't it dreadfully
sad? Though of course a merciful release.


It had really been very odd indeed. Coming after
his dream like that. He didn't quite understand it all.
But it was odd.

And the worst of it was that he'd never been able to
find the House since. Somehow, he'd forgotten the way.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


The fever began to take hold of him once more. He
tossed restlessly. Of course, he'd forgotten, the House
was on high ground! He must climb to get there. But it
was hot work climbing cliffs--dreadfully hot. Up, up,
up-- Oh! he had slipped! He must start again from the
bottom. Up, up, up--days passed, weeks--he wasn't
sure that years didn't go by! And he was still climbing.


Once he heard the doctor's voice. But he couldn't
stop climbing to listen. Besides the doctor would tell
him to leave off looking for the House. He thought it
was an ordinary house. He didn't know.


He remembered suddenly that he must be calm,
very calm. You couldn't find the House unless you
were very calm. It was no use looking for the House in
a hurry, or being excited.

If he could only keep calm! But it was so hot! Hot?
It was cold--yes, cold. These weren't cliffs, they were
icebergs--jagged, cold icebergs.


He was so tired. He wouldn't go on looking--it was
no good-- Ah! here was a lane--that was better than
icebergs, anyway. How pleasant and shady it was in
the cool, green lane. And those trees--they were
splendid! They were rather like--what? He couldn't
remember, but it didn't matter.

Ah! here were flowers. All golden and blue! How
lovely it all was--and how strangely familiar. Of
course, he had been here before. There, through the
trees, was the gleam of the House, standing on the
high ground. How beautiful it was. The green lane and



the trees and the flowers were as nothing to the para-mount,
the all-satisfying beauty of the House.


He hastened his steps. To think that he had never
yet been inside! How unbelievably stupid of him--when
he had the key in his pocket all the time!


And of course the beauty of the exterior was as
nothing to the beauty that lay within--especially now
that the Owner had come back from abroad. He
mounted the steps to the great door.


Cruel strong hands were dragging him back! They
fought him, dragging him to and fro, backwards and
forwards.


The doctor was shaking him, roaring in his ear.
"Hold on, man, you can. Don't let go. Don't let go." His
eyes were alight with the fierceness of one who sees
an enemy. Segrave wondered who the Enemy was.
The black-robed nun was praying. That, too, was
strange.


And all he wanted was to be left alone. To go back
to the House. For every minute the House was growing
fainter.


That, of course, was because the doctor was so
strong. He wasn't strong enough to fight the doctor. If
he only could.


But stop! There was another way--the way dreams
went in the moment of waking. No strength could stop
them--they just flitted past. The doctor's hands wouldn't
be able to hold him if he slipped--just slipped!


Yes, that was the way! The white walls were visible



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


once more, the doctor's voice was fainter, his hands
were barely felt. He knew now how dreams laugh
when they give you the slip!


He was at the door of the House. The exquisite
stillness was unbroken. He put the key in the lock and
turned it.


Just a moment he waited, to realize to the full the
perfect, the ineffable, the all-satisfying completeness
of joy.


Then--he passed over the Threshold.


84



I E STOOD ON A SHELF IN THE BRITISH
Museum, alone and forlorn amongst a company of ob-viously
more important deities. Ranged round the four
walls, these greater personages all seemed to display
an overwhelming sense of their own superiority. The
pedestal of each was duly inscribed with the land and
race that had been proud to possess him. There was no
doubt of their position; they were divinities of impor-tance
and recognized as such.


Only the little god in the corner was aloof and re-mote
from their company. Roughly hewn out of grey
stone, his features almost totally obliterated by time
and exposure, he sat there in isolation, his elbows on
his knees, and his head buried in his hands; a lonely
little god in a strange country.


There was no inscription to tell the land whence
he came. He was indeed lost, without honor or re-nown,
a pathetic little figure very far from home. No
one noticed him, no one stopped to look at him. Why
should they? He was so insignificant, a block of grey



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


stone in a corner. On either side of him were two Mex-ican
gods worn smooth with age, placid idols with
folded hands, and cruel mouths curved in a smile that
showed openly their contempt of humanity. There was
also a rotund, violently self-assertive little god, with a
clenched fist, who evidently suffered from a swollen
sense of his own importance, but passersby stopped to
give him a glance sometimes, even if it was only to
laugh at the contrast of his absurd pomposity with the
smiling indifference of his Mexican companions.

And the little lost god sat on there hopelessly, his
head in his hands, as he had sat year in and year out,
till one day the impossible happened, and he found--a
worshipper.


"Any letters for me?"

The hall porter removed a packet of letters from a
pigeonhole, gave a cursory glance through them, and
said in a wooden voice:


"Nothing for you, sir."

Frank Oliver sighed as he walked out of the club
again. There was no particular reason why there
should have been anything for him. Very few people
wrote to him. Ever since he had returned from Burma
in the spring, he had become conscious of a growing
and increasing loneliness.

Frank Oliver was a man just over forty, and the last
eighteen years of his life had been spent in various
parts of the globe, with brief furloughs in England.



Lonl GoJ

Now that he had retired and come home to live for
good, he realized for the first time how very much
alone in the world he was.
True, there was his sister Greta, married to a Yorkshire
clergyman, very busy with parochial duties and
the bringing up of a family of small children. Greta was
naturally very fond of her only brother, but equally
naturally she had very little time to give him. Then
there was his old friend Torn Hurley. Torn was married
to a nice, bright, cheerful girl, very energetic and practical,
of whom Frank was secretly afraid. She told him
brightly that he must not be a crabbed old bachelor,
and was always producing "nice girls." Frank Oliver
found that he never had anything to say to these "nice
girls"; they persevered with him for a while, then gave
him up as hopeless.
And yet he was not really unsociable. He had a
great longing for companionship and sympathy, and
ever since he had been back in England he had become
aware of a growing discouragement. He had
been away too long, he was out of tune with the times.
He spent long, aimless days wandering about, wondering
what on earth he was to do with himself next.
It was on one of these days that he strolled into the
British Museum. He was interested in Asiatic curiosities,
and so it was that he chanced upon the lonely god.
Its charm held him at once. Here was something
vaguely akin to himself; here, too, was someone lost
and astray in a strange land. He became in the habit of

89



AGATHA CHRISTIE

paying frequent visits to the Museum, just to glance in
on the little grey stone figure, in its obscure place on
the high shelf.

"Rough luck on the little chap," he thought to himself.
"Probably had a lot of fuss made about him once,
kowtowing and offerings and all the rest of it."

He had begun to feel such a proprietary right in his
little friend (it really almost amounted to a sense of actual
ownership) that he was inclined to be resentful
when he found that the little god had made a second
conquest. He had discovered the lonely god; nobody
else, he felt, had a right to interfere.
But after the first flash of indignation, he was
forced to smile at himself. For this second worshipper
was such a little bit of a thing, such a ridiculous, pathetic
creature, in a shabby black coat and skirt that
had seen their best days. She was young, a little over
twenty he should judge, with fair hair and blue eyes,
and a wistful droop to her mouth.
Her hat especially appealed to his chivalry. She had
evidently trimmed it herself, and it made such a brave
attempt to be smart that its failure was pathetic. She
was obviously a lady, though a poverty-stricken one,
and he immediately decided in his own mind that she
was a governess and alone in the world.
He soon found out that her days for visiting the god
were Tuesdays and Fridays, and she always arrived at
ten o'clock, as soon as the Museum was open. At first



he disliked her intrusion, but little by little it began to
form one of the principal interests of his monotonous
life. Indeed, the fellow devotee was fast ousting the ob-ject
of devotion from his position of preeminence. The
days that he did not see the "Little Lonely Lady," as he
called her to himself, were blank.

Perhaps she, too, was equally interested in him,
though she endeavored to conceal the fact with stu-dious
unconcern. But little by little a sense of fellow-ship
was slowly growing between them, though as yet
they had exchanged no spoken word. The truth of the
matter was, the man was too shy! He argued to himself
that very likely she had not even noticed him (some in-ner
sense gave the lie to that instantly), that she would
consider it a great impertinence, and, finally, that he
had not the least idea what to say.

But Fate, or the little god, was kind, and sent him
an inspiration--or what he regarded as such. With in-finite
delight in his own cunning, he purchased a
woman's handkerchief, a frail little affair of cambric
and lace which he almost feared to touch, and, thus
armed, he followed her as she departed, and stopped
her in the Egyptian room.

"Excuse me, but is this yours?" He tried to speak
with airy unconcern, and signally failed.

The Lonely Lady took it, and made a pretence of
examining it with minute care.
"No, it is not mine." She handed it back, and added,



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


with what he felt guiltily was a suspicious glance: "It's
quite a new one. The price is still on it."


But he was unwilling to admit that he had been
found out. He started on an over-plausible flow of ex-planation.


"You see, I picked it up under that big case. It was
just by the farthest leg of it." He derived great relief
from this detailed account. "So, as you had been stand-ing
there, I thought it must be yours and came after
you with it."


She said again: "No, it isn't mine," and added, as if
with a sense of ungraciousness, "Thank you."


The conversation came to an awkward standstill.
The girl stood there, pink and embarrassed, evidently
uncertain how to retreat with dignity.


He made a desperate effort to take advantage of his
opportunity.

"I--I didn't know there was anyone else in London
who cared for our little lonely god till you came."


She answered eagerly, forgetting her reserve: "Do
you call him that too?"


Apparently, if she had noticed his pronoun, she did
not resent it. She had been startled into sympathy, and
his quiet "Of course!" seemed the most natural rejoin-der
in the world.


Again there was a silence, but this time it was a si-lence
born of understanding.


It was the Lonely Lady who broke it in a sudden re-membrance
of the conventionalities.



She drew herself up to her full height, and with an
almost ridiculous assumption of dignity for so small a
person, she observed in chilling accents: "I must be
going now. Good morning." And with a slight, stiff in-clination
of her head, she walked away, holding her-self
very erect.


By all acknowledged standards Frank Oliver ought to
have felt rebuffed, but it is a regrettable sign of his
rapid advance in depravity that he merely murmured
to himself: "Little darling!"

He was soon to repent of his temerity, however. For
ten days his little lady never came near the Museum.
He was in despair! He had frightened her away! She
would never come back! He was a brute, a villain! He
would never see her again!

In his distress he haunted the British Museum all
day long. She might merely have changed her time of
coming. He soon began to know the adjacent rooms by
heart, and he contracted a lasting hatred of mummies.
The guardian policeman observed him with suspicion
when he spent three hours poring over Assyrian hiero-glyphics,
and the contemplation of endless vases of all
ages nearly drove him mad with boredom.

But one day his patience was rewarded. She came
again, rather pinker than usual, and trying hard to ap-pear
self-possessed.

He greeted her with cheerful friendliness.

"Good morning. It is ages since you've been here."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"Good morning."

She let the words slip out with icy frigidity, and

coldly ignored the end part of his sentence.


But he was desperate.


"Look here!" He stood confronting her with plead-ing
eyes that reminded her irresistibly of a large, faith-ful
dog. "Won't you be friends? I'm all alone in London--all
alone in the world, and I believe you are, too. We
ought to be friends. Besides, our little god has intro-duced
us."

She looked up half doubtfully, but there was a faint

smile quivering at the corners of her mouth.
"Has he?"
"Of course!"

It was the second time he had used this extremely
positive form of assurance, and now, as before, it did
not fail of its effect, for after a minute or two the girl

said, in that slightly royal manner of hers:

"Very well."


"That's splendid," he replied gruffly, but there was
something in his voice as he said it that made the girl
glance at him swiftly, with a sharp impulse of pity.

And so the queer friendship began. Twice a week
they met, at the shrine of a little heathen idol. At first
they confined their conversation solely to him. He was,
as it were, at once a palliation of, and an excuse
for, their friendship. The question of his origin was
widely discussed. The man insisted on attributing to
him the most bloodthirsty characteristics. He depicted



TI, Loo I


him as the terror and dread of his native land, insa-tiable
for human sacrifice, and bowed down to by his
people in fear and trembling. In the contrast between
his former greatness and his present insignificance
there lay, according to the man, all the pathos of the
situation.

The Lonely Lady would have none of this theory.
He was essentially a kind little god, she insisted. She
doubted whether he had ever been very powerful. If he
had been so, she argued, he would not now be lost and
friendless, and, anyway, he was a dear little god, and
she loved him, and she hated to think of him sitting
there day after day with all those other horrid, super-cilious
things jeering at him, because you could see
they did! After this vehement outburst the little lady
was quite out of breath.


That topic exhausted, they naturally began to talk
of themselves. He found out that his surmise was cor-rect.
She was a nursery governess to a family of chil-dren
who lived at Hampstead. He conceived an instant
dislike of these children; of Ted, who was five and re-ally
not naughty, only mischievous; of the twins who
were rather trying, and of Molly, who wouldn't do any-thing
she was told, but was such a dear you couldn't be
cross with her!


"Those children bully you," he said grimly and ac-cusingly
to her.


"They do not," she retorted with spirit. "I am ex-tremely
stern with them."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"Oh! Ye gods!" he laughed. But she made him apologize
humbly for his scepticism.

She was an orphan, she told him, quite alone in the
world.

Gradually he told her something of his own life: of
his official life, which had been painstaking and mildly
successful; and of his unofficial pastime, which was
the spoiling of yards of canvas.
"Of course, 1 don't know anything about it," he explained.
"But I have always felt I could paint something
someday. I can sketch pretty decently, but I'd like
to do a real picture of something. A chap who knew
once told me that my technique wasn't bad."
She was interested, pressed for details.
"I am sure you paint awfully well."
He shook his head.
"No, I've begun several things lately and chucked
them up in despair. I always thought that, when I had
the time, it would be plain sailing. I have been storing
up that idea for years, but now, like everything else, I
suppose, I've left it too late."

"Nothing's too late--ever," said the little lady, with
the vehement earnestness of the very young.

He smiled down on her. "You think not, child? It's
too late for some things for me."

And the little lady laughed at him and nicknamed
him Methuselah.

They were beginning to feel curiously at home in
the British Museum. The solid and sympathetic police

man who patrolled the galleries was a man of tact,
and on the appearance of the couple he usually found
that his onerous duties of guardianship were urgently
needed in the adjoining Assyrian room.

One day the man took a bold step. He invited her
out to tea!

At first she demurred.

"I have no time. I am not free. I can come some
mornings because the children have French lessons."

"Nonsense," said the man. "You could manage one
day. Kill off an aunt or a second cousin or something,
but come. We'll go to a little ABC shop near here, and

have buns for tea! I know you must love buns!"
"Yes, the penny kind with currants!"
"And a lovely glaze on top--"

"They are such plump, dear thingsf"

"There is something," Frank Oliver said solemnly,
"infinitely comforting about a bun!"

So it was arranged, and the little governess came,
wearing quite an expensive hothouse rose in her belt
in honor of the occasion.

He had noticed that, of late, she had a strained,
worried look, and it was more apparent than ever this
afternoon as she poured out the tea at the little marble-topped
table.

"Children been bothering you?" he asked solici-tously.

She shook her head. She had seemed curiously dis-inclined
to talk about the children lately.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"They're all right. I never mind them."

"Don't you?"

His sympathetic tone seemed to distress her unwarrantably.
"Oh, no. It was never that. But--but, indeed, I was
lonely. I was indeed!'' Her tone was almost pleading.
He said quickly, touched: "Yes, yes, child. I know--I
know."

After a minute's pause he remarked in a cheerful
tone: "Do you know, you haven't even asked my name
yet?"

She held up a protesting hand.

"Please, I don't want to know it. And don't ask
mine. Let us be just two lonely people who've come gether and made friends. It makes it so much more
wonderful--and--and different."
He said slowly and thoughtfully: "Very well. In an
otherwise lonely world we'll be two people who have just each other."
It was a little different from her way of putting
it, and she seemed to find it difficult to go on with
the conversation. Instead, she bent lower and lower
over her plate, till only the crown of her hat was visible.

"That's rather a nice hat," he said by way of restoring
her equanimity.

"I trimmed it myself," she informed him proudly.
"I thought so the moment I saw it," he answered,
saying the wrong thing with cheerful ignorance.



"I'm afraid it is not as fashionable as I meant it to
be!"
"I think it's a perfectly lovely hat," he said loyally.
Again constraint settled down upon them. Frank
Oliver broke the silence bravely.

"Little Lady, I didn't mean to tell you yet, but I can't
help it. I love you. I want you. I loved you from the first
moment I saw you standing there in your little black
suit. Dearest, if two lonely people were together--why--there
would be no more loneliness. And I'd
work, oh! how I'd work! I'd paint you. I could, I know I
could. Oh! my little girl, I can't live without you. I can't
indeed--"
His little lady was looking at him very steadily. But
what she said was quite the last thing he expected her
to say. Very quietly and distinctly she said: "You bought that handkerchiefl"

He was amazed at this proof of feminine perspicacity,
and still more amazed at her remembering it
against him now. Surely, after this lapse of time, it
might have been forgiven him.

"Yes, I did," he acknowledged humbly. "I wanted
an excuse to speak to you. Are you very angry?" He
waited meekly for her words of condemnation.

"I think it was sweet of you!" cried the little lady
with vehemence. "Just sweet of you!" Her voice ended
uncertainly.

Frank Oliver went on in his gruff tone:



AGATHA CHRISTIE

"Tell me, child, is it impossible? I know I'm an ugly,
rough old fellow--"

The Lonely Lady interrupted him.
"No, you're not! I wouldn't have you different, not
in any way. I love you just as you are, do you understand?
Not because I'm sorry for you, not because I'm
alone in the world and want someone to be fond of me
and take care of me--but because you're just--you. Now do you understand?"

"Is it true?" he asked half in a whisper.
And she answered steadily: "Yes, it's true--" The
wonder of it overpowered them.

At last he said whimsically: "So we've fallen upon
heaven, dearest!"
"In an ABC shop," she answered in a voice that
held tears and laughter.

But terrestrial heavens are short-lived. The little
lady started up with an exclamation.

"I'd no idea how late it was! I must go at once." I'll see you home."
"No, no, no!"
He was forced to yield to her insistence, and
merely accompanied her as far as the Tube station.

"Good-bye, dearest." She clung to his hand with an
intensity that he remembered afterwards.

"Only good-bye till tomorrow," he answered cheerfully.
"Ten o'clock as usual, and we'll tell each other
our names and our histories, and be frightfully practical
and prosaic."



"Good-bye to--heaven, though," she whispered.
"It will be with us always, sweetheart!"


She smiled back at him, but with that same sad ap-peal
that disquieted him and which he could not
fathom. Then the relentless lift dragged her down out
of sight.


He was strangely disturbed by those last words of hers,
but he put them resolutely out of his mind and substi-tuted
radiant anticipations of tomorrow in their stead.


At ten o'clock he was there, in the accustomed
place. For the first time he noticed how malevolently
the other idols looked down upon him. It almost
seemed as if they were possessed of some secret evil
knowledge affecting him, over which they were gloat-ing.
He was uneasily aware of their dislike.

The little lady was late. Why didn't she come? The
atmosphere of this place was getting on his nerves.
Never had his own little friend (their god) seemed so
hopelessly impotent as today. A helpless lump of stone,
hugging his own despair!

His cogitations were interrupted by a small, sharp-faced
boy who had stepped up to him, and was
earnestly scrutinizing him from head to foot. Appar-ently
satisfied with the result of his observations, he


held out a letter.

"For me?"


It had no superscription. He took it, and the sharp
boy decamped with extraordinary rapidity.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

Frank Oliver read the letter slowly and unbelievingly.
It was quite short.

Dearest,
I can never marry you. Please forget that I ever came into your Life at all, and
try to forgive me if I have hurt you. Don't try to find me, because it will be no
good. It is really 'goodbye."

The Lonely Lady

There was a postscript which had evidently been
scribbled at the last moment:

I do love you. I do indeed.

And that little impulsive postscript was all the comfort
he had in the weeks that followed. Needless to say,
he disobeyed her injunction "not to try to find her," but
all in vain. She had vanished completely, and he had
no clue to trace her by. He advertised despairingly, imploring
her in veiled terms at least to explain the mystery,
but blank silence rewarded his efforts. She was
gone, never to return.

And then it was that for the first time in his life he
really began to paint. His technique had always been
good. Now craftsmanship and inspiration went hand in
hand.
The picture that made his name and brought him
renown was accepted and hung in the Academy, and



was accounted to be the picture of the year, no less for
the exquisite treatment of the subject than for the masterly
workmanship and technique. A certain amount of
mystery, too, rendered it more interesting to the general
outside public.
His inspiration had come quite by chance. A fairy
story in a magazine had taken a hold on his imagination.
It was the story of a fortunate Princess who had always
had everything she wanted. Did she express a
wish? It was instantly gratified. A desire? It was
granted. She had a devoted father and mother, great
riches, beautiful clothes and jewels, slaves to wait
upon her and fulfil her lightest whim, laughing maidens
to bear her company, all that the heart of a
Princess could desire. The handsomest and richest
Princes paid her court and sued in vain for her hand,
and were willing to kill any number of dragons to
prove their devotion. And yet, the loneliness of the
Princess was greater than that of the poorest beggar in
the land.
He read no more. The ultimate fate of the Princess
interested him not at all. A picture had risen up before
him of the pleasure-laden Princess with the sad, solitary
soul, surfeited with happiness, suffocated with
luxury, starving in the Palace of Plenty.
He began painting with furious energy. The fierce
joy of creation possessed him.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

He represented the Princess surrounded by her
court, reclining on a divan. A riot of Eastern color pervaded
the picture. The Princess wore a marvelous gown of strange-colored embroideries; her golden
hair fell round her, and on her head was a heavy jeweled
circlet. Her maidens surrounded her, and Princes
knelt at her feet bearing rich gifts. The whole scene
was one of luxury and richness.

But the face of the Princess was turned away; she
was oblivious of the laughter and mirth around her.
Her gaze was fixed on a dark and shadowy corner
where stood a seemingly incongruous object: a little
grey stone idol with its head buried in its hand in a
quaint abandonment of despair.

Was it so incongruous? The eyes of the young
Princess rested on it with a strange sympathy, as
though a dawning sense of her own isolation drew her
glance irresistibly. They were akin, these two. The
world was at her feet--yet she was alone: a Lonely
Princess looking at a lonely little god.
All London talked of this picture, and Greta wrote
a few hurried words of congratulation from Yorkshire,
and Torn Hurley's wife besought Frank Oliver to "come
for a weekend and meet a really delightful girl, a great
admirer of your work." Frank Oliver laughed once sardonically,
and threw the letter into the fire. Success
had come--but what was the use of it? He only wanted
one thing--that little lonely lady who had gone out of
his life forever.



It was Ascot Cup Day, and the policeman on duty in a
certain section of the British Museum rubbed his eyes
and wondered if he were dreaming, for one does not
expect to see there an Ascot vision, in a lace frock and
a marvelous hat, a veritable nymph as imagined by a
Parisian genius. The policeman stared in rapturous
admiration.

The lonely god was not perhaps so surprised. He
may have been in his way a powerful little god; at any
rate, here was one worshipper brought back to the
fold.

The Little Lonely Lady was staring up at him, and
her lips moved in a rapid whisper.

"Dear little god, oh! dear little god, please help me!
Oh, please do help me!"

Perhaps the little god was flattered. Perhaps, if he
was indeed the ferocious, unappeasable deity Frank
Oliver had imagined him, the long weary years and the
march of civilization had softened his cold, stone
heart. Perhaps the Lonely Lady had been right all
along and he was really a kind little god. Perhaps it
was merely a coincidence. However that may be, it
was at that very moment that Frank Oliver walked
slowly and sadly through the door of the Assyrian
room.

He raised his head and saw the Parisian nymph.
In another moment his arm was round her, and
she was stammering out rapid, broken words.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"I was so lonely--you know, you must have read
that story I wrote; you couldn't have painted that picture
unless you had, and unless you had understood.
The Princess was I; I had everything, and yet I was
lonely beyond words. One day I was going to a fortuneteller's,
and I borrowed my maid's clothes. I came in
here on the way and saw you looking at the little god.
That's how it all began. I pretended--oh! it was hateful
of me, and I went on pretending, and afterwards I
didn't dare confess that I had told you such dreadful
lies. I thought you would be disgusted at the way I had
deceived you. I couldn't bear for you to find out, so I
went away. Then I wrote that story, and yesterday I saw
your picture. It was your picture, wasn't it?"
Only the gods really know the word "ingratitude."
It is to be presumed that the lonely little god knew the
black ingratitude of human nature. As a divinity he had
unique opportunities of observing it, yet in the hour of
trial, he who had had sacrifices innumerable offered to
him, made sacrifice in his turn. He sacrificed his only
two worshippers in a strange land, and it showed him
to be a great little god in his way, since he sacrificed all
that he had.
Through the chinks in his fingers he watched them
go, hand in hand, without a backward glance, two
happy people who had found heaven and had no need
of him any longer.
What was he, after all, but a very lonely little god in
a strange land?



· .o'r'e'/o T'


"Manx Gold" is no ordinary detective story; indeed, it
is probably unique. The detectives are conventional
enough, but although they are confronted with a par-ticularly
brutal murder, the murderer's identity is not
their main concern. They are more interested in un-raveling
a series of clues to the whereabouts of hidden
treasure, a treasure whose existence is not confined to
the printed page. Clearly, some explanation is re-quired
....


In the winter of 1929, Alderman Arthur B. Crookall
had an idea. Crookall was the chairman of the "June
Effort," a committee responsible for boosting tourism
to the Isle of Man, a small island off the northwest
coast of England. His idea was that there should be a
treasure hunt, inspired by the many legends of Manx
smugglers and their long-forgotten hoards of booty.
There would be "real" treasure, hidden about the
island, and clues to its location concealed in the
framework of a detective story. Some reservations were
expressed by members of the committee, but eventu-ally
planning began for the "Isle of Man Treasure Hunt



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Scheme," to take place at the start of the holiday sea-son
and run at the same time as a number of other an-nual
events, such as the "Crowning of the Rose Queen"
and the midnight yacht race.

But Crookall had to find someone to write the story
on which the hunt would be based. Who better than
Agatha Christie? Perhaps surprisingly, and for a fee of
only sixty pounds, Christie accepted this, her most un-usual
commission. She visited the Isle of Man at the
end of April 1930, staying as the guest of the lieu-tenant
governor, before returning to Devon, where
her daughter was ill. During her visit, Christie and
Crookall spent several days discussing the treasure
hunt, and visited various sites in order to decide where
the treasure should be hidden and how the clues
should be composed.

The resulting story, "Manx Gold," was published in
five installments towards the end of May in the Daily
Dispatch, a Manchester newspaper. A quarter of a mil-lion
copies of the story also were distributed in booklet
form to guesthouses and hotels across the island. The
five clues were published separately, and as the date
on which the first was due to appear in the Dispatch
drew nearer, the June Effort Committee appealed to
everyone to "cooperate in order to obtain as much
publicity as possible" for the hunt. More tourists meant
more tourist revenue, and the hunt was also drawn to
the attention of several hundred "Homecomers" who
had emigrated from the island to the United States and


.



were due to return as honored guests in June. In the
words of the publicity at the time, it was "an opportunity
for all Amateur Detectives to test their skill!"
In the story, Juan Faraker and Fenella Mylecharane
set out to find four chests of treasure, which have
been hidden on the island by their eccentric Uncle
Myles. To compete with Juan and Fenella, the reader
was advised--like them--to equip himself with "several
excellent maps.., various guidebooks descriptive
of the island.., a book on folklore [and] a book on
the history of the island."
The solutions to the clues are given at the end of
the story.



Old Mylecharane liv 'd up on the broo,

Where Jurby slopes down to the wood,

His croft was all golden with cushag and furze,

His daughter was fair to behold.

"O father, they say you've plenty of store,
But hidden all out of the way.

No gold can I see, but its glint on the gorse;

Then what have you done with it, pray?"

"My gold is locked up in a coffer of oak,

Which I dropped in the tide and it sank,

And there it lies fixed like an anchor of hope,

· 4.1l hrigkt and as safe as the hank."

LIKE THAT SONG," I SAID APPRECIATIVELY
as Fenella finished.
"You should do," said Fenella. "It's about our ancestor,
yours and mine. Uncle Myles's grandfather. He



made a fortune out of smuggling and hid it some-where,
and no one ever knew where."

Ancestry is Fenella's strong point. She takes an in-terest
in all her forbears. My tendencies are strictly
modern. The difficult present and the uncertain future
absorb all my energy. But I like hearing Fenella
singing old Manx ballads.


Fenella is very charming. She is my first cousin
and also, from time to time, my fiancee. In moods of fi-nancial
optimism we are engaged. When a corre-sponding
wave of pessimism sweeps over us and we
realize that we shall not be able to marry for at least
ten years, we break it off.

"Didn't anyone ever try to find the treasure?" I in-quired.


"Of course. But they never did."

"Perhaps they didn't look scientifically."

"Uncle Myles had a jolly good try," said Fenella.
"He said anyone with intelligence ought to be able to
solve a little problem like that."


That sounded to me very like our Uncle Myles, a
cranky and eccentric old gentleman, who lived in the
Isle of Man and who was much given to didactic pro-nouncements.


It was at that moment that the post came--and the
letter!


"Good Heavens," cried Fenella. "Talk of the devil--I
mean angels--Uncle Myles is dead!"



AGATHA CHRISTIE

Both she and I had seen our eccentric relative on
only two occasions, so we could neither of us pretend to a very deep grief. The letter was from a firm of
lawyers in Douglas, and it informed us that under the
will of Mr. Myles Mylecharane, deceased, Fenella and
I were joint inheritors of his estate, which consisted of
a house near Douglas and an infinitesimal income.
Enclosed was a sealed envelope, which Mr. Mylecharane
had directed should be forwarded to Fenella at
his death. This letter we opened and read its surprising
contents. I reproduce it in full, since it was a truly
characteristic document.

My dear Fenella and Juan--for I take it that where one of you is the other will
not be far away. Or so gossip has whispered.

You may remember having heard me say that anyone displaying a little
intelligence could easily find the treasure concealed by my amiable scoundrel of
a grandfather. I displayed that intelligence-and my reward was four chests of
solid gold---quite like a fairy story, is it not?

Of living relations I have only four: you two, my nephew £wan Corjeag,
whom I have always heard is a thoroughly bad lot, and a cousin, a Doctor
Fayll, of whom I have heard very little, and that little not always good.
My estate proper I am leaving to you and Fenella, but I feel a certain
obligation laid upon me with regard to this "treasure" which has fallen to my
lot solely through my own ingenuity. My amiable ancestor would not, I feel, be
satisfied for me to pass it on tamely by inheritance. So I, in my turn, have devised
a little problem.

There are still four "chests" of treasure (though in a more modern form



than gold ingots or coins) and there are to he four competitors--my four living
relations. It would be fairest to assign one "chest" to eachut the world, my
children, is not fair. The race is to the swiftest--and often to the most unscrupulous.

Who am I to go against Nature? You must pit your wits against the other
two. There will be, I fear, very little chance for you. Goodness and innocence
are seldom rewarded in this world. So strongly do I feel this that I have deliberately
cheated (unfairness again, you notice;). This letter goes to you twenty-four
hours in advance of the letters to the other two. Thus you will have a very
good chance of securing the first "treasure"---twenty-four hours' start, if you
have any brains at all, ought to be sufficient.

The clues for finding this treasure are to be found at my house in Douglas.
The clues for the second "treasure" will not be released till the first treasure is
found. In the second and succeeding cases, therefore, you will all start even. You
have my good wishes for success, and nothing would please me better than for
you to acquire all four "chests," but for the reasons which I have already stated
I think that most unlikely. Remember that no scruples will stand in dear Ewan
way. Do not make the mistake of trusting him in any respect. As to Dr. Richard
Fayll, I know little about him, but he is, I fancy, a dark horse.

Good luck to you both, but with little hopes of your success, Your affectionate uncle,
Myles Mylecharane

As we reached the signature, Fenella made a leap
from my side.

"What is it?" I cried.
Fenella was rapidly turning the pages of an ABC.
"We must get to the Isle of Man as soon as possi-



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


ble," she cried. "How dare he say we were good and in-nocent
and stupid? I'll show him! Juan, we're going to
find all four of these 'chests' and get married and live
happily ever afterwards, with Rolls-Royces and foot-men
and marble baths. But we must get to the Isle of
Man at once."


It was twenty-four hours later. We had arrived in Doug-las,
interviewed the lawyers, and were now at Maugh-old
House facing Mrs. Skillicorn, our late uncle's
housekeeper, a somewhat formidable woman who
nevertheless relented a little before Fenella's eager-ness.


"Queer ways he had," she said. "Liked to set every-one
puzzling and contriving."

"But the clues," cried Fenella. "The clues?"
Deliberately, as she did everything, Mrs. Skillicorn
left the room. She returned after an absence of some
minutes and held out a folded piece of paper.


We unfolded it eagerly. It contained a doggerel
rhyme in my uncle's crabbed handwriting.


Four points of the compass so there be
S and W, N and E.

East winds are bad for man and beast.
Go south and west and


North not east.



"Oh!" said Fenella blankly.


"Oh!" said I, with much the same intonation.
Mrs. Skillicorn smiled on us with gloomy relish.
"Not much sense to it, is there?" she said helpfully.

"It--I don't see how to begin," said Fenella, pit-eously.


"Beginning," I said, with a cheerfulness I did not
feel, "is always the difficulty. Once we get going--"


Mrs. Skillicorn smiled more grimly than ever. She
was a depressing woman.


"Can't you help us?" asked Fenella coaxingly.


"I know nothing about the silly business. Didn't
confide in me, your uncle didn't. I told him to put his
money in the bank, and no nonsense. I never knew
what he was up to."


"He never went out with any chests--or anything
of that kind?"

"That he didn't."


"You don't know when he hid the stuff--whether it
was lately or long ago?"


Mrs. Skillicorn shook her head.


"Well," I said, trying to rally. "There are two possi-bilities.
Either the treasure is hidden here, in the ac-tual
grounds, or else it may be hidden anywhere on the
island. It depends on the bulk, of course."


A sudden brain wave occurred to Fenella.


"You haven't noticed anything missing?" she said.
"Among my uncle's things, I mean."



AGATHA CHRISTIE


"Why, now, it's odd your saying that--"


"You have, then?"

"As I say, it's odd your saying that. Snuffboxes--there's
at least four of them I can't lay my hand on any-where."


"Four of them!" cried Fenella. "That must be it!
We're on the track. Let's go out in the garden and look
about."

"There's nothing there," said Mrs. Skillicorn. "I'd
know if there were. Your uncle couldn't have buried
anything in the garden without my knowing about
it."

"Points of the compass are mentioned," I said.
"The first thing we need is a map of the island."


"There's one on that desk," said Mrs. Skillicorn.

Fenella unfolded it eagerly. Something fluttered
out as she did so. I caught it.


"Hullo," I said. "This looks like a further clue."
We both went over it eagerly.


It appeared to be a rude kind of map. There was a
cross on it and a circle and a pointing arrow, and di-rections
were roughly indicated, but it was hardly illu-minating.
We studied it in silence.


;'It's not very illuminating, is it?" said Fenella.


"Naturally it wants puzzling over," I said. "We can't
expect it to leap to the eye."


Mrs. Skillicorn interrupted with a suggestion of
supper, to which we agreed thankfully.



"And could we have some coffee?" said Fenella.
"Lots of it--very black."


Mrs. Skillicorn provided us with an excellent meal,
and at its conclusion a large jug of coffee made its ap-pearance.


"And now," said Fenella, "we must get down to it."


"The first thing," I said, "is direction. This seems to

point clearly to the northeast of the island."
"It seems so. Let's look at the map."
We studied the map attentively.

"It all depends on how you take the thing," said
Fenella. "Does the cross represent the treasure? Or is
it something like a church? There really ought to be
rules!"


"That would make it too easy."


"I suppose it would. Why are there little lines on


one side of the circle and not the other?"

"I don't know."


"Are there any more maps anywhere?"


We were sitting in the library. There were several
excellent maps. There were also various guidebooks
descriptive of the island. There was a book on folklore.
There was a book on the history of the island. We read
them all.


And at last we formed a possible theory.

"It does seem to fit," said Fenella at last. "I mean
the two together is a likely conjunction which doesn't
seem to occur anywhere else."


"It's worth trying, anyhow," I said. "I don't think we



AGATHA CHRISTIE

can do anything more tonight. Tomorrow, first thing,
we'll hire a car and go off and try our luck."
"It's tomorrow now," said Fenella. "Half past two!
Just fancy!!"

Early morning saw us on the road. We had hired a car for
a week, arranging to drive it ourselves. Fenella's spirits
rose as we sped along the excellent road, mile after mile.

"If only it wasn't for the other two, what fun this
would be," she said. "This is where the Derby was
originally run, wasn't it? Before it was changed to Epsom.
How queer that is to think off"

I drew her attention to a farmhouse.
"That must be where there is said to be a secret
passage running under the sea to that island."
"What fun! I love secret passages, don't you? Oh!
Juan, we're getting quite near now. I'm terribly excited.
If we should be right!"

Five minutes later we abandoned the car.
"Everything's in the right position," said Fenella
tremulously.

We walked on.
"Six of them--that's right. Now between these two.
Have you got the compass?"
Five minutes later, we were standing facing each
other, an incredulous joy on our faces--and on my outstretched
palm lay an antique snuffbox.

We had been successful!



On our return to Maughold House, Mrs. Skillicorn met
us with the information that two gentlemen had arrived.
One had departed again, but the other was in the
library.

A tall, fair man with a florid face rose smilingly
from an armchair as we entered the room.

"Mr. Faraker and Miss Mylecharane? Delighted to
meet you. I am your distant cousin, Dr. Fayll. Amusing
game, all this, isn't it?"

His manner was urbane and pleasant, but I took
an immediate dislike to him. I felt that in some way
the man was dangerous. His pleasant manner was,
somehow, too pleasant, and his eyes never met yours
fairly.

"I'm afraid we've got bad news for you," I said.
"Miss Mylecharane and myself have already discovered
the first 'treasure.'"

He took it very well.

"Too bad--too bad. Posts from here must be odd.
Barford and I started at once."
We did not dare to confess the perfidy of Uncle
Myles.

"Anyway, we shall all start fair for the second
round," said Fenella.
"Splendid. What about getting down to the clues
right away? Your excellent Mrs.--er--Skillicorn holds
them, I believe?"



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"That wouldn't be fair to Mr. Corjeag," said Fe-nella,
quickly. "We must wait for him."
"True, true--I had forgotten. We must get in touch
with him as quickly as possible. I will see to that--you
two must be tired out and want to rest."
Thereupon he took his departure. Ewan Corjeag
must have been unexpectedly difficult to find, for it
was not till nearly eleven o'clock that night that Dr.
Fayll rang up. He suggested that he and Ewan should
come over to Maughold House at ten o'clock the following
morning, when Mrs. Skillicorn could hand us
out the clues.
"That will do splendidly," said Fenella. "Ten
o'clock tomorrow."
We retired to bed tired but happy.

The following morning we were aroused by Mrs. Skillicorn,
completely shaken out of her usual pessimistic
calm.
"Whatever do you think?" she panted. "The house
has been broken into."
"Burglars?" I exclaimed incredulously. "Has anything
been taken?"
"Not a thing--and that's the odd part of it! No doubt
they were after the silver--but the door being locked
on the outside they couldn't get any further."
Fenella and I accompanied her to the scene of the
outrage, which happened to be in her own sitting
room. The window there had undeniably been forced,



yet nothing seemed to have been taken. It was all
rather curious.


"I don't see what they can have been looking for,"
said Fenella.


"It's not as though there were a 'treasure chest'
hidden in the house," I agreed facetiously. Suddenly an
idea flashed into my mind. I turned to Mrs. Skillicorn.
"The clues--the clues you were to give us this morn-ing?''


"Why to be sure--they're in that top drawer." She
went across to it. "Why--I do declare--there's nothing
here! They're gone!"


"Not burglars," I said. "Our esteemed relations!"
And I remembered Uncle Myles's warning on the sub-ject
of unscrupulous dealing. Clearly he had known
what he was talking about. A dirty trick!


"Hush," said Fenella suddenly, holding up a finger.
"what was that?"

The sound she had caught came plainly to our
ears. It was a groan and it came from outside. We went
to the window and leaned out. There was shrubbery
growing against this side of the house and we could
see nothing; but the groan came again, and we could
see that the bushes seemed to have been disturbed and
trampled.


We hurried down and out round the house. The
first thing we found was a fallen ladder, showing how
the thieves had reached the window. A few steps fur-ther
brought us to where a man was lying.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


He was a youngish man, dark, and he was evi-dently
badly injured, for his head was lying in a pool of
blood. I knelt down beside him.

"We must get a doctor at once. I'm afraid he's dy-ing.''

The gardener was sent off hurriedly. I slipped my
hand into his breast pocket and brought out a pocket
book. On it were the initials E. C.

"Ewan Corjeag," said Fenella.


The man's eyes opened. He said faintly: "Fell from
ladder..." then lost consciousness again.


Close by his head was a large jagged stone stained
with blood.

"It's clear enough," I said. "The ladder slipped and
he fell, striking his head on this stone. I'm afraid it's
done for him, poor fellow."


"So you think that was it?" said Fenella, in an odd
tone of voice.

But at that moment the doctor arrived. He held out
little hope of recovery. Ewan Corjeag was moved into
the house and a nurse was sent for to take charge of
him. Nothing could be done, and he would die a couple
of hours later.

We had been sent for and were standing by his bed.
His eyes opened and flickered.


"We are your cousins Juan and Fenella," I said. "Is
there anything we can do?"

He made a faint negative motion of the head. A
whisper came from his lips. I bent to catch it.



"Do you want the clue? I'm done. Don't let Fayll do
you down."

"Yes," said Fenella. "Tell me."
Something like a grin came over his face.
"D'ye ken--" he began.

Then suddenly his bead fell over sideways and he
died.

"I don't like it," said Fenella suddenly.
"What don't you like?"

"Listen, Juan. Ewan stole those clues--he admits
falling from the ladder. Then where are they? We've
seen all the contents of his pockets. There were three
sealed envelopes, so Mrs. Skillicorn says. Those sealed
envelopes aren't there."

"What do you think, then?"

"I think there was someone else there, someone
who jerked away the ladder so that Ewan fell. And that
stone--he never fell on it--it was brought from some
distance away--I've found the mark. He was deliberately
bashed on the head with it."
"But Fenella--that's murder!"
"Yes," said Fenella, very white. "It's murder. Remember,
Dr. Fayll never turned up at ten o'clock this
morning. Where is he?"
"You think he's the murderer?"
"Yes. You know--this treasure--it's a lot of money,
Juan."

"And we've no idea where to look for him," I said.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


"A pity Corjeag couldn't have finished what he was go-lng
to say."


"There's one thing that might help. This was in his
hand."


She handed me a torn snapshot.


"Suppose it's a clue. The murderer snatched it
away and never noticed he'd left a corner of it behind.
If we were to find the other half--"

"To do that," I said, "we must find the second trea-sure.
Let's look at this thing."


"Hmm," I said, "there's nothing much to go by.
That seems a kind of tower in the middle of the circle,

but it would be very hard to identify."

Fenella nodded.


"Dr. Fayll has the important half. He knows
where to look. We've got to find that man, Juan, and
watch him. Of course, we won't let him see we sus-pect.''


"I wonder whereabouts in the island he is this
minute. If we only knew--"


My mind went back to the dying man. Suddenly I
sat up excitedly.


"Fenella," I said, "Corjeag wasn't Scotch?"


"No, of course not."

"Well, then, don't you see? What he meant, I mean?"
"No?"

I scribbled something on a piece of paper and
tossed it to her.



"What's this?"

"The name of a firm that might help us."
"Bellman and True. Who are they? Lawyers?"
"No--they're more in our line--private detectives."
And I proceeded to explain.


"Dr. Fayll to see you," said Mrs. Skillicorn.


We looked at each other. Twenty-four hours had
elapsed. We had returned from our quest successful
for the second time. Not wishing to draw attention to
ourselves, we had journeyed in the Snaefell--a chara-banc.

"I wonder if he knows we saw him in the dis-tance?''
murmured Fenella.

"It's extraordinary. If it hadn't been for the hint that
photograph gave us--"


"Hush--and do be careful, Juan. He must be sim-ply
furious at our having outwitted him in spite of
everything."

No trace of it appeared in the doctor's manner,
however. He entered the room his urbane and charm-ing
self, and I felt my faith in Fenella's theory dwin-dling.


"What a shocking tragedy!" he said. "Poor Corjeag.
I suppose he was--well--trying to steal a march on
us. Retribution was swirl. Well, well--we scarcely
knew him, poor fellow. You must have wondered
why I didn't turn up this morning as arranged. I got a



AGATHA CHRISTIE


fake message--Corjeag's doing, I suppose--it sent me
off on a wild-goose chase right across the island. And
now you two have romped home again. How do you
do it?"

There was a note of really eager inquiry in his
voice which did not escape me.


"Cousin Ewan was fortunately able to speak just
before he died," said Fenella.

I was watching the man, and I could swear I saw

alarm leap into his eyes at her words.


"Eh--eh? What's that?" he said.

"He was just able to give us a clue as to the where-abouts
of the treasure," explained Fenella.

"Oh! I see--I see. I've been clean out of things--though,
curiously enough, I myself was in that part of


the island. You may have seen me strolling round."
"We were so busy," said Fenella apologetically.
"Of course, of course. You must have run across
the thing more or less by accident. Lucky young peo-ple,
aren't you? Well, what's the next program? Will
Mrs. Skillicorn oblige us with the new clues?"

But it seemed that this third set of clues had been
deposited with the lawyer, and we all three repaired to
the lawyer's office, where the sealed envelopes were
handed over to us.

The contents were simple. A map with a certain
area marked off on it, and a paper of directions at-tached.



Mo× Coll

In '85, this place made history.
n paces from the landmark to

The east, then an equal ten

Places north. Stand there
Looking east. Two trees are in the

Line of vision. One of them
Was sacred m this island. Draw

A circlefivefeetfrom
The Spanish chestnut and,

With head bent, walk round. Look well. You'll find

"Looks as though we are going to tread on each
other's toes a bit today," commented the doctor.

True to my policy of apparent friendliness, I offered
him a lift in our car, which he accepted. We had
lunch at Port Erin, and then started on our search.
I had debated in my own mind the reason of my
uncle's depositing this particular set of clues with his
lawyer. Had he foreseen the possibility of a theft? And
had he determined that not more than one set of clues
should fall into the thief's possession?
The treasure hunt this afternoon was not without
its humor. The area of search was limited and we were
continually in sight of each other. We eyed each other
suspiciously, each trying to determine whether the
other was further on or had had a brain wave.
"This is all part of Uncle Myles's plan," said Fenella.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"He wanted us to watch each other and go through all
the agonies of thinking the other person was getting
there."

"Come," I said. "Let's get down to it scientifically.
We've got one definite clue to start on. 'In '85 this place
made history.' Look up the reference books we've got
with us and see if we can't hunt that down. Once we
get that--"


"He's looking in that hedge," interrupted Fenella.
"Oh! I can't bear it. If he's got it--"

"Attend to me," I said firmly. "There's really only
one way to go about it the proper way."


"There are so few trees on the island that it would
be much simpler just to look for a chestnut tree!" said
Fenella.

I pass over the next hour. We grew hot and de-spondent-and
all the time we were tortured with fear
that Fayll might be succeeding whilst we failed.


"I remember once reading in a detective story," I
said, "how a fellow stuck a paper of writing in a bath of
acid--and all sorts of other words came out."

"Do you think--but we haven't got a bath of acid!"
"I don't think Uncle Myles could expect expert
chemical knowledge. But there's common or garden
heat--"

We slipped round the corner of a hedge and in a
minute or two I had kindled a few twigs. I held the pa-per
as close to the blaze as I dared. Almost at once I



was rewarded by seeing characters begin to appear at

the foot of the sheet. There were just two words.
"Kirkhill Station," read out Fenella.

Just at that moment Fayll came round the corner.
Whether he had heard or not we had no means of
judging. He showed nothing.

"But Juan," said Fenella, when he moved away,
"there isn't a l(irkhill Station!" She held out the map as
she spoke.


"No," I said examining it, "but look here."

And with a pencil I drew a line on it.


"Of course! And somewhere on that line--"
"Exactly."

"But I wish we knew the exact spot."

It was then that my second brain wave came to me.


"We do!" I cried, and seizing the pencil again, I
said: "Look!"

Fenella uttered a cry.

"How idiotic!" she cried. "And how marvelous:
What a sell! Really. Uncle Myles was a most ingenious
old gentleman!"


The time had come for the last clue. This, the lawyer
had informed us, was not in his keeping. It was to be
posted to us on receipt of a postcard sent by him. He
would impart no further information.


Nothing arrived, however, on the morning it should
have done, and Fenella and I went through agonies,



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

believing that Fayll had managed somehow to intercept
our letter. The next day, however, our fears were
calmed and the mystery explained when we received
the following illiterate scrawl:

Dear Sir or Madam,
Escuse delay but have been all sixes and sevens but i do now as mr. Mylecharane
axed me to and send you the piece of riting wot as been in my family many
long years the wot he wanted it for i do not know.
thanking you i am
Mary Kerruish

"Postmark--Bride," I remarked. "Now for the
'piece of riting handed down in my family'!"

Upon a rock, a sign you'll see.
O, tell me what the point of

That may be? Well, firstly, (A). Near
By you'll find, quite suddenly, the light
You seek. Then (B). A house. A
Cottage with a thatch and wall.

A meandering lane near by. That all.

"It's very unfair to begin with a rock," said Fenella.
"There are rocks everywhere. How can you tell which
one has the sign on it?"
"If we could settle on the district," I said, "it ought



J'va n x Col


to be fairly easy to find the rock. It must have a mark
on it pointing in a certain direction, and in that direc-tion
there will be something hidden which will throw
light on the finding of the treasure."


"I think you're right," said Fenella.


"That's A. The new clue will give us a hint where B,
the cottage, is to be found. The treasure itself is hidden
down a lane alongside the cottage. But clearly we've
got to find A first.


Owing to the difficulty of the initial step, Uncle
Myles's last problem proved a real teaser. To Fenella
falls the distinction of unraveling it--and even then
she did not accomplish it for nearly a week. Now and
then we had come across Fayll in our search of rocky
districts, but the area was a wide one.

When we finally made our discovery it was late in
the evening. Too late, I said, to start offto the place in-dicated.
Fenella disagreed.


"Supposing Fayll finds it, too," she said. "And we
wait till tomorrow and he starts off tonight. How we
should kick ourselves!"


Suddenly, a marvelous idea occurred to me.


"Fenella," I said, "do you still believe that Fayll


murdered Ewan Corjeag?"


"I do."


"Then I think that now we've got our chance to
bring the crime home to him."


"That man makes me shiver. He's bad all through.
Tell me."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"Advertize the fact that we've found A. Then start
off. Ten to one he'll follow us. It's a lonely place--just
what would suit his book. He'll come out in the open if


we pretend to find the treasure."

"And then?"


"And then," I said, "he'll have a little surprise."


It was close on midnight. We had left the car some dis-tance
away and were creeping along by the side of a
wall. Fenella had a powerful flashlight which she was
using. I myself carried a revolver. I was taking no
chances.

Suddenly, with a low cry, Fenella stopped.


"Look, Juan," she cried. "We've got it. At last."


For a moment I was off my guard. Led by instinct I
whirled round--but too late. Fayll stood six paces away
and his revolver covered us both.

"Good evening," he said. "This trick is mine. You'll
hand over that treasure, if you please."

"Would you like me also to hand over something
else?" I asked. "Half a snapshot torn from a dying

man's hand? You have the other half, I think. '

His hand wavered.

"What are you talking about?" he growled.

"The truth's known," I said. "You and Corjeag were
there together. You pulled away the ladder and crashed
his head with that stone. The police are cleverer than
you imagine, Dr. Fayll."



"They know, do they? Then, by Heaven, I'll swing
for three murders instead of one!"
"Drop, Fenella," I screamed. And at the same
minute his revolver barked loudly.

We had both dropped in the heather, and before he
could fire again uniformed men sprang out from behind
the wall where they had been hiding. A moment

later Fayll had been handcuffed and led away.

I caught Fenella in my arms.

"I knew I was right," she said tremulously.

"Darling!" I cried, "it was too risky. He might have
shot you."

"But he didn't," said Fenella. "And we know where
the treasure is."

"Do we?"
"I do. See"--she scribbled a word. "We'll look for it
tomorrow. There can't be many hiding places there, I
should say."

It was just noon when:

"Eureka!" said Fenella softly. "The fourth snuffbox!
We've got them all. Uncle Myles would be pleased. And
now--"

"Now," I said, "we can be married and live together
happily ever afterwards."

"We'll live in the Isle of Man," said Fenella.
"On Manx Gold," I said, and laughed aloud for
sheer happiness.



The treasure is all that is left of the lost fortune of "Old
Mylecharane," a legendary Manx smuggler. In real-ity,
the treasure took the form of four snuffboxes,
each about the size of a matchbox and containing an
eighteenth-century Manx halfpenny with a hole in it,
through which was tied a length of colored ribbon, and
a neatly folded document, executed with many flour-ishes
in India ink and signed by Alderman Crookall,
which directed the finder to report at once to the clerk
at the town hall in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of
Man. Finders were instructed to take with them the
snuffbox and its contents in order to claim a prize of
one hundred pounds (equivalent to about three thou-sand
pounds today). They also had to bring with them
proof of identity, for only visitors to the island were al-lowed
to search for the treasure; Manx residents were
excluded from the hunt.



A Little Intelligence


Could Easily Find the Treasure


The sole purpose of the first clue in "Manx Gold," the
rhyme which begins "Four points of the compass so
there be," published in the Daily Dispatch on Saturday,
May 31, was to indicate that the four treasures would
be found in the north, south, and west of the island, but
not in the east. The clue to the location of the first
snuffbox was in fact the second clue, a map published
on June 7. However, the treasure had already been
found by a tailor from Inverness, William Shaw, be-cause
sufficient clues to its location were contained in
the story itself.


The most important clue was Fenella's remark that
the hiding place was near the place "where Derby was
originally run.., before it was changed to Epsom."
This is a reference to the famous English horse race,
which was first run at Derbyhaven in the southeast of
the Isle of Man. The "quite near" island to which "a se-cret
passage" was rumored to run from a farmhouse
can easily be identified as St. Michael's Isle, on which,
in addition to the twelfth-century chapel of St. Michael,
is a circular stone tower known as the Derby Fort,
from which the island gets its alternative name, Fort
Island--"the two together is a likely conjunction which
doesn'[ seem to occur anywhere else." The fort was
represented on the map by a circle with six lines pro-jected
from it to represent the six historical cannons--



AGATHA CHRISTIE


"six of them"--in the fort; the chapel was represented
by a cross.

The small pewter snuffbox was hidden on a rocky
ledge running in a northeasterly direction from be-tween
the middle two cannons--"between these two
have you got the compass?"--while Juan's initial sug-gestion
that the clue "points to the northeast of the is-land"
was a red herring.


Too Easy


The second snuffbox, apparently constructed from
horn, was located on June 9 by Richard Highton, a
Lancashire builder. As Fenella made clear to the mur-derous
Dr. Fayll, Ewan Corjeag's dying words, "D'ye
ken--" are a clue to the whereabouts of the treasure.
In fact, they are the opening words of the traditional
English song "John Peel," about a Cumbrian hunts-man,
and when Juan suggested that "Bellman and
True" was the "name of a firm that might help us," he
was not referring to the "firm of lawyers in Douglas"
mentioned at the beginning of the story but to two of
John Peel's hounds, as named in the song. With these
clues, the subject of the "torn snapshot," which was
published as the third clue on June 9, would not have
been "very hard to identify"; it was the ruins of the
fourteenth-century Peel Castle on St. Patrick's Isle, and
curved lines along the photograph's left-hand edge
were the curlicues on the arm of a bench on Peel Hill,



which looks down on the castle and under w-hich the
snuffbox was hidden. The charabanc journeyt0 Snae-fell,
the highest peak on the Isle of Man, was another
red herring.


More or Less by Accident


The third "treasure" was found by Mr. HerbertEllot, a
Manx-born ship's engineer living in Liverpool M. El-liot
later claimed that he had not read "MaX old"
nor even studied the clues, but had simply decided on
a likely area where, very early on the morning ofJuly
8, he chanced upon the snuffbox, hidden in a gullj.

The principal clue to its whereabouts was hidden
in the fourth clue, published on June 14 (the vers be-ginning
"In '85, this place made history"), in whic the
second word of each line spells out the following nes-sage:


"85... paces.., east.., north.., east.. · %f...
sacred.., circle... Spanish... head." The "Scred
circle" is the Meayll circle on Mull Hill, a roegalithic
monument a little over a mile from the Spanish IIead,
the most southerly point of the island. The refererce to
an important event "in '85" and a Spanish chehtnut,
which from contemporary accounts proved a diversion
for many searchers, were false leads. As for "Kikhill
Station," the clue uncovered by Juan, Fenella rightly
said that there was no such place. However, there is a
village called Kirkhill and there is also a railway stap



AGATHA CHRISTIE


tion at Port Erin, where Juan and Fenella had had
lunch before starting their search. If a line is drawn
from Kirkhill to Port Erin and continued southward, it
eventually crosses the Meayll circle, "the exact spot"
identified by Juan.


A Real Teaser


Unfortunately, as was the case with the clues to the lo-cation
of the third snuffbox, those for the fourth were
never solved. The fifth and final clue, the verse begin-ning
"Upon a rock, a sign you'll see," was published on
June 21, but on July 10, at the end of the extended pe-riod
allowed for the hunt, which had originally been
intended to finish at the end of June, the final "trea-sure''
was "lifted" by the Mayor of Douglas. Two days
later, as a "sequel" to the story, the Daily Dispatch pub-lished
a photograph of the event and Christie's expla-nation
of the final clue:


That last clue still makes me smile when I remember the time we wasted looking
for rocks with a sign on them. The real clue was so simple--the words "sixes
and sevens" in the covering letter.


Take the sixth and seventh words of each line of the verse, and you get this:
"You'll see. Point of (A). Near the lighthouse a wall." See the point of
(A) we identified as the Point of Ayre. We spent some time finding the right
wall, and the treasure itself was not there. Instead, there were four figures--2,
5, 6, and 9 scrawled on a stone.

Apply them to the letters of the first line of the verse, and you get the word



"park." There is only one real park in the Isle of Man, at Ramsey. We searched
that park, and found at last what we sought.


The thatched building in question was a small refresh-ment
kiosk, and the path leading past it ran up to an
ivy-covered wall, which was the hiding place of the
elusive snuffbox. The fact that the letter had been
posted in Bride was an additional clue, as this village is
near the lighthouse at the Point of Ayre, the northern-most
tip of the island.


It is impossible to judge whether or not "Manx Gold"
was a successful means of promoting tourism on the
Isle of Man. Certainly, it appears that there were more
visitors in 1930 than in previous years, but how far that
increase could be ascribed to the treasure hunt is far
from clear. Contemporary press reports show that
there were many who doubted that it had been of any
real value, and at a civic lunch to mark the end of the
hunt, Alderman Crookall responded to a vote of thanks
by railing against those who had failed to talk up the
hunt--they were "slackers and grousers who never did
anything but offer up criticism."


The fact that they were not allowed to take part in
the hunt might have been a cause of apathy among the
islanders, even though the Daily Dispatch offered the
Manx resident with whom each finder was staying a
prize of five guineas, equivalent to about one hundred
fifty pounds today. This also might have accounted for



AGATHA CHRISTIE


various acts of gentle "sabotage," such as the laying of
false snuffboxes and spoof clues, including a rock on
which the word "lift" was painted but under which was
nothing more interesting than discarded fruit peel.


While there never has been any other event quite
like the Isle of Man treasure hunt, Agatha Christie did
go on to write mysteries with a similar theme. Most ob-vious
of these is the challenge laid down to Charmian
Stroud and Edward Rossiter by their eccentric Uncle
Mathew in "Strange Jest," a Miss Marple story first
published in 1941 as "A Case of Buried Treasure" and
collected in Three Blind Mice (1948). There is also a
similarly structured "murder hunt" in the Poirot novel
Dead Man's Folly (1956).



VII



IT WAS MRS. LEMPRIIRE WHO DISCOVERED
the existence of Jane Haworth. It would be, of course.
Somebody once said that Mrs. Lemprire was easily the
most hated woman in London, but that, I think, is an
exaggeration. She has certainly a knack of tumbling on
the one thing you wish to keep quiet about, and she
does it with real genius. It is always an accident.

In this case we had been having tea in Alan Ever-ard's
studio. He gave these teas occasionally, and used
to stand about in corners, wearing very old clothes,
rattling the coppers in his trouser pockets and looking
profoundly miserable.
I do not suppose anyone will dispute Everard's
claim to genius at this date. His two most famous pictures, Color and The Connoisseur, which belong to his
early period, before he became a fashionable portrait
painter, were purchased by the nation last year, and
for once the choice went unchallenged. But at the date
of which I speak, Everard was only beginning to come
into his own, and we were free to consider that we had
discovered him.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

It was his wife who organized these parties. Ever-ard's
attitude to her was a peculiar one. That he adored
her was evident, and only to be expected. Adoration
was Isobel's due. But he seemed always to feel himself
slightly in her debt. He assented to anything she wished,
not so much through tenderness as through an unalterable
conviction that she had a right to her own
way. I suppose that was natural enough, too, when one
comes to think of it.

For Isobel Loring had been really very celebrated.
When she came out she had been the d6butante of the
season. She had everything except money; beauty, position,
breeding, brains. Nobody expected her to marry
for love. She wasn't that kind of girl. In her second season
she had three strings to her bow, the heir to a
dukedom, a rising politician, and a South African millionaire.
And then, to everyone's surprise, she married
Alan Everard--a struggling young painter whom no
one had ever heard of.
It is a tribute to her personality, I think, that everyone
went on calling her Isobel Loring. Nobody ever alluded
to her as Isobel Everard. It would be: "I saw
Isobel Loring this morning. Yes--with her husband,
young Everard, the painter fellow."

People said Isobel had "done for herself." It would,
I think, have "done" for most men to be known as "Iso-bel
Loring's husband." But Everard was different. Iso-bel's
talent for success hadn't failed her after all. Alan
Everard painted Color.



I suppose everyone knows the picture: a stretch of
road with a trench dug down it, and turned earth, red-dish
in color, a shining length of brown glazed drain-pipe
and the huge navvy, resting for a minute on his
spade--a Herculean figure in stained corduroys with a
scarlet neckerchief. His eyes look out at you from the
canvas, without intelligence, without hope, but with a
dumb unconscious pleading, the e'es of a magnificent
brute beast. It is a flaming thinga symphony of or-ange
and red. A lot has been written about its symbol-ism,
about what it is meant to express. Alan Everard
himself says he didn't mean it to express anything. He
was, he said, nauseated by having had to look at a lot of
pictures of Venetian sunsets, and a sudden longing for
a riot of purely English color assailed him.

After that, Everard gave the world that epic paint-ing
of a public house--Romance: the black street with
rain falling--the half-open door, the lights and shining
glasses, the little foxy-faced man passing through the
doorway, small, mean, insignificant, with lips parted
and eyes eager, passing in to forget.


On the strength of these two pictures Everard was
acclaimed as a painter of "working men." He had his
niche. But he refused to stay in it. His third and most
brilliant work, a full-length portrait of Sir Rufus Hersch-man.
The famous scientist is painted against a back-ground
of retorts and crucibles and laboratory shelves.
The whole has what may be called a Cubist effect, but
the lines of perspective run strangely.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


And now he had completed his fourth work--a
portrait of his wife. We had been invited to see and
criticize. Everard himself scowled and looked out of
the window; Isobel Loring moved amongst the guests,
talking technique with unerring accuracy.


We made comments. We had to. We praised the
painting of the pink satin. The treatment of that, we
said, was really marvelous. Nobody had painted satin
in quite that way before.

Mrs. Lemprire, who is one of the most intelligent
art critics I know, took me aside almost at once.

"Georgie," she said, "what has he done to himself?."
The thing's dead. It's smooth. It's--oh! its damnable."
"Portrait of a Lady in Pink Satin?" I suggested.

"Exactly. And yet the technique's perfect. And the
care! There's enough work there for sixteen pictures."
"Too much work?" I suggested.

"Perhaps that's it. If there ever was anything there,
he's killed it. An extremely beautiful woman in a pink
satin dress. Why not a colored photograph?"

"Why not?" I agreed. "Do you suppose he knows?"
"Of course he knows," said Mrs. Lemprire scorn-fully.
"Don't you see the man's on edge? It comes, I
daresay, of mixing up sentiment and business. He's put
his whole soul into painting Isobel, because she is Iso-bel,
and in sparing her, he's lost her. He's been too
kind. You've got to--to destroy the flesh before you can
get at the soul sometimes."


I nodded reflectively. Sir Rufus Herschman had not



been flattered physically, but Everard had succeeded
in putting on the canvas a personality that was unforgettable.

"And Isobel's got such a very forceful personality,"
continued Mrs. Lemprire.

"Perhaps Everard can't paint women," I said.
"Perhaps not," said Mrs. Lemprire thoughtfully.
"Yes, that may be the explanation."
And it was then, with her usual genius for accuracy,
that she pulled out a canvas that was leaning with
its face to the wall. There were about eight of them,
stacked carelessly. It was pure chance that Mrs. Lemprire
selected the one she did--but as I said before,
these things happen with Mrs. Lemprire.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Lemprire as she turned it to the
light.

It was unfinished, a mere rough sketch. The
woman, or girl--she was not, I thought, more than
twenty-five or -six--was leaning forward, her chin on
her hand. Two things struck me at once: the extraordinary
vitality of the picture and the amazing cruelty of
it. Everard had painted with a vindictive brush. The attitude
even was a cruel one--it had brought out every
awkwardness, every sharp angle, every crudity. It was
a study in brown--brown dress, brown background,
brown eyes--wistful, eager eyes. Eagerness was, indeed,
the prevailing note of it.

Mrs. Lempribre looked at it for some minutes in silence.
Then she called to Everard.



AGATHA CHRISTIE

"Alan," she said. "Come here. Who's this?"
Everard came over obediently. I saw the sudden
flash of annoyance that he could not quite hide.
"That's only a daub," he said. "I don't suppose I
shall ever finish it."
"Who is she?" said Mrs. Lemprire.

Everard was clearly unwilling to answer, and his
unwillingness was as meat and drink to Mrs. Lemprire,
who always believes the worst on principle.
"A friend of mine. A Miss Jane Haworth."
"I've never met her here," said Mrs. Lemprire.

"She doesn't come to these shows." He paused a

minute, then added: "She's Winnie's godmother."
Winnie was his little daughter, aged five.

"Really?" said Mrs. Lemprire. "Where does she
live?"
"Battersea. A flat."
"Really," said Mrs. Lemprire again, and then

added: "And what has she ever done to you?"
"To me?"
"To you. To make you so--ruthless."
"Oh, that!" he laughed. "Well, you know, she's
not a beauty. I can't make her one out of friendship,
can I.9''
"You've done the opposite," said Mrs. Lemprire.
"You've caught hold of every defect of hers and exaggerated
it and twisted it. You've tried to make her
ridiculous--but you haven't succeeded, my child. That
portrait, if you finish it, will live."



Everard looked annoyed.


"It's not bad," he said lightly, "for a sketch, that is.
But, of course, it's not a patch on Isobel's portrait.
That's far and away the best thing I've ever done."


He said the last words defiantly and aggressively.
Neither of us answered.


"Far and away the best thing," he repeated.


Some of the others had drawn near us. They, too,
caught sight of the sketch. There were exclamations,
comments. The atmosphere began to brighten up.


It was in this way that I first heard of Jane Ha-worth.
Later, I was to meet her--twice. I was to hear
details of her life from one of her most intimate
friends. I was to learn much from Alan Everard him-self.
Now that they are both dead, I think it is time to
contradict some of the stories Mrs. Lemprire is busily
spreading abroad. Call some of my story invention if
you will--it is not far from the truth.


When the guests had left, Alan Everard turned the por-trait
of Jane Haworth with its face to the wall again.
Isobel came down the room and stood beside him.


"A success, do you think?" she asked thoughtfully.
"Or--not quite a success?"


"The portrait?" he asked quickly.


"No, silly, the party. Of course the portrait's a suc-cess.''

"It's the best thing I've done," Everard declared ag-gressively.



AGATH

CHRISTIE



"We're getting on," said Isobel. "Lady Charming-ton
wants you to paint her."
"Oh, Lord!" He fro'wned. "I'm not a fashionable
portrait painter, you knw."
"You will be. You'll get to the top of the tree."
"That's not the tree I want to get to the top of."
"But, Alan dear, that's the way to make mints of
money."
"Who wants mints of money?"

"Perhaps I do," she Said smiling.
At once he felt apologetic, ashamed. If she had not
married him she could have had her mints of money.
And she needed it. A ceptain amount of luxury was her
proper setting.
"We've not done so badly just lately," he said wistfully.
"No, indeed; but the bills are coming in rather
fast."
Bills--always bills!
He walked up and dwn.
"Oh, hang it! I don't want to paint Lady Charming-ton,"
he burst out, rather like a petulant child.
Isobel smiled a little. She stood by the fire without
moving. Alan stopped his restless pacing and came
nearer to her. What was there in her, in her stillness,
her inertia, that drew him--drew him like a magnet?
How beautiful she washer arms like sculptured white
marble, the pure gold of her hair, her lips--red, full lips.



He kissed them felt them fasten on his own. Did
anything else matter? What was there in Isobel that
soothed you, that took all your cares from you? She
drew you into her own beautiful inertia and held you
there, quiet and content. Poppy and mandragora; you
drifted there, on a dark lake, asleep.
I'll do Lady Charmington," he said presently. "What
does it matter? I shall be bored--but after all, painters
must eat. There's Mr. Pots the painter, Mrs. Pots the
painter's wife, and Miss Pots the painter's daughter--all
needing sustenance."
"Absurd boy!" said Isobel. "Talking of our daughter-you
ought to go and see Jane some time. She was
here yesterday, and said she hadn't seen you for
months."
"Jane was here?"
"Yes--to see Winnie."
Alan brushed Winnie aside.
"Did she see the picture of you?"
"Yes."
"What did she think of it?"
"She said it was splendid."
"Oh!"
He frowned, lost in thought.
"Mrs. Lempribre suspects you of a guilty passion
for Jane, I think," remarked lsobel. "Her nose twitched
a good deal."
"That woman!" said Alan, with deep disgust. "That



AGATHA CHRISTIE


woman! What wouldn't she think? What doesn't she
think?"

"Well, I don't think," said Isobel, smiling. "So go on
and see Jane soon."

Alan looked across at her. She was sitting now on a
low couch by the fire. Her face was half turned away,
the smile still lingered on her lips. And at that moment
he felt bewildered, confused, as though a mist had
formed round him, and suddenly parting, had given
him a glimpse into a strange country.


Something said to him: "Why does she want you to
go and see Jane? There's a reason." Because with Iso-bel,
there was bound to be a reason. There was no im-pulse
in Isobel, only calculation.


"Do you like Jane?" he asked suddenly.


"She's a dear," said Isobel.

"Yes, but do you really like her?"


"Of course. She's so devoted to Winnie. By the way,
she wants to carry Winnie off to the seaside next week.
You don't mind, do you? It will leave us free for Scot-land."


"It will be extraordinarily convenient."


It would, indeed, be just that. Extraordinarily con-venient.
He looked across at Isobel with a sudden sus-picion.
Had she asked Jane? Jane was so easily imposed
upon.


Isobel got up and went out of the room, humming
to herself. Oh, well, it didn't matter. Anyway, he would
go and see Jane.



Jane Haworth lived at the top of a block of mansion
flats overlooking Battersea Park. When Everard had
climbed four flights of stairs and pressed the bell, he
felt annoyed with Jane. Why couldn't she live somewhere
more get-at-able? When, not having obtained
an answer, he had pressed the bell three times, his annoyance
had grown greater. Why couldn't she keep
someone capable of answering the door?

Suddenly it opened, and Jane herself stood in the
doorway. She was flushed.

"Where's Alice?" asked Everard, without any attempt
at greeting.

"Well, I'm afraid--I mean--she's not well today."
"Drink, you mean?" said Everard grimly.
What a pity that Jane was such an inveterate liar.
"I suppose that's it," said Jane reluctantly.
"Let me see her."

He strode into the flat. Jane followed him with disarming
meekness. He found the delinquent Alice in
the kitchen. There was no doubt whatever as to her
condition. He followed Jane into the sitting room in
grim silence.

"You'll have to get rid of that woman," he said. "I
told you so before."

"I know you did, Alan, but I can't do that. You forget,
her husband's in prison."

"Where he ought to be," said Everard. "How often
has that woman been drunk in the three months
you've had her?"



AGATHA CHRISTIE


"Not so very many times; three or four perhaps.
She gets depressed, you know."

"Three or four! Nine or ten would be nearer the
mark. How does she cook? Rottenly. Is she the least as-sistance
or comfort to you in this flat? None whatever.
For God's sake, get rid of her tomorrow morning and


engage a girl who is of some use."


Jane looked at him unhappily.


"You won't," said Everard gloomily, sinking into a
big armchair. "You're such an impossibly sentimental
creature. What's this I hear about your taking Winnie

to the seaside? Who suggested it, you or Isobel?"
Jane said very quickly: "I did, of course."

"Jane," said Everard, "if you would only learn to
speak the truth, I should be quite fond of you. Sit down,
and for goodness sake don't tell any more lies for at
least ten minutes."

"Oh, Alan!" said Jane, and sat down.

The painter examined her critically for a minute or
two. Mrs. Lemprire--that woman--had been quite
right. He had been cruel in his handling of Jane. Jane
was almost, if not quite, beautiful. The long lines of her
were pure Greek. It was that eager anxiety of hers to
please that made her awkward. He had seized on
that--exaggerated it--had sharpened the line of her
slightly pointed chin, flung her body into an ugly pose.

Why? Why was it impossible for him to be five min-utes
in the room with Jane without feeling violent irri-tation
against her rising up in him? Say what you



would, Jane was a dear but irritating. He was never
soothed and at peace with her as he was with Isobel.
And yet Jane was so anxious to please, so willing to
agree with all he said, but alas! so transparently un-able
to conceal her real feelings.


He looked round the room. Typically Jane. Some
lovely things, pure gems, that piece of Battersea enamel,
for instance, and there next to it, an atrocity of a vase
hand painted with roses.


He picked the latter up.


"Would you be very angry, Jane, if I pitched this out
of the window?"

"Oh! Alan, you mustn't."


"What do you want with all this trash? You've
plenty of taste if you care to use it. Mixing things up!"


"I know, Alan. It isn't that I don't know. But people
give me things. That vase--Miss Bates brought it back
from Margate--and she's so poor, and has to scrape,
and it must have cost her quite a lot--for her, you
know, and she thought I'd be so pleased. I simply had
to put it in a good place."


Everard said nothing. He went on looking around
the room. There were one or two etchings on the
walls--there were also a number of photographs of ba-bies.
Babies, whatever their mothers may think, do not
always photograph well. Any of Jane's friends who ac-quired
babies hurried to send photographs of them to
her, expecting these tokens to be cherished. Jane had
duly cherished them.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


"Who's this little horror?" asked Everard, inspect-ing
a pudgy addition with a squint. "I've not seen him
before."


"It's a her," said Jane. "Mary Carrington's new
baby."


"Poor Mary Carrington," said Everard. "I suppose
you'll pretend that you like having that atrocious infant

squinting at you all day?"


Jane's chin shot out.

"She's a lovely baby. Mary is a very old friend of
mine."

"Loyal Jane," said Everard smiling at her. "So Iso-bel
landed you with Winnie, did she?"


"Well, she did say you wanted to go to Scotland,
and I jumped at it. You will let me have Winnie, won't
you? I've been wondering if you would let her come to
me for ages, but I haven't liked to ask."


"Oh, you can have her--but it's awfully good of
you."


"Then that's all right," said Jane happily.


Everard lit a cigarette.


"Isobel show you the new portrait?" he asked rather
indistinctly.


"She did."

"What did you think of it?"


Jane's answer came quickly--too quickly:


"It's perfectly splendid. Absolutely splendid."


Alan sprang suddenly to his feet. The hand that
held the cigarette shook.



"Damn you, Jane, don't lie to me!"


"But, Alan, I'm sure, it is perfectly splendid."
"Haven't you learned by now, Jane, that I know
every tone of your voice? You lie to me like a hatter so
as not to hurt my feelings, I suppose. Why can't you be
honest? Do you think I want you to tell me a thing
is splendid when I know as well as you do that it's
not? The damned thing's dead--dead. There's no life
in it--nothing behind, nothing but surface, damned
smooth surface. I've cheated myself all along--yes,
even this afternoon. I came along to you to find out.
Isobel doesn't know. But you know, you always do
know. I knew you'd tell me it was good--you've no
moral sense about that sort of thing. But I can tell by
the tone of your voice. When I showed you Romance
you didn't say anything at all--you held your breath


and gave a sort of gasp."


"Alan--"


Everard gave her no chance to speak. Jane was
producing the effect upon him he knew so well.
Strange that so gentle a creature could stir him to such
furious anger.


"You think I've lost the power, perhaps," he said
angrily, "but I haven't. I can do work every bit as good
as Romance--better, perhaps. I'll show you, Jane Ha-worth."


He fairly rushed out of the flat. Walking rapidly, he
crossed through the Park and over Albert Bridge. He
was still tingling all over with irritation and baffled



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


rage. Jane, indeed! What did she know about painting?
What was her opinion worth? Why should he care? But
he did care. He wanted to paint something that would
make Jane gasp. Her mouth would open just a little,
and her cheeks would flush red. She would look first at
the picture and then at him. She wouldn't say anything
at all probably.

In the middle of the bridge he saw the picture he
was going to paint. It came to him from nowhere at all,
out of the blue. He saw it, there in the air, or was it in
his head?


A little, dingy curio shop, rather dark and musty
looking. Behind the counter a Jew--a small Jew with
cunning eyes. In front of him the customer, a big man,
sleek, well fed, opulent, bloated, a great jowl on him.
Above them, on a shelf, a bust of white marble. The
light there, on the boy's marble face, the deathless
beauty of old Greece, scornful, unheeding of sale and
barter. The Jew, the rich collector, the Greek boy's
head. He saw them all.


"The Connoisseur, that's what I'll call it," muttered
Alan Everard, stepping off the curb and just missing
being annihilated by a passing bus. "Yes, The Connois-seur.
I'll show Jane."


When he arrived home, he passed straight into
the studio. Isobel found him there, sorting out can-vases.


"Alan, don't forget we're dining with the Marches--"
Everard shook his head impatiently.



"Damn the Marches. I'm going to work. I've got
hold of something, but I must get it fixed--fixed at
once on the canvas before it goes. Ring them up. Tell
them I'm dead."

Isobel looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or
two, and then went out. She understood the art of liv-ing
with a genius very thoroughly. She went to the tele-phone
and made some plausible excuse.


She looked round her, yawning a little. Then she
sat down at her desk and began to write.


Many thanks for your cheque received today. You are good to your godchild
A hundred pounds will do all sorts of things. Children are a terrible expense.
You are so fond of Winnie that I felt I was not doing wrong in coming to you
for help. Alan, like all geniuses, can only work at what he wants to work at--and
unfortunately that doesn't always keep the pot boiling. Hope to see you


soon.


Yours,

Isobel


When The Connoisseur was finished, some months
later, Alan invited Jane to come and see it. The thing
was not quite as he had conceived it--that was impos-sible
to hope for--but it was near enough. He felt the
glow of the creator. He had made this thing and it was
good.


Jane did not this time tell him it was splendid. The
color crept into her cheeks and her lips parted. She



AGATHA CHRISTIE


looked at Alan, and he saw in her eyes that which he
wished to see. Jane knew.


He walked on air. He had shown Jane!

The picture offhis mind, he began to notice his im-mediate
surroundings once more.


Winnie had benefited enormously from her fort-night
at the seaside, but it struck him that her clothes
were very shabby. He said so to Isobel.


"Alan! You who never notice anything! But I like
children to be simply dressed--I hate them all fussed
up."


"There's a difference between simplicity and darns
and patches."


Isobel said nothing, but she got Winnie a new frock.
Two days later Alan was struggling with income-tax
returns. His own passbook lay in front of him. He
was hunting through Isobel's desk for hers when Win-hie
danced into the room with a disreputable doll.


"Daddy, I've got a riddle. Can you guess it? 'Within
a wall as white as milk, within a curtain soft as silk,
bathed in a sea of crystal clear, a golden apple doth ap-pear.'
Guess what that is?"


"Your mother," said Alan absently. He was still
bunting.


"Daddy!" Winnie gave a scream of laughter. "It's an


egg. Why did you think it was Mummy?"

Alan smiled too.


"I wasn't really listening," he said. "And the words
sounded like Mummy, somehow."



A wall as white as milk. A curtain. Crystal. The
golden apple. Yes, it did suggest Isobel to him. Curious
things, words.


He had found the passbook now. He ordered Win-hie
peremptorily from the room. Ten minutes later he


looked up, startled by a sharp ejaculation.


"Alan!"


"Hullo, Isobel. I didn't hear you come in. Look

here, I can't make out these items in your passbook."
"What business had you to touch my passbook?"


He stared at her, astonished. She was angry. He
had never seen her angry before.


"I had no idea you would mind."


"I do mind--very much indeed. You have no busi-ness
to touch my things."


Alan suddenly became angry too.


"I apologize. But since I have touched your things,
perhaps you will explain one or two entries that puzzle
me. As far as I can see, nearly five hundred pounds has
been paid into your account this year which I cannot
check. Where does it come from?"


Isobel had recovered her temper. She sank into a
chair.


"You needn't be so solemn about it, Alan," she
said lightly. "It isn't the wages of sin, or anything like
that."


"Where did this money come from?"


"From a woman. A friend of yours. It's not mine at
all. It's for Winnie."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"Winnie? Do you mean--this money came from
Jane?"
Isobel nodded.

"She's devoted to the child--can't do enough for
her."
"Yes, but--surely the money ought to have been invested
for Winnie."
"Oh! it isn't that sort of thing at all. It's for current
expenses, clothes and all that."
Alan said nothing. He was thinking of Winnie's
frocks--all darns and patches.

"Your account's overdrawn, too, Isobel?"
"Is it? That's always happening to me."
"Yes, but that five hundred--"
"My dear Alan. I've spent it on Winnie in the way
that seemed best to me. I can assure you Jane is quite
satisfied."
Alan was not satisfied. Yet such was the power of
Isobel's calm that he said nothing more. After all, Iso-bel
was careless in money matters. She hadn't meant
to use for herself money given to her for the child. A
receipted bill came that day addressed by a mistake to
Mr. Everard. It was from a dressmaker in Hanover
Square and was for two hundred odd pounds. He gave
it to Isobel without a word. She glanced over it, smiled,
and said: "Poor boy, I suppose it seems an awful lot to

you, but one really must be more or less clothed."
The next day he went to see Jane.

Jane was irritating and elusive as usual. He wasn't



to bother. Winnie was her godchild. Women under-stood
these things, men didn't. Of course she didn't
want Winnie to have five hundred pounds' worth of
frocks. Would he please leave it to her and Isobel?
They understood each other perfectly.


Alan went away in a state of growing dissatisfac-tion.
He knew perfectly well that he had shirked the
one question he really wished to ask. He wanted to say:
"Has Isobel ever asked you for money for Winnie?" He
didn't say it because he was afraid that Jane might not
lie well enough to deceive him.


But he was worried. Jane was poor. He knew she
was poor. She mustn't--mustn't denude herself. He
made up his mind to speak to Isobel. Isobel was calm
and reassuring. Of course she wouldn't let Jane spend
more than she could afford.


A month later Jane died.


It was influenza, followed by pneumonia. She
made Alan Everard her executor and left all she had to
Winnie. But it wasn't very much.


It was Alan's task to go through Jane's papers. She
left a record there that was clear to follow--numerous
evidences of acts of kindness, begging letters, grateful
letters.

And lastly, he found her diary. With it was a scrap
of paper: "To be read after my death by Alan Everard.
He has often reproached me with not speaking the
truth. The truth is all here."


So he came to know at last, finding the one place



AGATHA CHRISTIE


where Jane had dared to be honest. It was a record,
very simple and unforced, of her love for him.


There was very little sentiment about it--no fine lan-guage.
But there was no blinking of facts.


"I know you are often irritated by me," she had
written. "Everything I do or say seems to make you an-gry
sometimes. I do not know why this should be, for I
try so hard to please you; but I do believe, all the same,
that I mean something real to you. One isn't angry with
the people who don't count."

It was not Jane's fault that Alan found other mat-ters.
Jane was loyal--but she was also untidy; she filled
her drawers too full. She had, shortly before her death,
burned carefully all Isobel's letters. The one Alan found
was wedged behind a drawer. When he had read it, the
meaning of certain cabalistic signs on the counterfoils
of Jane's cheque book became clear to him. In this par-ticular
letter Isobel had hardly troubled to keep up the
pretence of the money being required for Winnie.


Alan sat in front of the desk staring with unseeing
eyes out of the window for a long time. Finally he
slipped the cheque book into his pocket and left the
flat. He walked back to Chelsea, conscious of an anger
that grew rapidly stronger.

Isobel was out when he got back, and he was sorry.
He had so clearly in his mind what he wanted to say.
Instead, he went up to the studio and pulled out the



unfinished portrait of Jane. He set it on an easel near
the portrait of Isobel in pink satin.

The Lempribre woman had been right: there was
life in Jane's portrait. He looked at her, the eager eyes,
the beauty that he had tried so unsuccessfully to deny
her. That was Jane--the aliveness, more than anything
else, was Jane. She was, he thought, the most alive
person he had ever met, so much so, that even now he
could not think of her as dead.

And he thought of his other pictures--Color, Ro-mance,
Sir Rufus Herschman. They had all, in a way,
been pictures of Jane. She had kindled the spark for
each one of them---had sent him away fuming and fret-ting--to
show her! And now? Jane was dead. Would he
ever paint a picture--a real picture--again? He looked
again at the eager face on the canvas. Perhaps. Jane
wasn't very far away.


A sound made him wheel round. Isobel had come
into the studio. She was dressed for dinner in a straight
white gown that showed up the pure gold of her hair.

She stopped dead and checked the words on her
lips. Eyeing him warily, she went over to the divan and
sat down. She had every appearance of calm.

Alan took the cheque book from his pocket.
"I've been going through Jane's papers."
"Yes?"


He tried to imitate her calm, to keep his voice from
shaking.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"For the last four years she's been supplying you
with money."


"Yes. For Winnie."

"No, not for Winnie," shouted Everard. "You pre-tended,
both of you, that it was for Winnie, but you
both knew that that wasn't so. Do you realize that Jane
has been selling her securities, living from hand to
mouth, to supply you with clothes--clothes that you
didn't really need?"


Isobel never took her eyes from his face. She set-tled
her body more comfortably on the cushions as a
white Persian cat might do.


"I can't help it if Jane denuded herself more than
she should have done," she said. "I supposed she could
afford the money. She was always crazy about you--I
could see that, of course. Some wives would have
kicked up a fuss about the way you were always rush-ing
off to see her, and spending hours there. I didn't."

"No," said Alan, very white in the face. "You made
her pay instead."


"You are saying very offensive things, Alan. Be
careful."

"Aren't they true? Why did you find it so easy to get
money out of Jane?"


"Not for love of me, certainly. It must have been for
love of you."


"That's just what it was," said Alan simply. "She
paid for my freedom--freedom to work in my own way.
So long as you had a sufficiency of money, you'd leave



me alone--not badger me to paint a crowd of awful
women."

Isobel said nothing.

"Well?" cried Alan angrily.

Her quiescence infuriated him.
Isobel was looking at the floor. Presently she raised

her head and said quietly:
"Come here, Alan."
She touched the divan at her side. Uneasily, unwillingly,
he came and sat there, not looking at her. But
he knew that he was afraid.
"Alan," said Isobel presently.
"Well?"
He was irritable, nervous.
· "All that you say may be true. It doesn't matter. I'm
like that. I want things--clothes, money, you. Jane's
dead, Alan."
"What do you mean?"

"Jane's dead. You belong to me altogether now. You
never did before--not quite."
He looked at her--saw the light in her eyes, acquisitive,
possessive--was revolted yet fascinated.
"Now you shall be all mine."

He understood Isobel then as he had never understood
her before.
"You want me as a slave? I'm to paint what you tell
me to paint, live as you tell me to live, be dragged at
your chariot wheels."

"Put it like that if you please. What are words?"



AGATHA CHRISTIE


He felt her arms round his neck, white, smooth,
firm as a wall. Words danced through his brain. "A
wall as white as milk." Already he was inside the wall.
Could he still escape? Did he want to escape?


He heard her voice close against his ear--poppy
and mandragora.

"What else is there to live for? Isn't this enough?
Love--happiness--success--love--"


The wall was growing up all around him now--"the
curtain soft as silk," the curtain wrapping him
round, stifling him a little, but so soft, so sweet! Now
they were drifting together, at peace, out on the crystal
sea. The wall was very high now, shutting out all those
other things--those dangerous, disturbing things that
hurt--that always hurt. Out on the sea of crystal, the
golden apple between their hands.


The light faded from Jane's picture.



)UNCTUAL TO THE MOMENT, AS ALWAYS,
Hercule Poirot entered the small room Where Miss
Lemon, his efficient secretary, awaited her instruc-tions
for the day.


At first sight Miss Lemon seemed to be composed
entirely of angles--thus satisfying Poirot's demand for
symmetry.


Not that where women were concerned Hercule
Poirot carried his passion for geometrical precision so
far. He was, on the contrary, old-fashioned. He had a
continental prejudice for curves--it might he said for
voluptuous curves. He liked women to be women. He
liked them lush, highly colored, exotic. There had
been a certain Russian countess--but that was long
ago now. A folly of earlier days.

But Miss Lemon he had never considered as a
woman. She was a human machine--an instrument of
precision. Her efficiency was terrific. She was forty-eight
years of age, and was fortunate enough to have
no imagination whatever.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"Good morning, Miss Lemon."
"Good morning, M. Poirot."
Poirot sat down and Miss Lemon placed before
him the morning's mail, neatly arranged in categories.
She resumed her seat and sat with pad and pencil at
the ready.

But there was to be this morning a slight change in
routine. Poirot had brought in with him the morning
newspaper, and his eyes were scanning it with interest.
The headlines were big and bold. "SPANISH CHEST
MYSTERY. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS."
"You have read the morning papers, I presume,
Miss Lemon?"
"Yes, M. Poirot. The news from Geneva is not very
good."

Poirot waved away the news from Geneva in a
comprehensive sweep of the arm.
"A Spanish chest," he mused. "Can you tell me,
Miss Lemon, what exactly is a Spanish chest?"
"I suppose, M. Poirot, that it is a chest that came
originally from Spain."
"One might reasonably suppose so. You have then,
no expert knowledge?"
"They are usually of the Elizabethan period, I believe.
Large, and with a good deal of brass decoration
on them. They look very nice when well kept and polished.
My sister bought one at a sale. She keeps household
linen in it. It looks very nice."
"I am sure that in the house of any sister of yours,



all the furniture would be well kept," said Poirot, bowing
gracefully.

Miss Lemon replied sadly that servants did not
seem to know what elbow grease was nowadays.
Poirot looked a little puzzled, but decided not to inquire
into the inward meaning of the mysterious
phrase "elbow grease."

He looked down again at the newspaper, conning
over the names: Major Rich, Mr. and Mrs. Clayton,
Commander McLaren, Mr. and Mrs. Spence. Names,
nothing but names to him; yet all possessed of human
personalities, hating, loving, fearing. A drama, this, in
which he, Hercule Poirot, had no part. And he would
have liked to have a part in it! Six people at an evening
party, in a room with a big Spanish chest against the
wall, six people, five of them talking, eating a buffet
supper, putting records on the gramophone, dancing,
and the sixth dead, in the Spanish chest....
Ah, thought Poirot. How my dear friend Hastings
would have enjoyed this! What romantic flights of
imagination he would have had. What ineptitudes he
would have uttered! Ah, ce cher Hastings, at this moment,
today, I miss him 	Instead--

He
sighed and looked at Miss Lemon. Miss Lemon, intelligently
perceiving that Poirot was in no mood to dictate
letters, had uncovered her typewriter and was awaiting
her moment to get on with certain arrears of work.
Nothing could have interested her less than sinister
Spanish chests containing dead bodies.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Poirot sighed and looked down at a photograpled
face. Reproductions in newsprint were never very
good, and this was decidedly smudgy--but what a face!
Mrs. Clayton, the wife of the murdered man ....


On an impulse, he thrust the paper at Miss Lemon.
"Look," he demanded. "Look at that face."
Miss Lemon looked at it obediently, without emo-tion.

"What do you think of her, Miss Lemon? That is
Mrs. Clayton."


Miss Lemon took the paper, glanced casually at the
picture, and remarked:

"She's a little like the wife of our bank manager
when we lived at Croydon Heath."


"Interesting," said Poirot. "Recount to me, if you
will be so kind, the history of your bank manager's
wife."

"Well, it's not really a very pleasant story, M.
Poirot."
"It was in my mind that it might not be. Continue."
"There was a good deal of talk--about Mrs. Adams
and a young artist. Then Mr. Adams shot himself. But
Mrs. Adams wouldn't marry the other man and he took
some kind of poison--but they pulled him through all
right; and finally Mrs. Adams married a young solici-tor.
I believe there was more trouble after that, only of
course we'd left Croydon Heath by then so I didn't hear
very much more about it."



Hercule Poirot nodded gravely.


"She was beautiful?"


"Well--not really what you'd call beautiful-- But
there seemed to be something about her--"


"Exactly. What is that something that they pos-sess--the
sirens of this world! The Helens of Troy, the
Cleopatras--?"


Miss Lemon inserted a piece of paper vigorously
into her typewriter.

"Really, M. Poirot, I've never thought about it. It
seems all very silly to me. If people would just go on
with their jobs and didn't think about such things it
would be much better."


Having thus disposed of human frailty and passion,
Miss Lemon let her fingers hover over the keys of the
typewriter, waiting impatiently to be allowed to begin
her work.

"That is your view," said Poirot. "And at this mo-ment
it is your desire thatyou should be allowed to get
on with your job. But your job, Miss Lemon, is not only
to take down my letters, to file my papers, to deal with
my telephone calls, to typewrite my letters-- All these
things you do admirably. But me, I deal not only with
documents but with human beings. And there, too, I
need assistance."

"Certainly, M. Poirot," said Miss Lemon patiently.
"What is it you want me to do?"


"This case interests me. I should be glad if you



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


would make a study of this morning's report of it in all
the papers and also of any additional reports in the


evening papers-- Make me a precis of the facts."
"Very good, M. Poirot."


Poirot withdrew to his sitting room, a rueful smile
on his face.

"It is indeed the irony," he said to himself, "that af-ter
my dear friend Hastings I should have Miss Lemon.
What greater contrast can one imagine? Ce cher Has-tings--how
he would have enjoyed himself. How he
would have walked up and down talking about it,
putting the most romantic construction on every inci-dent,
believing as gospel truth every word the papers
have printed about it. And my poor Miss Lemon, what
I have asked her to do, she will not enjoy at all!"


Miss Lemon came to him in due course with a
typewritten sheet.


"I've got the information you wanted, M. Poirot.
I'm afraid though, it can't be regarded as reliable. The
papers vary a good deal in their accounts. I shouldn't
like to guarantee that the facts as stated are more than
sixty per cent accurate."

"That is probably a conservative estimate," mur-mured
Poirot. "Thank you, Miss Lemon, for the trouble
you have taken."


The facts were sensational but clear enough. Ma-jor
Charles Rich, a well-to-do-bachelor, had given an
evening party to a few of his friends, at his apartment.
These friends consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Clayton, Mr.



and Mrs. Spence, and a Commander McLaren. Com-mander
McLaren was a very old friend of both Rich
and the Claytons, Mr. and Mrs. Spence, a younger cou-ple,
were fairly recent acquaintances. Arnold Clayton
was in the Treasury. Jeremy Spence was a junior civil
servant. Major Rich was forty-eight, Arnold Clayton was
fiy-five, Commander McLaren was forty-six, Jeremy
Spence was thirty-seven. Mrs. Clayton was said to be
"some years younger than her husband." One person
was unable to attend the party. At the last moment, Mr.
Clayton was called away to Scotland on urgent busi-ness,
and was supposed to have left King's Cross by the
8:15 train.


The party proceeded as such parties do. Everyone
appeared to be enjoying themselves. It was neither a
wild party nor a drunken one. It broke up about 11:45.
The four guests left together and shared a taxi. Com-mander
McLaren was dropped first at his club and then
the Spences dropped Margharita Clayton at Cardigan
Gardens just off Sloane Street and went on themselves
to their house in Chelsea.

The gruesome discovery was made on the follow-ing
morning by Major Rich's manservant, William
Burgess. The latter did not live in. He arrived early so
as to clear up the sitting room before calling Major
Rich with his early morning tea. It was whilst clearing
up that Burgess was startled to find a big stain discol-oring
the light-colored rug on which stood the Spanish
chest. It seemed to have seeped through from the


I 7 9



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


chest, and the valet immediately lifted up the lid of the
chest and looked inside. He was horrified to find there
the body of Mr. Clayton, stabbed through the neck.

Obeying his first impulse, Burgess rushed out into
the street and fetched the nearest policeman.


Such were the bald facts of the case. But there
were further details. The police had immediately bro-ken
the news to Mrs. Clayton, who had been "com-pletely
prostrated." She had seen her husband for the
last time at a little after six o'clock on the evening be-fore.
He had come home much annoyed, having been
summoned to Scotland on urgent business in connec-tion
with some property that he owned. He had urged
his wife to go to the party without him. Mr. Clayton had
then called in at his and Commander McLaren's club,
had had a drink with his friend, and had explained the
position. He had then said, looking at his watch, that
he had just time on his way to King's Cross, to call in on
Major Rich and explain. He had already tried to tele-phone
him, but the line had seemed to be out of order.


According to William Burgess, Mr. Clayton arrived
at the flat at about 7:55. Major Rich was out but was
due to return any moment, so Burgess suggested that
Mr. Clayton should come in and wait. Clayton said he
had no time but would come in and write a note. He
explained that he was on his way to catch a train at
King's Cross. The valet showed him into the sitting
room and himself returned to the kitchen, where he



was engaged in the preparation of canap6s for the
party. The valet did not hear his master return, but
about ten minutes later, Major Rich looked into the
kitchen and told Burgess to hurry out and get some
Turkish cigarettes, which were Mrs. Spence's favorite
smoking. The valet did so and brought them to his
master in the sitting room. Mr. Clayton was not there,
but the valet naturally thought he had already left to
catch his train.

Major Rich's story was short and simple. Mr. Clay-ton
was not in the flat when he himself came in and he
had no idea that he had been there. No note had been
left for him and the first he heard of Mr. Clayton's jour-ney
to Scotland was when Mrs. Clayton and the others
arrived.


There were two additional items in the evening pa-pers.
Mrs. Clayton who was "prostrated with shock"
had left her flat in Cardigan Gardens and was believed
to be staying with friends.


The second item was in the stop press. Major
Charles Rich had been charged with the murder of
Arnold Clayton and had been taken into custody.


"So that is that," said Poirot, looking up at Miss
Lemon. "The arrest of Major Rich was to be expected.
But what a remarkable case. What a very remarkable
case! Do you not think so?"


"I suppose such things do happen, M. Poirot," said
Miss Lemon without interest.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


"Oh certainly! They happen every day. Or nearly
every day. But usually they are quite understandable--though
distressing."


"It is certainly a very unpleasant business."

"To be stabbed to death and stowed away in a
Spanish chest is certainly unpleasant for the victim--supremely
so. But when I say this is a remarkable case,

I refer to the remarkable behavior of Major Rich."
Miss Lemon said with faint distaste:

"There seems to be a suggestion that Major Rich and
Mrs. Clayton were very close friends .... It was a sug-gestion
and not a proved fact, so I did not include it."


"That was very correct of you. But it is an inference
that leaps to the eye. Is that all you have to say?"


Miss Lemon looked blank. Poirot sighed, and
missed the rich colorful imagination of his friend Has-tings.
Discussing a case with Miss Lemon was uphill
work.

"Consider for a moment this Major Rich. He is in
love with Mrs. Clayton--granted .... He wants to dis-pose
of her husband--that, too, we grant, though if
Mrs. Clayton is in love with him, and they are having
the affair together, where is the urgency? It is, perhaps,
that Mr. Clayton will not give his wife the divorce? But
it is not of all this that I talk. Major Rich, he is a retired
soldier, and it is said sometimes that soldiers are not
brainy. But, tout de mme, this Major Rich, is he, can he
be, a complete imbecile?"



Miss Lemon did not reply. She took this to be a
purely rhetorical question.

"Well," demanded Poirot. "What do you think
about it all?"

"What do I think?" Miss Lemon was startled.
"Mais oui--you!"


Miss Lemon adjusted her mind to the strain put
upon it. She was not given to mental speculation of any
kind unless asked for it. In such leisure moments as
she had, her mind was filled with the details of a su-perlatively
perfect filing system. It was her only mental
recreation.

"Well--" she began, and paused.


"Tell me just what happened--what you think hap-pened,
on that evening. Mr. Clayton is in the sitting
room writing a note, Major Rich comes back--what
then?"


"He finds Mr. Clayton there. They--I suppose they
have a quarrel. Major Rich stabs him. Then, when he
sees what he has done, he--he puts the body in the
chest. After all, the guests, I suppose, might be arriving
any minute."


"Yes, yes. The guests arrive! The body is in the
chest. The evening passes. The guests depart. And
then--"

"Well, then, I suppose Major Rich goes to bed
and-- Oh!"

"Ah," said Poirot. "You see it now. You have mur


AGATHA CHRISTIE


dered a man. You have concealed his body in a chest.
And then--you go peacefully to bed, quite unperturbed
by the fact that your valet will discover the crime in the
morning."


"I suppose it's possible that the valet might never
have looked inside the chest?"

"With an enormous pool of blood on the carpet un-derneath
it?"

"Perhaps Major Rich didn't realize that the blood
was there."

"Was it not somewhat careless of him not to look
and see?"


"I dare say he was upset," said Miss Lemon.
Poirot threw up his hands in despair.

Miss Lemon seized the opportunity to hurry from
the room.


The mystery of the Spanish chest was, strictly speak-ing,
no business of Poirot's. He was engaged at the mo-ment
in a delicate mission for one of the large oil
companies where one of the high ups was possibly in-volved
in some questionable transaction. It was hush-hush,
important, and exceedingly lucrative. It was
sufficiently involved to command Poirot's attention,
and had the great advantage that it required very little
physical activity. It was sophisticated and bloodless.
Crime at the highest levels.


The mystery of the Spanish chest was dramatic
and emotional, two qualities which Poirot had often



declared to Hastings could be much overrated---and
indeed frequently were so by the latter. He had been
severe with ce cher Hastings on this point, and now
here he was, behaving much as his friend might have
done, obsessed with beautiful women, crimes of passion,
jealousy, hatred, and all the other romantic causes
of murder! He wanted to know about it all. He wanted
to know what Major Rich was like, and what his manservant,
Burgess, was like, and what Margharita Clayton
was like (though that, he thought, he knew) and what
the late Arnold Clayton had been like (since he held
that the character of the victim was of the first importance
in a murder case), and even what Commander
McLaren, the faithful friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Spence,
the recently acquired acquaintances, were like.

And he did not see exactly how he was going to
gratify his curiosity!

He reflected on the matter later in the day.

Why did the whole business intrigue him so much?
He decided, after reflection, that it was because--as
the facts were related--the whole thing was more or
less impossible! Yes, there was a Euclidean flavor.

Starting from what one could accept, there had
been a quarrel between two men. Cause, presumably,
a woman. One man killed the other in the heat of rage.
Yes, that happened--though it would be more acceptable
if the husband had killed the lover. Still--the lover
had killed the husband, stabbed him with a dagger (?)somehow
a rather unlikely weapon. Perhaps Major



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Rich had had an Italian mother? Somewhere--surely--there
should be something to explain the choice of a
dagger as a weapon. Anyway, one must accept the dag-ger
(some papers called it a stiletto!). It was to hand
and was used. The body was concealed in the chest.
That was common sense and inevitable. The crime
had not been premeditated, and as the valet was re-turning
at any moment, and four guests would be
arriving before very long, it seemed the only course
indicated.


The party is held, the guests depart, the manser-vant
is already gone--and--Major Rich goes to bed!

To understand how that could happen, one must
see Major Rich and find out what kind of a man acts in
that way.


Could it be that, overcome with horror at what he
had done and the long strain of an evening trying to
appear his normal self, he had taken a sleeping pill of
some kind or a tranquilizer which had put him into a
heavy slumber which lasted long beyond his usual
hour of waking? Possible. Or was it a case, rewarding
to a psychologist, where Major Rich's feeling of sub-conscious
guilt made him want the crime to be discov-ered?
To make up one's mind on that point one would
have to see Major Rich. It all came back to--


The telephone rang. Poirot let it ring for some mo-ments,
until he realized that Miss Lemon after bring-ing
him his letters to sign, had gone home some time
ago, and that George had probably gone out.



Th [N'J b t- e 'r' coJce OOpni¢ Cer

He picked up the receiver.
"M. Poirot?"
"Speaking!"

"Oh how splendid." Poirot blinked slightly at the
fervor of the charming female voice. "It's Abbie Chatterton.''
"Ah, Lady Chatterton. How can I serve you?"

"By coming over as quickly as you can right away
to a simply frightful cocktail party I an giving. Not just
for the cocktail party--it's for something quite different
really. I need you. It's absolutely vital. Please, please,
please don't let me down! Don't say you can't manage
it."
Poirot had not been going to say anything of the kind. Lord Chatterton, apart from being a peer of the
realm and occasionally making a very dull speech in
the House of Lords, was nobody in particular. But Lady
Chatterton was one of the brightest jewels in what
Poirot called le haul monde. Everything she did or said
was news. She had brains, beauty, originality, and

enough vitality to activate a rocket to the moon.

She said again:

"I need you. Just give that wonderful moustache of
yours a lovely twirl, and come!"

It was not quite so quick as that. Poirot had first to
make a meticulous toilet. The twirl to the moustaches
was added and he then set off.

The door of Lady Chatterton's delightful house in
Cheriton Street was ajar and a noise as of animals



AGATHA CHRISTIE


mutinying at the zoo sounded from within. Lady Chat-terton,
who was holding two ambassadors, an interna-tional
rugger player, and an American evangelist in
play, neatly jettisoned them with the rapidity of sleight
of hand and was at Poirot's side.


"M. Poirot, how wonderful to see you! No, don't
have that nasty Martini. I've got something special for
you--a kind ofsirop that the sheikhs drink in Morocco.
It's in my own little room upstairs."


She led the way upstairs and Poirot followed her.
She paused to say over her shoulder:


"I didn't put these people off, because it's absolutely
essential that no one should know there's anything
special going on here, and I've promised the servants
enormous bonuses if not a word leaks out. After all,
one doesn't want one's house besieged by reporters.
And, poor darling, she's been through so much al-ready."

Lady Chatterton did not stop at the first-floor land-ing;
instead she swept on up to the floor above.


Gasping for breath and somewhat bewildered,
Hercule Poirot followed.

Lady Chatterton paused, gave a rapid glance down-wards
over the banisters, and then flung open a door,
exclaiming as she did so:

"I've got him, Margharita! I've got him! Here he is!"
She stood aside in triumph to let Poirot enter, then
performed a rapid introduction.


"This is Margharita Clayton. She's a very, very dear



friend of mine. You'll help her, won't you? Margharita,
this is that wonderful Hercule Poirot. He'll do just
everything you want--you will, won't you, dear M.
?oirot?"

And without waiting for the answer which she
obviously took for granted (Lady Chatterton had not
been a spoiled beauty all her life for nothing), she
dashed out of the door and down the stairs, calling
back rather indiscreetly, "I've got to go back to all these

awful people 	"


The
woman who had been sitting in a chair by the window
rose and came towards him. He would have recognized
her even if Lady Chatterton had not men-tioned
her name. Here was that wide, that very wide brow,
the dark hair that sprang away from it like wings, the
grey eyes set far apart. She wore a close-fitting high-necked
gown of dull black that showed up the beauty
of her body and the magnolia-whiteness of her skin.
It was an unusual face rather than a beautiful one--one
of those oddly proportioned faces that one sometimes
sees in an Italian primitive. There was about
her a kind of medieval simplicity--a strange in-nocence
that could be, Poirot thought, more devastat-ing
than any voluptuous sophistication. When she spoke
it was with a kind of childlike candor.

	"Abbie
says you will help me 	"

	She
looked
at him gravely and inquiringly.

For a
moment he stood quite still, scrutinizing her closely. There
was nothing ill-bred in his manner of


AGATHA CHRISTIE

doing it. It was more the kind but searching look that a
famous consultant gives a new patient.

"Are you sure, madame," he said at last, "that I can help you?"

A little flush rose to her cheeks.
"I don't know what you mean."

"What is it, madame, that you want me to do?"

"Oh," she seemed surprised. "I thought--you knew
who I was?"

"I know who you are. Your husband was killed--stabbed,
and a Major Rich has been arrested and

charged with his murder."

The flush heightened.

"Major Rich did not kill my husband."
Quick as a flash Poirot said:
"Why not?"

She stared, puzzled. "I--I beg your pardon?"

"I have confused you--because I have not asked
the question that everybody asks--the police--the

lawyers 	'Why
should Major Rich kill Arnold Clay-
ton?'
But I ask the opposite. I ask you, madame, why you
are sure that Major Rich did not kill him?"

"Because"--she
paused a moment--"because I know
Major Rich so well."

"You
know Major Rich so well," repeated Poirot tonelessly.
He
paused and then said sharply:

"How
well?"



Whether she understood his meaning, he could not
guess. He thought to himself.' Here is either a woman
of great simplicity or of great subtlety.... Many peo-ple,
he thought, must have wondered that about
Margharita Clayton ....


"How well?" She was looking at him doubtfully.
"Five years--no, nearly six."


	"That was not precisely what I meant 	You
must
understand,
madame, that I shall have to ask you the impertinent
questions. Perhaps you will speak the truth,
perhaps you will lie. It is very necessary for a woman
to lie sometimes. Women must defend them-selves,
and the lie, it can be a good weapon. But there are
three people, madame, to whom a woman should speak
the truth. To her Father confessor, to her hair-dresser,
and to her private detective--if she trusts him. Do
you trust me, madame?"

	Margharita
Clayton drew a deep breath.

	"Yes,"
she said. "I do." And added: "I must."
	"Very
well, then. What is it you want me to do--find

out
who killed your husband?"

	"I
suppose so--yes."

"But
it is not essential? You want me, then, to clear Major
Rich from suspicion?"

	She
nodded quickly--gratefully.

	"That--and
that only?"
It
was, he saw, an unnecessary question. Margharita Clayton
was a woman who saw only one thing at a time.

191



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"And now," he said, "for the impertinence. You and
Major Rich, you are lovers, yes?"
"Do you mean, were we having an affair together?
No."
"But he was in love with you?"

"Yes."
"And you--were in love with him?"
"I think so."
"You do not seem quite sure?"
"I am sure--now."
"Ah! You did not, then, love your husband?"
"No."

"You reply with an admirable simplicity. Most
women would wish to explain at great length just exactly
what their feelings were. How long had you been
married?"
"Eleven years."

"Can you tell me a little about your husband what

kind of a man he was?"
She frowned.

"It's difficult. I don't really- know what kind of a
man Arnold was. He was very quiet--very reserved.
One didn't know what he was thinking. He was clever,
of course--everyone said he was brilliant--in his work,

I mean 	He
didn't--how can I put it--he never explained

himself at all 	"

"Was
he
in love with you?"

"Oh, yes.
He must have been. Or he wouldn't have minded so
much--" she came to a sudden stop.



	"About other men? That is what you w ere goiqg

	say? He was jealous?"

	Again she said:

	"He must have been." And then, as though Te¢li$

	that the phrase needed explanation, she w%xt of

	"Sometimes, for days, he wouldn't speak....,,

	Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

	"This violence--that has come into Your lilFe. Is it

	the first that you have known?"

	"Violence?" She frowned, then flushed. "I itO

	you mean--that poor boy who shot himself?.,,

	"Yes," said Poirot. "I expect that is What I

	"I'd no idea he felt like that... I Was scurry fOr

	him--he seemed so shy--so lonely. He retest have b¢¢

	very neurotic, I think. And there were two Italatasa

	duel-- It was ridiculous! Anyway, nobo/y was killeIl'
thank goodness 	And
honestly, I didh't car abOtt
either of them! I never even pretended t care.,
"No. You were just--there! A-nd Where yot arc
things happen! I have seen that before ih my life. It because you do not care that men are driven nqad. 13tt
for Major Rich you do care. So--ve must do What
can...."

He was silent for a moment or- two.
She sat there gravely, watching him.
"We turn from personalities, which are Oen tl4e really important things, to plain facts. I knw oq!y
what has been in the papers. On the acts as giV
there, only two persons had the cpportnity oF killi4g



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


your husband, only two persons could have killed


him--Major Rich and Major Rich's manservant."


	She said, stubbornly:


	"I know Charles didn't kill him."

"So, then, it must have been the valet. You agree?"
She said doubtfully:


	"I see what you mean 	"


	"But
you are dubious about it?"


	"It just seems--fantastic?


"Yet the possibility is there. Your husband undoubt-edly
came to the flat, since his body was found there. If
the valet's story is true, Major Rich killed him. But if
the valet's story is false? Then the valet killed him and
hid the body in the chest before his master returned.
An excellent way of disposing of the body from his
point of view. He has only got to 'notice the bloodstain'
the next morning and 'discover' it. Suspicion will im-mediately
fall on Rich."


	"But why should he want to kill Arnold?"


"Ah why? The motive cannot be an obvious one--or
the police would have investigated it. It is possible
that your husband knew something to the valet's dis-credit,
and was about to acquaint Major Rich with the
facts. Did your husband ever say anything to you about
this man Burgess?"


	She shook her head.

"Do you think he would have done so--if that had
indeed been the case?"

	She frowned.



"It's difficnlt to say. Possibly not. Arnold never talked
much about people. I told you he was reserved. He
wasn't--he was rlever--a chatiY man."
	"He was a man who kept pis own counsel 	Yes,

now
what is your opinion of B
trgess?''
	"He's not the kind of man you notice very much.
A
fairly good servant. Adequate put not
polished." "What
age?"
"About thirtyseven or -eiht,
I should think. He'd been an orderly in the army during
the war, but he
wasn't a regular soldier."
"How long had he
been with Major Rich?"
"Not very lorg. About
a year and a half, I think."
"You never noticed
anythirg odd about his manner towards your husband?"
"We weren't there
so very Often. No, I noticed nothing
at all."
"Tell me now
about the events of
that evening. What time were You invited?"
"Eight-fifteel for haft past."
"And just what kind of a party
was it to be?"
"Well, there Would
be drioI;s' and a kind of buffet supper--usually
a very good one. Foie gras and hot toast. Smoked
salmon. Sometifes there was a hot rice dish--Charles
had a special refipe he'd got
in the Near East--but that ;Vas more
for v/inter. Then we used to have music--Charles had got
a
very
good
stereophonic
gramophone.
Both
my
husba if d
and
Jock
McLaren
were
very
fond
of
classical
reco
rds.
And
we
had
dance



AGATHA CHRISTIE

music--the Spences were very keen dancers. It was
that sort of thing--a quiet informal evening. Charles
was a very good host."
"And this particular evening--it was like other
evenings there? You noticed nothing unusual--nothing
out of place?"
"Out of place?" she frowned for a moment. "When
you said that I--no, it's gone. There was something
	"She
shook her head again. "No. To answer

your
question, there was nothing unusual at all about that
evening. We enjoyed ourselves. Everybody seemed relaxed
and happy." She shivered. "And to think that all
the time--"
Poirot
held up a quick hand.

"Do
not think. This business that took your husband
to Scotland, how much do you know about that?"

"Not
very much. There was some dispute over the restrictions
on selling a piece of land which belonged to
my husband. The sale had apparently gone through and
then some sudden snag turned up."
"What
did your husband tell you exactly?"

"He
came in with a telegram in his hand. As far as I
remember, he said, 'This is most annoying. I shall have
to take the night mail to Edinburgh and see John-

ston
first thing tomorrow morning 	Too bad
when
one thought
the thing was going through smoothly at last.' Then
he said, 'Shall I ring up Jock and get him to call for
you?' and I said, 'Nonsense, I'll just take a taxi,' and
he said that Jock or the Spences would see me



home. I said did he want anything packed and he said
he'd just throw a few things into a bag, and have a
quick snack at the club, before catching the train. Then

he went off and--and that's the last time I saw him."
Her voice broke a little on the last words.
Poirot looked at her very hard.
"Did he show you the telegram?"
"No."
"A pity."

"Why do you say that?"


He did not answer that question. Instead he said
briskly:


"Now to business. Who are the solicitors acting for
Major Rich?"


She told him and he made a note of the address.
"Will you write a few words to them and give it to
me? I shall want to make arrangements to see Major
Rich."

"He--it's been remanded for a week."

"Naturally. That is the procedure. Will you also
write a note to Commander McLaren and to your
friends the Spences? I shall want to see all of them, and
it is essential that they do not at once show me the
door."

When she rose from the writing desk, he said:
"One thing more. I shall register my own impres-sions,
but I also want yours--of Commander McLaren
and of Mr. and Mrs. Spence."


"Jock is one of our oldest friends. I've known him



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


ever since I was a child. He appears to be quite a dour
person, but he's really a dear--always the same--al-ways
to be relied upon. He's not gay and amusing but
he's a tower of strength--both Arnold and I relied on
his judgement a lot."


"And he, also, is doubtless in love with you?" Poirot's
eyes twinkled slightly.


"Oh yes," said Margharita happily. "He's always
been in love with me--but by now it's become a kind of
habit."


"And the Spences?"


"They're amusing--and very good company. Linda
Spence is really rather a clever girl. Arnold enjoyed

talking with her. She's attractive, too."


"You are friends?"


"She and I? In a way. I don't know that I really like

her. She's too malicious."

"And her husband?"

"Oh, Jeremy is delightful. Very musical. Knows a
good deal about pictures, too. He and I go to picture


shows a good deal together 	"


"Ah,
well, I shall see for myself." He took her hand
in his, "I hope, madame, you will not regret asking for
my help."


"Why should I regret it?" Her eyes opened wide
"One never knows," said Poirot cryptically.

"And I--I do not know," he said to himself, as he
went down the stairs. The cocktail party was still in full



spate, but he avoided being captured and reached the
street.

"No," he repeated. "I do not know."


It was of Margharita Clayton he was thinking.
That apparently childlike candor, that frank inno-cence-
Was it just that? Or did it mask something else?
There had been women like that in medieval days--women
on whom history had not been able to agree.
He thought of Mary Stuart, the Scottish Queen. Had she
known, that night in Kirk o'Fields, of the deed that was
to be done? Or was she completely innocent? Had the
conspirators told her nothing? Was she one of those
childlike simple women who can say to themselves
"I do not know" and believe it? He felt the spell of
Margharita Clayton. But he was not entirely sure about
her ....


Such women could be, though innocent them-selves,
the cause of crimes.

Such women could be, in intent and design, crimi-nals
themselves, though not in action.


Theirs was never the hand that held the knife--As
to Margharita Clayton--no--he did not know!


Hercule Poirot did not find Major Rich's solicitors very
helpful. He had not expected to do so.


They managed to indicate, though without saying
so, that it would be in their client's best interest if Mrs.
Clayton showed no sign of activity on his behalf.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


His visit to them was in the interests of "correct-ness."
He had enough pull with the Home Office and
the CID to arrange his interview with the prisoner.

Inspector Miller, who was in charge of the Clayton
case, was not one of Poirot's favorites. He was not, how-ever,
hostile on this occasion, merely contemptuous.

"Can't waste much time over the old dodderer," he
had said to his assisting sergeant before Poirot was
shown in. "Still, I'll have to be polite."


"You'll really have to pull some rabbits out of a hat
if you're going to do anything with this one, M. Poirot,"
he remarked cheerfully. "Nobody else but Rich could


have killed the bloke."


"Except the valet."


"Oh, I'll give you the valet! As a possibility, that is.
But you won't find anything there. No motives what-ever."


"You cannot be entirely sure of that. Motives are
very curious things."


"Well, he wasn't acquainted with Clayton in any
way. He's got a perfectly innocuous past. And he seems
to be perfectly right in his head. I don't know what
more you want?"


"I want to find out that Rich did not commit the
crime."


"To please the lady, eh?" Inspector Miller grinned
wickedly. "She's been getting at you, I suppose. Quite
something, isn't she? Cherchez la femme with aven


geance. If she'd had the opportunity, you know, she

might have done it herself."


"That, no!"

"You'd be surprised. I once knew a woman like
that. Put a couple of husbands ott of the way without a
blink of her innocent blue eyes. Broken-hearted each
time, too. The jury would have cquitted her if they'd
had half a chance which they hadn't, the evidence
being practically cast iron."

"Well, my friend, let us not rgue. What I make so
bold as to ask is a few reliable details on the facts. What
a newspaper prints is news--bat not always truth!"

"They have to enjoy thenselves. What do you
want?"

"Time of death as near as can be."

"Which can't be very near because the body wasn't
examined until the following rorning. Death is esti-mated
to have taken place fron thirteen to ten hours
previously. That is, between sev'en and ten o'clock the
night before .... He was stabbed through the jugular

vein-- Death must have been matter of moments."
"And the weapon?"

"A kind of Italian stiletto--qtite small--razor sharp.
Nobody has ever seen it befo'e, or knows where it

comes from. But we shall knorr--in the end 	It's
a

matter
of time and patience."
"It
could not have been pic]ed up in the course
of a
quarrel."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

	"No. The valet says no such thing was in the flat."
"What interests me is the telegram," said Poirot.
"The telegram that called Arnold Clayton away to Scot-

land 	Was
that summons genuine?"

"No.
There was no hitch or trouble up there. The land
transfer, or whatever it was, was proceeding normally.''

"Then
who
sent that telegram--I am presuming there was a telegram?"

	"There must
have been 	Not that we'd
necessarily
believe Mrs.
Clayton. But Clayton told the valet he was called
by wire to Scotland. And he also told Commander McLaren."
"What
time did
he see Commander McLaren?" "They had a
snack together at their club--Com-bined Services--that was
at about a quarter past seven. Then Clayton took
a taxi to Rich's flat, arriving there just before eight o'clock.
After that--" Miller spread his hands out.

"Anybody notice
anything at
all odd about Rich's manner that evening?"

"Oh
well, you know
what people are. Once a thing has happened, people think
they noticed a lot of things I bet they never
saw at all. Mrs. Spence, now, she says he was distrait all
the evening. Didn't always answer to the point. As though
he had 'something on his mind.' I bet he had, too,
if he had a body in the chest! Wondering how the hell to
get rid of it!"



"Why didn't he get rid of it?"


"Beats me. Lost his nerve, perhaps. But it was mad-ness
to leave it until the next day. He had the best
chance he'd ever have that night. There's no night
porter on. He could have got his car round, packed the
body in the boot--it's a big boot--driven out in the
country and parked it somewhere. He might have been
seen getting the body into the car, but the flats are in
a side street and there's a courtyard you drive a car
through. At, say, three in the morning, he had a rea-sonable
chance. And what does he do? Goes to bed,
sleeps late the next morning and wakes up to find the
police in the flat!"

"He went to bed and slept well as an innocent man
might do."

"Have it that way if you like. But do you really be-lieve
that yourself?."


"I shall have to leave that question until I have
seen the man myself."

"Think you know an innocent man when you see
one? It's not so easy as that."


"I know it is not easy--and I should not attempt to
say I could do it. What I want to make up my mind about
is whether the man is as stupid as he seems to be."


Poirot had no intention of seeing Charles Rich until he
had seen everyone else.


He started with Commander McLaren.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


McLaren was a tall, swarthy, uncommunicative
man. He had a rugged but pleasant face. He was a shy
man and not easy to talk to. But Poirot persevered.

Fingering Margharita's note, McLaren said almost
reluctantly:


"Well, if Margharita wants me to tell you all I can,
of course I'll do so. Don't know what there is to tell,
though. You've heard it all already. But whatever
Margharita wants--I've always done what she wanted--ever
since she was sixteen. She's got a way with her,

you know."


"I know," said Poirot. He went on. "First I should
like you to answer a question quite frankly. Do you
think Maior Rich is guilty?"

"Yes, I do. I wouldn't say so to Margharita if she
wants to think he's innocent, but I simply can't see it
any other way. Hang it all, the fellow's got to be guilty."

"Was there bad feeling between him and Mr. Clay-ton?"


"Not in the least. Arnold and Charles were the best
of friends. That's what makes the whole thing so extra-ordinary."


"Perhaps Maior Rich's friendship with Mrs. Clay-ton--"

He was interrupted.

"Faugh! All that stuff. All the papers slyly hinting


at it 	Damned
innuendoes! Mrs. Clayton and Rich

were
good friends and that's all! Margharita's got lots of
friends. I'm her friend. Been one for years. And


nothing the whole world mightn't know about it. Same
with Charles and Margharita."

"You do not then consider that they were having an
affair together?"

"Certainly NOT!" McLaren was wrathful. "Don't go
listening to that hellcat Spence woman. She'd say any-thing."

"But perhaps Mr. Clayton suspected there might be
something between his wife and Major Rich."

"You can take it from me he did nothing of the sort!
I'd have known if so. Arnold and I were very close.,,

"What sort of man was he? Yon, if anyone, should
know."

"Well, Arnold was a quiet sort of chap. But he was
clever--quite brilliant, I believe. What they call a first-class
financial brain. He was quite high up in ;he Trea-sury,
you know."

"So I have heard."

"He read a good deal. And he collected staCnps. And
he was extremely fond of music. He didn't dance, or
care much for going out."

"Was it, do you think, a happy marriage?"

Commander McLaren's answer did nt come
quickly. He seemed to be puzzling it out.

"That sort of thing's very hard to say....Yes, I
think they were happy. He was devoted to her in his
quiet way. I'm sure she was fond of him. They Weren't
likely to split up, if that's what you're thinking. They
hadn't, perhaps, a lot in common."


205



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Poirot nodded. It was as much as he was likely to
get. He said: "Now tell me about that last evening. Mr.
Clayton dined with you at the club. What did he say?"


"Told me he'd got to go to Scotland. Seemed vexed
about it. We didn't have dinner, by the way. No time.
Just sandwiches and a drink. For him, that is. I had
only the drink. I was going out to a buffet supper, re-member."


"Mr. Clayton mentioned a telegram?"


"Yes."

"He did not actually show you the telegram?"
"No."


"Did he say he was going to call on Rich?"

"Not definitely. In fact he said he doubted if he'd
have time. He said, 'Margharita can explain or you
can,' And then he said, 'See she gets home all right,
won't you?' Then he went off. It was all quite natural
and easy."


"He had no suspicion at all that the telegram
wasn't genuine?"


"Wasn't it?" Commander McLaren looked startled.
"Apparently not."

"How very odd .... "Commander McLaren went
into a kind of coma, emerging suddenly to say:

"But that really is odd. I mean, what's the point?
Why should anybody want him to go to Scotland?"


"It is a question that needs answering, certainly."

Hercule Poirot left, leaving the commander appar-ently
still puzzling on the matter.



The
	[x,'} c e 'r cjoF cle Spanish Cec[


The Spences lived in a minute house in Chelsea.


Linda Spence received Poirot with the utmost de-light.

"Do tell me," she said. "Tell me all about Margharita!
Where is she?"


"That I am not at liberty to state, madame."


"She has hidden herself well! Margharita is very
clever at that sort of thing. But she'll be called to give
evidence at the trial, I suppose? She can't wiggle her-self
out of that."

Poirot looked at her appraisingly. He decided
grudgingly that she was attractive in the modern style
(which at that moment resembled an underfed orphan
child). It was not a type he admired. The artistically
disordered hair fluffed out round her head, a pair of
shrewd eyes watched him from a slightly dirty face de-void
of makeup save for a vivid cerise mouth. She wore
an enormous pale yellow sweater hanging almost to
her knees, and tight black trousers.


"What's your part in all this?" demanded Mrs.
Spence. "Get the boyfriend out of it somehow? Is that
it? What a hope!"


"You think then, that he is guilty?"


"Of course. Who else?"

That, Poirot thought, was very much the question.
He parried it by asking another question.


"What did Major Rich seem like to you on that fatal
evening? As usual? Or not as usual?"



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


Linda Spence screwed up her eyes judicially.
"No, he wasn't himself. He was--different."
"How, different?"

"Well, surely, if you've just stabbed a man in cold
blood--"

"But you were not aware at the time that he had


just stabbed a man in cold blood, were you?"


"No, of course not."

"So how did you account for his being 'different.' In
what way?"


"Well--distrait. Oh, I don't know. But thinking it
over afterwards I decided that there had definitely
been something."


?oirot sighed.

"Who arrived first?"

"We did, Jim and I. And then Jock. And finally
Margharita."

"When was Mr. Clayton's departure for Scotland
first mentioned?"

"When Margharita came. She said to Charles:
'Arnold's terribly sorry. He's had to rush off to Edin-burgh
by the night train.' And Charles said: 'Oh, that's
too bad.' And then Jock said: 'Sorry. Thought you al-ready
knew.' And then we had drinks."


"Major Rich at no time mentioned seeing Mr. Clay-ton
that evening? He said nothing of his having called
in on his way to the station?"


"Not that I heard."



"It was strange, was it not," said Poirot, "about that
telegram?"

"What was strange?"

"It was a fake. Nobody in Edinburgh knows any-thing
about it."

"So that's it. I wondered at the time."
"Yon have an idea about the telegram?"
"I should say it rather leaps to the eye."
"How do you mean exactly?"

"My dear man," said Linda. "Don't play the inno-cent.
Unknown hoaxer gets the husband out of the
way! For that night, at all events, the coast is clear."

"You mean that Major Rich and Mrs. Clayton
planned to spend the night together."

"You have heard of such things, haven't you?"
Linda looked amused.

"And the telegram was sent by one or the other of
them?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

"Major Rich and Mrs. Clayton were having an af-fair
together you think?"


"Let's say I shouldn't be surprised if they were. I
don't know it for a fact."

"I)id Mr. Clayton suspect?"


"Arnold was an extraordinary person. He was all
bottled up, if you know what I mean. I think he did
know. But he was the kind of man who would never
have let on. Anyone would think he was a dry stick



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

with no feelings at all. But I'm pretty sure he wash'!
like that underneath. The queer thing is that I should
have been much less surprised if Arnold had stabbed
Charles than the other way about. I've an idea Arnold
was really an insanely jealous person."

	"That
		' "

		is intereshng.

"Though it's more likely, really, that he'd have done
in Margharita. Othello--that sort of thing. Margharita,
you know, has an extraordinary effect on men."

"She is a good-looking woman," said Poirot with
judicious understatement.

"It was more than that. She had something. She
would get men all het up--mad about her--and turn
round and look at them with a sort of wide-eyed surprise
that drove them barmy."

	"Une femme fatale."
	"That's probably the foreign name for it."

	"You know her well?"
"My dear, she's one of my best friends--and I
wouldn't trust her an inch?
"Ah," said Poirot and shifted the subject to Commander
McLaren.
"Jock? Old faithful? He's a pet. Born to be the friend
of the family. He and Arnold were really close friends.
I think Arnold unbent to him more than to anyone else.
And of course he was Margharita's tame cat. He'd been
devoted to her for years."
	"And was Mr. Clayton jealous of him, too?"

	"Jealous of Jock? What an idea! Margharita's

12:0



genuinely fond of Jock, but she's never given him a
thought of that kind. I don't think, really, that one ever
would .... I don't know why .... It seems a shame.
He's so nice."
Poirot switched to consideration of the valet. But
beyond saying vaguely that he mixed a very good side
car, Linda Spence seemed to have no ideas about
Burgess, and indeed seemed barely to have noticed
him.
But she was quite quick in the uptake.
"You're thinking, I suppose, that he could have
killed Arnold just as easily as Charles could? It seems
to me madly unlikely."

"That remark depresses me, madame. But then, it
seems to me (though you wdll probably not agree) that
it is madly unlikely--not that Maior Rich should kill
Arnold Clayton--but that he should kill him in just the
way he did."

"Stiletto stuff?. Yes, definitely not in character. More
likely the blunt instrument. Or he might have strangled
him, perhaps?"

Poirot sighed.

"We are back at Othello. Yes, Othello... you have
given me there a little idea 	"

"Have
I? What--" There was the sound of a latchkey
and an opening door. "Oh, here's Jeremy. Do you
want to talk to him, too?"
Jeremy Spenee was a pleasant looking man of
thirty-odd, well groomed, and almost ostentatiously



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


discreet. Mrs. Spence said that she had better go and
have a look at a casserole in the kitchen and went off,
leaving the two men together.


Jeremy Spence displayed none of the engaging
candor of his wife. He was clearly disliking very much
being mixed up in the case at all, and his remarks
were carefully noninformative. They had known the
Claytons some time, Rich not so well. Had seemed a
pleasant fellow. As far as he could remember, Rich had
seemed absolutely as usual on the evening in question.
Clayton and Rich always seemed on good terms. The
whole thing seemed quite unaccountable.


Throughout the conversation Jeremy Spence was
making it clear that he expected Poirot to take his de-parture.
He was civil, but only just so.


"I am afraid," said Poirot, "that you do not like
these questions?"


"Well, we've had quite a session of this with the po-lice.
I rather feel that's enough. We've told all we know
or saw. Now--I'd like to forget it."


"You have my sympathy. It is most unpleasant to
be mixed up in this. To be asked not only what you
know or what you saw but perhaps even what you
think?"


"Best not to think."

"But can one avoid it? Do you think, for instance,
that Mrs. Clayton was in it, too? Did she plan the death
of her husband with Rich?"



"Good lord, no." Spence sounded shocked and dis-mayed.
"I'd no idea that there was any question of such
a thing?"

"Has your wife not suggested such a possibility?"
"Oh Linda! You know what women are--always
got their knife into each other. Margharita never gets
much of a show from her own sex--a darned sight
too attractive. But surely this theory about Rich and
Margharita planning murder--that's fantastic!"


"Such things have been known. The weapon, for
instance. It is the kind of weapon a woman might pos-sess,
rather than a man."

"Do you mean the police have traced it to her--They
can't have! I mean--"


"I know nothing," said Poirot truthfully, and es-caped
hastily.

From the consternation on Spence's face, he
judged that he had left that gentleman something to
think about!


"You will forgive my saying, M. Poirot, that I cannot see
how you can be of assistance to me in any way."


Poirot did not answer. He was looking thoughtfully
at the man who had been charged with the murder of
his friend Arnold Clayton.


He was looking at the firm jaw, the narrow head. A
lean brown man, athletic and sinewy. Something of the
greyhound about him. A man whose face gave nothing



AGATHA CHRISTIE


away, and who was receiving his visitor with a marked
lack of cordiality.


"I quite understand that Mrs. Clayton sent you to
see me with the best intentions. But quite frankly, I
think she was unwise. Unwise both for her own sake
and mine."


"You mean?"

Rich gave a nervous glance over his shoulder. But
the attendant warder was the regulation distance away.
Rich lowered his voice.


"They've got to find a motive for this ridiculous
accusation. They'll try to bring that there was an--association
between Mrs. Clayton and myself. That, as
I know Mrs. Clayton will have told you, is quite untrue.
We are friends, nothing more. But surely it is advisable
that she should make no move on my behalf?."


Hercule Poirot ignored the point. Instead he picked
out a word.


"You said this 'ridiculous' accusation. But it is not
that, you know."


"I did not kill Arnold Clayton."


"Call it then a false accusation. Say the accusation
is not true. But it is not ridiculous. On the contrary, it is
highly plausible. You must know that very well."

"I can only tell you that to me it seems fantastic."


"Saying that will be of very little use to you. We
must think of something more useful than that."

"I am represented by solicitors. They have briefed,


214



I understand, eminent counsel to appear for my defence.
I cannot accept your use of the word 'we.'"
Unexpectedly Poirot smiled.

"Ah," he said, in his most foreign manner, "that is
the flea in the ear you give me. Very well. I go. I wanted
to see you. I have seen you. Already I have looked up
your career. You passed high up into Sandhurst. You
passed into the Staff College. And so on and so on. I
have made my own judgement of you today. You are
not a stupid man."
"And what has all that got to do with it?"
"Everything! It is impossible that a man of your
ability should commit a murder in the way this one
was committed. Very well. You are innocent. Tell me
now about your manservant Burgess."

"Burgess?"

"Yes. If you didn't kill Clayton, Burgess must have
done so. The conclusion seems inescapable. But why?
There must be a 'why?' You are the only person who
knows Burgess well enough to make a guess at it. Why,
Major Rich, why?"

"I can't imagine. I simply can't see it. Oh, I've followed
the same line of reasoning as you have. Yes,
Burgess had opportunity--the only person who had
except myself. The trouble is, I just can't believe it.
Burgess is not the sort of man you can imagine murdering
anybody."
"What do your legal advisers think?"



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

	Rich's lips set in a grim line.

"My legal advisers spend their time asking me, in a
persuasive way, if it isn't true that I have suffered all
my life from blackouts when I don't really know what I
am doing!"
"As bad as that," said Poirot. "Well, perhaps ;'e
shall find it is Burgess who is subject to blackouts. Itis
always an idea. The weapon now. They showed it to
you and asked you if it was yours?"
	"It was not mine. I had never seen it before."

"It was not yours, no. But are you quite sure you
had never seen it before?"
"No." Was there a faint hesitation. "It's a kind of 0rnamental
toy--really-- One sees things like that lying
about in people's houses."
	"In a woman's drawing room, perhaps. Perhaps ia

Mrs. Clayton's drawing room?"
	"Certainly NOT!"

The last word came out loudly and the warder
looked up.
"Tr&s bien. Certainly not--and there is no need l0
shout. But somewhere, at some time, you have seen
something very like it. Eh? 1 am right?"

	"I do not think so 	In
some curio shop.., perhaps."

	"Ah,
very likely." Poirot rose. "I take my leave."

"And
now," said Hercule Poirot, "for Burgess. Yes, at long
last, for Burgess."



He had leahed SUmethin about the yole attle in the
case, from thehselv% and fr-°m each .gw But ,
body had give him say knwledge of[gehgess.
clue, no hint, Or,hat kiad off man he was.
en he sa Buriess he ealized
The valet 's waiting for him at Maj0reh:aich,s flat,
apprised of his vrivaI bY a tel lephone eall0m %m Co,
mander MeLare.
"I am . H%ule Poirot."
"Yes, sir, Ihs expecting oou.,,
Burgess helo hah
..... ne door with a defetiaHial ha
and Poirot entered. A small s quare entanre hall,
door on the leh, 0pea, leadin g into the sing hg roo.
Burgess relieve¢ Poirt of his hat and c0a;an n and
lowed him intoth;.,,
thai'i?;dn::0t l%king ro,ound. "It wasre, ae' the,
"Yes sir,"
A quiet fell., Burgess, whi-i[ite hced, a liCe weed.
Awkward shoulders and elboWS. A flat 0i, tha
provincial aecet hat Poirot diiid not kno.[r0qom the
east coast, perhaps' Rather a n e9-eous man,rh*,haps
but othese nOOefinite eharac'O cteristics. It,hd hardh
associate him h Positive acti.iion of any g/nd, 0 'I. Could
one postulate aOegati,e killer?
He had th0sepale h/ne, rath. her shift)' eFsaqLhat
obseant people0aen quate Dth dishoaes.t let a liar
can look you inthehcth a bo°ld and eo[denlnnt es'e,
"at is haCpeaing to the flat?" Poir0tqmg.quireO.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

	Rich's lips set in a grim line.

"My legal advisers spend their time asking me, in a
persuasive way, if it isn't true that I have suffered all
my life from blackouts when I don't really know what I
am doing!"
"As bad as that," said Poirot. "Well, perhaps we
shall find it is Burgess who is subject to blackouts. It is
always an idea. The weapon now. They showed it to
you and asked you if it was yours?"

	"It was not mine. I had never seen it before."

"It was not yours, no. But are you quite sure you
had never seen it before?"
"No." Was there a faint hesitation. "It's a kind of ornamental
toy--really-- One sees things like that lying
about in people's houses."

	"In a woman's drawing room, perhaps. Perhaps in

Mrs. Clayton's drawing room?"
	"Certainly NOT!"

The last word came out loudly and the warder
looked up.
"Trbs bien. Certainly not--and there is no need to
shout. But somewhere, at some time, you have seen
something very like it. Eh? I am right?"

	"I do not think so 	In
some curio shop.., perhaps."

	"Ah,
very likely." Poirot rose. "I take my leave."

"And
now," said Hercule Poirot, "for Burgess. Yes, at long
last, for Burgess."



He had learned something about the people in the
case, from themselves and from each other. But no-body
had given him any knowledge of Burgess. No

clue, no hint, of what kind of a man he was.

When he saw Burgess he realized why.


The valet was waiting for him at Major Rich's flat,
apprised of his arrival by a telephone call from Com-mander
McLaren.

"I am M. Hercule Poirot."

"Yes, sir, I was expecting you."

Burgess held back the door with a deferential hand
and Poirot entered. A small square entrance hall, a
door on the left, open, leading into the sitting room.
Burgess relieved Poirot of his hat and coat, and fol-lowed
him into the sitting room.

"Ah," said Poirot looking round. "It was here, then,


that it happened?"


"Yes, sir."

A quiet fellow, Burgess, white faced, a little weedy.
Awkward shoulders and elbows. A flat voice with a
provincial accent that Poirot did not know. From the
east coast, perhaps. Rather a nervous man, perhaps--but
otherwise no definite characteristics. It was hard to
associate him with positive action of any kind. Could
one postulate a negative killer?


He had those pale blue, rather shifty eyes that
observant people often equate with dishonesty. Yet a liar
can look you in the face with a bold and confident eye.


"What is happening to the flat?" Poirot inquired.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


"I'm still looking after it, sir. Major Rich arranged

for my pay and to keep it nice until--until--"
The eyes shifted uncomfortably.
"Until--" agreed Poirot.


He added in a matter-of-fact manner: "I should say
that Major Rich will almost certainly be committed for
trial. The case will come up probably within three
months."


Burgess shook his head, not in denial, simply in
perplexity.


"It really doesn't seem possible," he said.
"That Major Rich should be a murderer?"
"The whole thing. That chest--"
His eyes went across the room.
"Ah, so that is the famous chest?"

It was a mammoth piece of furniture of very dark
polished wood, studded with brass, with a great brass
hasp and antique lock.

"A handsome affair." Poirot went over to it.

It stood against the wall near the window, next to a
modern cabinet for holding records. On the other side
of it was a door, half ajar. The door ;vas partly masked
by a big painted leather screen.

"That leads into Major Rich's bedroom," said
Burgess.


Poirot nodded. His eyes traveled to the other side of
the room. There were two stereophonic record play-ers,
each on a low table, trailing snakelike electrical
cord. There were easy chairs--a big table. On the walls


218



were a set of Japanese prints. It was a handsome room,
comfortable, but not luxurious.
He looked back at William Burgess.
"The discovery," he said kindly, "must have been a
great shock to you."
"Oh it was, sir. I'll never forget it." The valet rushed
into speech. Words poured from him. He felt, perhaps,
that by telling the story often enough, he might at last
expunge it from his mind.
"I'd gone round the room, sir. Clearing up. Glasses
and so on. I'd just stooped to pick up a couple of olives
off the floor--and I saw it--on the rug, a rusty dark
stain. No, the rug's gone now. To the cleaners. The police
had done with it. Whatever's that? I thought. Saying
to myself, almost in joke like: 'Really it might be
blood! But where does it come from? What got spilled?'
And then I saw it was from the chest--down the side,
here, where there's a crack. And I said, still not thinking
anything, 'Well whatever--?' And I lifted up the lid
like this" (he suited the action to the word) "and there it
was the body of a man lying on his side doubled up--like
he might be asleep. And that nasty foreign knife or
dagger thing sticking up out of his neck. I'll never forget
it--never! Not as long as I live! The shock--not ex	pecting
it, you understand 	"

	He
breathed deeply.
"I
let the lid fall and I ran out of the flat and down to
the street. Looking for a policeman--and lucky, I found
one--just round the corner."



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

Poirot regarded him reflectively. The performance,
if it was a performance, was very good. He began to be
afraid that it was not a performance--that it was just
how things had happened.
"You did not think of awakening first Major Rich?"
he asked.
"It never occurred to me, sir. What with the shock.
I--I just wanted to get out of here--" he swallowed

"and--and get help."

	Poirot nodded.
"Did you realize that it was Mr. Clayton?" he asked.
"I ought to have, sir, but you know, I don't believe I
did. Of course, as soon as I got back with the police officer,
I said 'Why, it's Mr. Clayton!' And he says 'Who's
Mr. Clayton?' And I says: 'He was here last night.'"
	"Ah," said Poirot, "last night 	Do
you remember

exactly
when it was Mr. Clayton arrived here?"

	"Not
to the minute. But as near as not a quarter to

eight,
I'd say 	"

	"You
knew
him well?"
	"He and
Mrs. Clayton had been here quite frequently
during the
year and a half I've been employed here." "Did he seem
quite as usual?"

"I think so.
A little out of breath--but I took it he'd been hurrying. He
was catching a train, or so he said."

"He had a
bag with him, I suppose, as he was going to Scotland?"

"No,
sir. I
imagine he was keeping a taxi down belOW."



"Was he disappointed to fird tlqat Major Rich was
out?"
"Not to notice. Just said he'd scriDble a note. He
came in here and went over to the desk ad I went
back to the kitchen. I was a little bchirdhand with the
anchovy eggs. The kitchen's at the end of the passage
and you don't hear very well from there. I didn't hear
him go out or the master come in--but then I wouldn't
expect to."
"And the next thing.;'"
"Major Rich called me. He was standing in the door
here. He said he'd forgotten Mrs. Spence's Tm'kish cigarettes.
I was to hurry out and get them. So I did. I
brought them back and put them o the table in here.
Of course I took it that Mr. Clayton had left by then to
get his train."
"And nobody else came to the flat during the time
Major Rich was out and you were ir the kitchen?"
"No, sir--no one."
"Can you be sure of that?"
"How could anyone, sir? They'd have had to ring
the bell."
Poirot shook his head. How could anyode? The
Spences and McLaren and also Mrs. Clayton could, he
already knew, account for every minute of their time.
McLaren had been with acquaintances at the club, the
Spences had had a couple of friends in for a drink before
starting. Margharita Clayton had talked to a friend
on the telephone at just that period. Not that he thought

221



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

of any of them as possibilities. There would have been
better ways of killing Arnold Clayton than following
him to a flat with a manservant there and the host returning
any moment. No, he had had a last minute
hope of a "mysterious stranger"! Someone out of Clayton's
apparently impeccable past, recognizing him in
the street, following him here. Attacking him with the
stiletto, thrusting the body into the chest, and fleeing.
Pure melodrama, unrelated to reason or to probabilities!
In tune with romantic historical fictions--matching
the Spanish chest.
He went back across the room to the chest. He
raised the lid. It came up easily, noiselessly.
In a faint voice, Burgess said: "It's been scrubbed
out, sir, I saw to that."
Poirot bent over it. With a faint exclamation he
bent lower. He explored with his fingers.
"These holes--at the back and one side--they
look--they feel, as though they had been made quite
recently."
"Holes, sir?" The valet bent to see. "I really couldn't
say. I've never noticed them particularly."
"They are not very obvious. But they are there.
What is their purpose, would you say?"

"I really wouldn't knorr, sir. Some animal, perhaps--[
mean a beetle, something of that kind. Something
that gnaws wood?"

"Some animal?" said Poirot. "I wonder."
He stepped back across the room.



"When you came in here with the cigarettes, was
there anything at all about this room that looked different?
Anything at all? Ghairs moved, table, something
of that kind?"
"It's odd your saying that, sir .... Now you come to
mention it, there was. That screen there that cuts off
the draft from the bedroom door, it was moved over a
bit more to the left."
"Like this?" Poirot moved swiftly.

"A little more still .... That's right."
The screen had already masked about half of the
chest. The way it was now arranged, it almost hid the
chest altogether.
"Why did you think it had been moved?"
"I didn't think, sir."
(Another Miss Lemon!)
Burgess added doubtfully:
"I suppose it leaves the way into the bedroom
clearer--if the ladies wanted to leave their wraps."
"Perhaps. But there might be another reason."
Burgess looked inquiring. "The screen hides the chest
now, and it hides the rug below the chest. If Major Rich
stabbed Mr. Glayton, blood would presently start dripping
through the cracks at the base of the chest. Someone
might notice--as you noticed the next morning.
So--the screen was moved."
"I never thought of that, sir."
"What are the lights like here, strong or dim?" I'll show you, sir."



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


Quickly, the valet drew the curtains and switched
on a couple of lamps. They gave a soft mellow light,
hardly strong enough even to read by. Poirot glanced
up at a ceiling light.


"That wasn't on, sir. It's very little used."
Poirot looked round in the soft glow.
The valet said:


"I don't believe you'd see any bloodstains, sir, it's
too dim."

"I think you are right. So, then, why was the screen
moved?"

Burgess shivered.


"It's awful to think of---a nice gentleman like Major
Rich doing a thing like that."


"You've no doubt that he did do it? Why did he do it,
Burgess?"

"Well, he'd been through the war, of course. Be
might have had a head wound, mightn't he? They do
say as sometimes it all flares up years afterwards. They
suddenly go all queer and don't know what they're do-ing.
And they say as often as not, it's their nearest and
dearest as they goes for. Do you think it could have
been like that?"

Poirot gazed at him. He sighed. He turned away.
"No," he said, "it was not like that."

With the air of a conjuror, a piece of crisp paper
was insinuated into Burgess's hand.


"Oh thank you, sir, but really I don't--"


"You have helped me," said Poirot. "By showing me


224



this room. By showing me what is in the room. By
showing me what took place that evening. The impos-sible
is never impossible! Remember that. I said that
there were only two possibilities--I was wrong. There
is a third possibility." He looked round the room again
and gave a little shiver. "Pull back the curtains. Let in
the light and the air. This room needs it. It needs
cleansing. It will be a long time, I think, before it is pu-rified
from what afflicts it--the lingering memory of
hate."

Burgess, his mouth open, handed Poirot his hat
and coat. He seemed bewildered. Poirot, who enjoyed
making incomprehensible statements, went down to
the street with a brisk step.


When Poirot got home, he made a telephone call to In-spector
Miller.

"What happened to Clayton's bag? His wife said he
had packed one."

"It was at the club. He left it with the porter. Then

he must have forgotten it and gone off without it."
"What was in it?"

"What you'd expect. Pyjamas, extra shirt, washing
things."

"Very thorough."

"What did you expect would be in it?"

Poirot ignored that question. He said:

"About the stiletto. I suggest that you get hold of
whatever cleaning woman attends Mrs. Spence's house.



AGATHA CHRISTIE


Find out if she ever saw anything like it lying about
there."


"Mrs. Spence?" Miller whistled. "Is that the way
your mind is working? The Spences were shown the


stiletto. They didn't recognize it."
"Ask them again."
"Do you mean--"

"And then let me know what they say--"

"I can't imagine what yot think you have got hold


OP."


"Read Othello, Miller. Consider the characters in
Othello. We've missed out one of them."

He rang off. Next he dialed Lady Chatterton. The
number was engaged.


He tried again a little later. Still no success. He
called for George, his valet, and instructed him to con-tinue
ringing the number until he got a reply. Lady
Chatterton, he knew, was an incorrigible telephoner.


He sat down in a chair, carefully eased offhis patent
leather shoes, stretched his toes, and leaned back.

"I am old," said Hercule Poirot. "I tire easily...." He
brightened. "But the cells--they still function. Slowly--


but they function 	Othello,
yes. Who was it said that

to
me? Ah yes, Mrs. Spence. The bag.., the screen... the
body, lying there like a man asleep. A clever mur-der.
Premeditated, planned... I think, enjoyed!..."

George
announced to him that Lady Chatterton was
on the line.


"Hercule Poirot here, madame. May I speak to your
guest?"

"Why, of course! Oh M. Poirot, have you done
something wonderful?"


"Not yet," said Poirot. "But possibly, it marches."
Presently Margharita's voice--quiet, gentle.
"Madame, when I asked you if you noticed any-thing
out ol'place that evening at the party, you frowned,
as though you remembered something--and then it
escaped you. Would it have been the position of the
screen that night?"

"The screen? Why, of course, yes. It was not quite
in its usual place."

"Did you dance that night?"


"Part of the time."

"Who did you dance with mostly?"


"Jeremy Spence. He's a wonderful dancer. Charles
is good but not spectacular. He and Linda danced, and
now and then we changed. Jock McLaren doesn't
dance. He got out the records and sorted them and
arranged what we'd have."

"You had serious music later?"

"Yes."

There was a pause. Then Margharita said:


"M. Poirot, what is--all this? Have you--is there--
hope?"


"Do you ever know, madame, what the people
around you are feeling?"



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

Her voice, faintly surprised, said:
"I--suppose so."
"I suppose not. I think you have no idea. I think
that is the tragedy of your life. But the tragedy is for
other people--not for you.

"Someone today mentioned to me Othello. I asked
you if your husband was jealous, and you said you
thought he must be. But you said it quite lightly. You
said it as Desdemona might have said it, not realizing
danger. She, too, recognized iealousy, but she did not
understand it, because she herself never had, and
never could, experience jealousy. She was, I think,
quite unaware of the force of acute physical passion.
She loved her husband with the romantic fervor of
hero worship, she loved her friend Cassio, quite innocently,
as a close companion 	I
think that because
of
her immunity to passion, she herself drove men

mad
	Am I
making sense to you, madame?"

There was
a pause--and then Margharita's voice answered. Cool,
sweet, a little bewildered:
"I don't--I
don't really understand what you are
saying 	"

Poirot sighed.
He
spoke in matter-of-fact tones. "This evening," he
said, "I pay you a visit."

Inspector Miller was
not an easy man to persuade. But equally Hercule Poirot
was not an easy man to shake offuntil he had
got his way. Inspector Miller grumbled, but capitulated.



,,--though what Lady Chatterton's got to do with


this--"

"Nothing, really. She has provided asylum for a
friend, that is all."

"About those Spences---how did you know?"

"That stiletto came from there? It was a mere guess.
Something Jeremy Spence said gave me the idea. I
saggested that the stiletto belonged to Margharita
Clayton. He showed that he knew positively that it did
not." He paused. "What did they say?" he asked with
some curiosity.

"Admitted that it was very like a toy dagger they'd
once had. But it had been mislaid some weeks ago, and
they had really forgotten about it. I suppose Rich
pinched it from there."

'.'A man who likes to play safe, Mr. Jeremy Spence,"
said Hercule Poirot. He muttered to himself: "Some

weeks ago 	Oh
yes, the planning began a long time
ago."


"Eh,
what's that?"
"We
arrive," said Poirot. The taxi drew up at Lady Chatterton's
house in Cheriton Street. Poirot paid the fare.


Margharita
Clayton was waiting for them in the room
upstairs. Her face hardened when she saw Miller.

"I
didn't know--"
"You
did not know who the friend was I proposed to
bring?"


	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"Inspector Miller is not a friend of mine."

"That rather depends on whether you want to see
justice done or not, Mrs. Clayton. Your husband was
murdered--"
"And now we have to talk of who killed him," said
Poirot quickly. "May we sit down, madame?"

Slowly Margharita sat down in a high-backed chair
facing the two men.

"I ask," said Poirot, addressing both his hearers,
"to listen to me patiently. I think I now know what happened
on that fatal evening at Major Rich's flat 	We
started,
all of us, by an assumption that was not true--the assumption
that there were only two persons who had the
opportunity of putting the body in the chest--that is to
say, Major Rich or William Burgess. But we were wrong--there was
a third person at the flat that evening who had
an equally good opportunity to do SO."

"And who
was
that?" demanded Miller sceptically. "The lift boy?"

"No. Arnold Clayton."
"What? Concealed his
own dead body? You're crazy."

"Naturally not
a
dead body--a live one. In simple terms, he hid
himself in the chest. A thing that has often been done
throughout the course of history. The dead bride in
the Mistletoe Bough, Iachimo with designs on the
virtue of Imogen, and so on. I thought of it as soon as
I saw that there had been holes bored in the



-Fhe 'luj;tevuj oF :he Cpni'h Che


chest quite recently. Why? They were made so that
there might be a sufficiency of air in the chest. Why
was the screen moved from its usual position that
evening? So as to hide the chest from the people in the
room. So that the hidden man could lift the lid from
time to time and relieve his cramp, and hear better
what went on."

"But why," demanded Margharita wide-eyed with
astonishment. "Why should Arnold want to hide in the
chest?"

"Is it you who ask that, madame? Your husband
was a jealous man. He was also an inarticulate man.
'Bottled up,' as your friend Mrs. Spence put it. His jeal-ousy
mounted. It tortured him! Were you or were you
not Rich's mistress? He did not know! He had to know!
So--a 'telegram from Scotland,' the telegram that was
never sent and that no one ever saw! The overnight
bag is packed and conveniently forgotten at the club.
He goes to the flat at a time when he has probably as-certained
Rich will be out. He tells the valet he will
write a note. As soon as he is left alone, he bores the
holes in the chest, moves the screen, and climbs inside
the chest. Tonight he will know the truth. Perhaps his
wife will stay behind the others, perhaps she will go but
come back again. That night the desperate, jealousy

racked
man will know 	"


"You're
not saying he stabbed himse?" Miller's
voice was incredulous. "Nonsense!"


"Oh no, someone else stabbed him. Somebody who



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


knew he was there. It was murder all right. Carefully
planned, long premeditated murder. Think of the other
characters in Othello. It is Iago we should have re-membered.
Subtle poisoning of Arnold Clayton's mind;
hints, suspicions. Honest Iago, the faithful friend, the
man you always believe! Arnold Clayton believed him.
Arnold Clayton let his jealousy be played upon, be
roused to fever pitch. Was the plan of hiding in the
chest Arnold's own idea? He may have thought it was--probably
he did think so! And so the scene is set. The
stiletto, quietly abstracted some weeks earlier, is ready.
The evening comes. The lights are low, the gramo-phone
is playing, two couples dance, the odd man out
is busy at the record cabinet, close to the Spanish chest
and its masking screen. To slip behind the screen, lift


the lid and strike-- Audacious, but quiet easy!"
"Clayton would have cried out!"


"Not if he were drugged," said Poirot. "According
to the valet, the body was 'lying like a man asleep.'
Clayton was asleep, drugged by the only man who
could have drugged him, the man he had had a drink
with at the club."


"Jock?" Margharita's voice rose high in childlike
surprise. "Jock? Not dear old Jock. Why, I've known


Jock all my life! Why on earth should Jock... ?"
Poirot turned on her.

"Why did two Italians fight a duel? Why did a
young man shoot himself?. Jock McLaren is an inartic-ulate
man. He has resigned himself, perhaps, to being


232



the faithful friend to you and your husband, but thn
comes Major Rich as well. It is too much! Ill the dark ness
of hate and desire, he plans what is well nigh tqe
perfect murder--a double murder, for Bie is alto%st
certain to be fotmd guilty of it. And with Ri¢ and yc ur
husband both out of the way--he thinks thalat last y )u
may turn to him. And perhaps, madame, !'ou wo¼1d
have done .... Eh?"

She was staring at him, wide-eyed, horror,struck. - ··
Almost unconsciously she breathed:
"Perhaps.. · I don't know .... "

Inspector Miller spoke with sudden au¢°rity·
"This is all very well, Poirot. It's a theorY, nothing
more. There's not a shred of evidence, prnably nat a

word of it is true.'

"It is all true."

"But there's no evidence. There's nothing we an
act on."

"You are wrong. I think that MeLaren, if this is )ut
to him, will admit it. That is, if it is made clear to him
that Margharita Clayton knows .... "

	Poirot paused and added:

	"Because, once he knows that, he has 10st 	The

perfect
murder has been in vain."


R. SATTERTHWAITE CLUCKED TWICE IN
vexation. Whether right in his assumption or not, he
was more and more convinced that cars nowadays
broke down far more frequently than they used to do.
The only cars he trusted were old friends who had sur-vived
the test of time. They had their little idiosyn-crasies,
but you knew about those, provided for them,
fulfilled their wants before the demand became too
acute. But new cars! Full of new gadgets, different
kinds of windows, an instrument panel newly and dif-ferently
arranged, handsome in its glistening wood,
but being unfamiliar, your groping hand hovered un-easily
over fog lights, windshield wipers, the choke, et
cetera. All these things with knobs in a place where
you didn't expect them. And when your gleaming new
purchase failed in performance, your local garage ut-tered
the intensely irritating words: "Teething trou-bles.
Splendid car, sir, these roadsters Super Superbos.
All the latest accessories. But bound to have their
teething troubles, you know. Ha, ha." Just as though a
car was a baby.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


But Mr. $atterthwaite, being now of an advanced
age, was strongly of the opinion that a new car ought to
be fully adult. Tested, inspected, and its teething trou-bles
already dealt with before it came into its pur-chaser's
possession.


Mr. Satterthwaite was on his way to pay a weekend
visit to friends in the country. His new car had already,
on the way from London, given certain symptoms of
discomfort, and was now drawn up in a garage waiting
for the diagnosis, and how long it would take before he
could resume progress towards his destination. His
chauffeur was in consultation with a mechanic. Mr.
Satterthwaite sat, striving for patience. He had assured
his hosts, on the telephone the night before, that he
would be arriving in good time for tea. He would reach
Doverton Kingsbourne, he assured them, well before
four o'clock.


He clucked again in irritation and tried to turn his
thoughts to something pleasant. It was no good sitting
here in a state of acute irritation, frequently consulting
his wristwatch, clucking once more and giving, he had
to realize, a very good imitation of a hen pleased with
its prowess in laying an egg.


Yes. Something pleasant. Yes, now hadn't there
been something--something he had noticed as they
were driving along. Not very long ago. Something that
he had seen through the window which had pleased
and excited him. But before he had had time to think



about it, the car's misbehavior had become more pro-nounced
and a rapid visit to the nearest service station
had been inevitable.

What was it that he had seen? On the left--no, on
the right. Yes, on the right as they drove slowly through
the village street. Next door to a post office. Yes, he was
quite sure of that. Next door to a post office because the
sght of the post office had given him the idea of tele-phoning
to the Addisons to break the news that he might
be slightly late in his arrival. The post office. A village
post office. And next to it--yes, definitely, next to it,
next door or if not next door the door after. Something
that had stirred old memories, and he had wanted--just
what was it that he had wanted? Oh dear, it would
come to him presently. It was mixed up with a color.
Several colors. Yes, a color or colors. Or a word. Some
definite word that had stirred memories, thoughts,
pleasures gone by, excitement, recalling something
that had been vivid and alive. Something in which he
himself had not only seen but observed. No, he had
done more. He had taken part. Taken part in what, and
why, and where? All sorts of places. The answer came
quickly at the last thought. M1 sorts of places.

On an island? In Corsica? At Monte Carlo watching
the croupier spinning his roulette wheel? A house in
the country? All sorts of places. And he had been there,
and someone else. Yes, someone else. It all tied up with
that. He was getting there at last. If he could just... He



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

was interrupted at that moment by the chauffeur coming
to the window with the garage mechanic in tow behind
him.
"Won't be long now, sir," the chauffeur assured Mr.
Satterthwaite cheerfully. "Matter of ten minutes or so.
Not more."
"Nothing seriously wrong," said the mechanic, in a
low, hoarse, country voice. "Teething troubles, as you
might say."

Mr. Satterthwaite did not cluck this time. He
gnashed his own teeth. A phrase he had often read in
books and which in old age he seemed to have got into
the habit of doing himself, due, perhaps, to the slight
looseness of his upper plate. Really, teething trouble!
Toothache. Teeth gnashing. False teeth. One's whole
life centered, he thought, about teeth.
"Doverton Kingsbourne's only a few miles away,"
said the chauffeur, "and they've a taxi here. You could
go on in that, sir, and I'd bring the car along later as
soon as it's fixed up."

"No!" said Mr. Satterthwaite.
He said the word explosively, and both the chauffeur
and the mechanic looked startled. Mr. Satterthwaite's
eyes were sparkling. His voice was clear and
decisive. Memory had come to him.

"I propose," he said, "to walk the road we have just
come by. When the car is ready, you will pick me up
there. The Harlequin Cafe. I think it is called."



"It's not very much of a place, sir," the mechanic
advised.
"That is where I shall be," said Mr. Satterthwaite,
speaking with a kind of regal autocracy.
He walked off briskly. The two men stared after
him.
"Don't know what's got into him," said the chauffeur.
"Never seen him like that before."
The village of Kingsbourne Ducis did not live up to
the old world grandeur of its name. It was a smallish village consisting of one street. A few houses. Shops
that were dotted rather unevenly, sometimes betraying
the fact that they were houses which had been turned
into shops or that they were shops which now existed
as houses without any industrial intentions.

It was not particularly old world or beautiful. It was
just simple and rather unobtrusive. Perhaps that was
why, thought Mr. Satterthwaite, that a dash of brilliant
color had caught his eye. Ah, here he was at the post
office. The post office was a simply functioning post
office with a pillar box outside, a display of some newspapers
and some postcards, and surely, next to it, yes
there was the sign up above. The Harlequin Cafe. A
sudden qualm struck Mr. Satterthwaite. Really, he was
getting too old. He had fancies. Why should that one
word stir his heart? The Harlequin Cafe.

The mechanic at the service station had been quite
It did not look like a place in which one would



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

really be tempted to have a meal. A snack, perhaps. A
morning coffee. Then why? But he suddenly realized
why. Because the cafe, or perhaps one could better put
it as the house that sheltered the cafe, was in two portions.
One side of it had small tables with chairs round
them arranged ready for patrons who came here to
eat. But the other side was a shop. A shop that sold
china. It was not an antique shop. It had no little
shelves of glass vases or mugs. It was a shop that sold
modern goods, and the show window that gave on the
street was at the present moment housing every shade
of the rainbow. A tea set of largish cups and saucers,
each one of a different color. Blue, red, yellow, green,
pink, purple. Really, Mr. Satterthwaite thought, a wonderful
show of color. No wonder it had struck his eye
as the car had passed slowly beside the pavement,
looking ahead for any sign of a garage or a service station.
It was labeled with a large card as "A Harlequin
Tea Set."
It was the word "harlequin" of course which had
remained fixed in Mr. Satterthwaite's mind, although just far enough back in his mind so that it had been difficult
to recall it. The gay colors. The harlequin colors.
And he had thought, wondered, had the absurd but exciting
idea that in some way here was a call to him. To
him specially. Here, perhaps, eating a meal or purchasing
cups and saucers might be his own old friend,
Mr. Harley Quin. How many years was it since he had
last seen Mr. Quin? A large number of years. Was it the



day he had seen Mr. Quin walking away from him
down a country lane, Lovers' Lane they had called it?
He had always expected to see Mr. Quin again, once a
year at least. Possibly twice a year. But no. That had
not happened.

And so today he had had the wonderful and sur-prising
idea that here, in the village of Kingsbourne
Ducis, he might once again find Mr. Harley Quin.

"Absurd of me," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "quite ab-surd
of me. Really, the ideas one has as one gets old!"


He had missed Mr. Quin. Missed something that
had been one of the most exciting things in the late
years of his life. Someone who might turn up any-where
and who, if he did turn up, was always an an-nouncement
that something was going to happen.
Something that was going to happen to him. No, that
was not quite right. Not to him, but through him. That
was the exciting part. Just from the words that Mr.
Quin might utter. Words. Things he might show him,
ideas would come to Mr. Satterthwaite. He would see
things, he would imagine things, he would find out
things. He would deal with something that needed to
be dealt with. And opposite him would sit Mr. Quin,
perhaps smiling approval. Something that Mr. Quin
said would start the flow of ideas, the active person
would be he himself. He--Mr. Satterthwaite. The man
with so many old friends. A man among whose friends
had been duchesses, an occasional bishop, people that
counted. Especially, he had to admit, people who had



AGATHA


CHRISTIE


counted in the social world. Because, after all, Mr. Sat-terthwaite
had always been a snob. He had liked
duchesses, he had liked knowing old families, families
who had represented the landed gentry of England for
several generations. And he had had, too, an interest in
young people not necessarily socially important.
Young people who were in trouble, who were in love,
who were unhappy, who needed help. Because of Mr.
Quin, Mr. Satterthwaite was enabled to give help.


And now, like an idiot, he was looking into an un-prepossessing
village cafe and a shop for modern china
and tea sets and casseroles, no doubt.

"All the same," said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself, "I
must go in. Now I've been foolish enough to walk back
here, I must go in just--well, just in case. They'll be
longer, I expect, doing the car than they say. It will be
more than ten minutes. Just in case there is anything
interesting inside."


He looked once more at the window full of china.
He appreciated suddenly that it was good china. Well
made. A good modern product. He looked back into the
past, remembering. The Duchess of Leith, he remem-bered.
What a wonderful lady she had been. How kind
she had been to her maid on the occasion of a very
rough sea voyage to the island of Corsica. She had
ministered to her with the kindliness of a ministering
angel and only on the next day had she resumed her
autocratic, bullying manner, which the domestics of



those days had seemed able to stand quite easily with-out
any sign of rebellion.

Maria. Yes, that's what the Duchess's name had
been. Dear old Maria Leith. Ah well. She had died
some years ago. But she had had a harlequin breakfast
set, he remembered. Yes. Big round cups in different
colors. Black. Yellow, red, and a particularly pernicious
shade of puce. Puce, he thought, must have been a fa-vorite
color of hers. She had had a Rockingham tea set,
he remembered, in which the predominating color
had been puce decorated with gold.

"Ah," sighed Mr. Satterthwaite, "those were the
days. Well, I suppose I'd better go in. Perhaps order a
cup of coffee or something. It will be very full of milk,
I expect, and possibly already sweetened. But still, one
has to pass the time."


He went in. The cafe side was practically empty. It
was early, Mr. Satterthwaite supposed, for people to
want cups of tea. And anyway, very few people did
want cups of tea nowadays. Except, that is, occasion-ally
elderly people in their own homes. There was a
young couple in the far window and two women gos-siping
at a table against the back wall.

"I said to her," one of them was saying, "I said you
can't do that sort of thing. No, it's not the sort of thing
that I'll put up with, and I said the same to Henry and
he agreed with me."


It shot through Mr. Satterthwaite's mind that Henry



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

must have rather a hard life and that no doubt he had
found it always wise to agree, whatever the proposition
put up to him might be. A most unattractive
woman with a most unattractive friend. He turned his
attention to the other side of the building, murmuring,
"May I just look round?"

There was quite a pleasant woman in charge and
she said, "Oh yes, sir. We've got a good stock at present.''

Mr. Satterthwaite looked at the colored cups,
picked up one or two of them, examined the milk jug,
picked up a china zebra and considered it, examined
some ashtrays of a fairly pleasing pattern. He heard
chairs being pushed back and turning his head, noted
that the two middle-aged women still discussing former
grievances had paid their bill and were now lea-ing
the shop. As they went out of the door, a tall man i
a dark suit came in. He sat down at the table whict
they had just vacated. His back was to Mr. Satterthwaite,
who thought that he had an attractive back.
Lean, strong, well-muscled but rather dark and sinister
looking because there was very little light in the
shop. Mr. Satterthwaite looked back again at the ashtrays.
"I might buy an ashtray so as not to cause a disappointment
to the shop owner," he thought. As he did
so, the sun came out suddenly.

He had not realized that the shop had looked dim
because of the lack of sunshine. The sun must haw'
been under a cloud for some time. It had clouded over,



he remembered, at about the time they had got to the
service station. But now there was this sudden burst of
sunlight. It caught up the colors of the china and
through a colored glass window of somewhat ecclesiastical
pattern which must, Mr. Satterthwaite thought,
have been left over from the original Victorian house.
The sun came through the window and lit up the dingy
cafe. In some curious way it lit up the back of the man
who had just sat down there. Instead of a dark black
silhouette, there was now a festoon of colors. Red and
blue and yellow. And suddenly Mr. Satterthwaite realized
that he was looking at exactly what he had hoped
to find. His intuition had not played him false. He knew
who it was who had just come in and sat down there.
He knew so well that he had no need to wait until he
could look at the face. He turned his back on the china,
went back into the cafe, round the corner of the round
table and sat down opposite the man who had just
come in.

"Mr. Quin," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "I knew somehow
it was going to be you."
Mr. Quin smiled.
"You always know so many things," he said.
"It's a long time since I've seen you," said Mr. Sat-terthwaite.
"Does time matter?" said Mr. Quin.
"Perhaps not. You may be right. Perhaps not."
"May I offer you some refreshment?"
"Is there any refreshment to be had?" said Mr. Sat

	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

terthwaite doubtfully. "I suppose you must have come
in for that purpose."
"One is never quite sure of one's purpose, is one?"
said Mr. Quin.
"I am so pleased to see you again," said Mr. Sat-terthwaite. "I'd almost forgotten, you know. I mean forgotten
the way you talk, the things you say. The things
you make me think of, the things you make me do."

"I--make you do? You are so wrong. You have always
known yourself just what you wanted to do and
why you want to do it and why you know so well that
they have to be done."

"I only feel that when you are here."

"Oh no," said Mr. Qnin lightly. "I have nothing to
do with it. I am just--as I've often told you--I am jus
passing by. That is all."
"Today you are passing by through Kingsbourne
Ducis."
"And you are not passing by. You are going to a definite
place. Am I right?"

'q am going to see a very old friend. A friend I have
not seen for a good many years. He's old now. Somewhat
crippled. He has had one stroke. He has recovered
from it quite well, but one never knows." "Does he live by himself?."

"Not now, I am glad to say. His family have come
back from abroad, what is left of his family that is.
They have been living with him now for some months.
I am glad to be able to come and see them again all to

gether. Those, that's to say, that I have seen before, and
those that I have not seen."
"You mean children?"
"Children and grandchildren." Mr. Satterthwaite
sighed. Just for a moment he was sad that he had
had no children and no grandchildren and no great-grandchildren
himself. He did not usually regret it at
all.
"They have some special Turkish coffee here," said
Mr. Quin. "Really good of its kind. Everything else is,
as you have guessed, rather unpalatable. But one can
always have a cup of Turkish coffee, can one not? Let
us have one because I suppose you will soon have to
get on with your pilgrimage, or whatever it is."
In the doorway came a small black dog. He came
and sat down by the table and looked up at Mr. Quin.
"Your dog?" said Mr. Satterthwaite.

"Yes. Let me introduce you to Hermes." He stroked
the black dog's head. "Coffee," he said. "Tell All."

The black dog walked from the table through a
door at the back of the shop. They heard him give a
short, incisive bark. Presently he reappeared and with
him came a youn man with a very dark complexion,
wearing an emerald green pullover.
"Coffee, All," said Mr. Quin. "Two coffees."
"Turkish coffee. That's right, isn't it, sir?" He
smiled and disappeared.

The dog sat down again.
"Tell me," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "tell me where



AGATHA CHRISTIE

you've been and what you have been doing and why I
have not seen you for so long."

"I have just told you that time really means nothing.
It is clear in my mind and I think it is clear in yours
the occasion when we last met."

"A very tragic occasion," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "I
do not really like to think of it."

"Because of death? But death is not always a
tragedy. I have told you that before."

"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "perhaps that death--the
one we are both thinking of--was not a tragedy.
But all the same..."

"But all the same it is life that really matters. You
are quite right, of course," said Mr. Quin. "Quite right.
It is life that matters. We do not want someone young,
someone who is happy, or could be happy, to die. Neither
of us wants that, do we. That is the reason why we
must always save a life when the command comes."
"Have you got a command for me?"

"Me--command for you?" Harley Quin's long, sad
face brightened into its peculiarly charming smile. "I
have no commands for you, Mr. Satterthwaite. I have
never had commands. You yourself know things, see
things, know what to do, do them. It has nothing to do
with me."

"Oh yes, it has," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "You're not
going to change my mind on that point. But tell me.
Where have you been during what it is too short to call
time?"



"Well, I have been here and there. In different
countries, different climates, different adventures. But
mostly, as usual, just passing by. I think it is more for
you to tell me not only what you have been doing but
what you are going to do now. More about where you
are going. Who you are going to meet. Your friends,
what they are like."

"Of course I will tell you. 1 should enjoy telling you
because I have been wondering, thinking you know
about these friends I am going to. When you have not
seen a family for a long time, when you have not been
closely connected with them for many years, it is always
a nervous moment when you are going to resume
old friendships and old ties."

"You are so right," said Mr. Quin.

The Turkish coffee was brought in little cups of
oriental pattern. All placed them with a smile and departed.
Mr. Satterthwaite sipped approvingly.

"As sweet as love, as black as night and as hot as
hell. That is the old Arab phrase, isn't it?"

Harley smiled over his shoulder and nodded.
"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I must tell you where
I am going, though what I am doing hardly matters. I
am going to renew old friendships, to make acquaintance
with the younger generation. Torn Addison, as I
have said, is a very old friend of mine. We did many
things together in our young days. Then, as often happens,
life parted us. He was in the Diplomatic Service,
went abroad for several foreign posts in turn. Some

AGATHA CHRISTIE


times I went and stayed with him, sometimes I saw
him when he was home in England. One of his early
posts was in Spain. He married a Spanish girl, a very
beautiful, dark girl called Pilar. He loved her very
lnuch."


"They had children?"

"Two daughters. A fair-haired baby like her father,
called Lily, and a second daughter, Maria, who took af-ter
her Spanish mother. I was Lily's godfather. Natu-rally,
I did not see either of the children very often.
Tiro or three times a year I either gave a party for Lily
or went to see her at her school. She was a sweet and
lovely person. Very devoted to her father and he was
very devoted to her. But in between these meetings,
these revivals of friendship, we went through some
difficult times. You will know about it as well as I do. I
and my contemporaries had difficulties in meeting
through the war years. Lily married a pilot in the Air
Force. A fighter pilot. Until the other day I had even
forgotten his name. Simon Gilliatt. Squadron Leader
Gilliatt."


"He was killed in the war?"


"No, no. No. He came through safely. After the war
he resigned from the Air Force and he and Lily wen!
out to Kenya as so many did. They settled there and
they lived very happily. They had a son, a little boy
called Roland. Later when he was at school in England
I saw him once or twice. The last time, I think, was
when he was twelve years old. A nice boy. He had red



hair like his father. I've not S¢n him since so I am
looking forward to seeing him todttY' He is twenty-
three--twenty-four now. Time goes 0h so." "Is he married?"
"No. Well, not yet."
"Ah. Prospects of marriage?"
"Well, I wondered from sornethiPg Torn Addison
said in his letter. There is a girl cotSin. The younger
daughter, Maria, married the local doctor. I never knew
her very well. It was rather sad. She lied in childbirth.
Her little girl was called Inez, a family name chosen by
her Spanish grandmother. As it happens I have seen
Inez only once since she grew nD. A ddrk, Spanish type
very much like her grandmother. Got I am boring you
with all this."
"No. I want to hear it. It is Very ifteresting to me."
"I wonder why," said Mr. SattertDwaite'
He looked at Mr. Quin with that flight air of suspicion
which sometimes came to him.
"You want to know all about this family. Why?"
"So that I can picture it, perhaps, in my mind."
"Well, this house I am goihg.to, Doverton Kings-bourne
it is called. It is quite a beautiful old house. Not
so spectacular as to invite tourists or to be open to visitors
on special days. Just a quiet coOntry house to be
lived in by an Englishman who has ¢rved his country
and returns to enjoy a mellow life WDen the ae of retirement
comes. Torn was always food of country life.
enjoyed fishing. He was a good hot and we had



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

very happy diys together in his family home of his
boyhood. I spent many of my own holidays as a boy at
Doverton Kingsbourne. And all through my life I have
had that image in my mind. No place like Doverton
Kingsbourne. No other house to touch it. Every time I
drove near it I would make a detour and just pass to
see the view through a gap in the trees of the long lane
that runs in front of the house, glimpses of the river
where we used to fish, and of the house itself. And I
would remember all the things that Torn and I did together.
He has been a man of action. A man who has
done things. And I--I have just been an old bachelor."

"You have been more than that," said Mr. Quin.
"You have been a man who made friends, who had
many friends and who has served his friends well."

"Well, if I can think that. Perhaps you are being too
kind."

"Not at all. You are very good company besides.
The stories you can tell, the things you've seen, the
places you have visited. The curious things that have
happened in your life. You could write a whole book on
them," said Mr. Quin.
"I should make you the main character in it if I
did."
"No, you would not," said Mr. Quin. "I am the one
who passes by. That is all. But go on. Tell me more."

"Well, this is just a family chronicle that I'm telling
you. As I say, there were long periods, years of time



when I did not see any of them. But they have been
always my old friends. I saw Torn and Pilar until the
time when Pilar died--she died rather young, unfortunately-Lily,
my godchild; Inez, the quiet doctor's
daughter, who lives in the village with her father 	"

	"How
old is the daughter?"

"Inez is nineteen or twenty, I think. I shall be glad
to make friends with her."
	"So it is on the whole a happy chronicle?"

"Not entirely. Lily, my godchild--the one who went
to Kenya with her husband--was killed there in an automobile
accident. She was killed outright, leaving behind
her a baby of barely a year old, little Roland.
Simon, her husband, was quite broken-hearted. They
were an unusually happy couple. However, the best
thing happened to him that could happen, I suppose.
He married again, a young woman who was the widow
of a squadron leader, a friend of his and who also had
been left with a baby the same age. Little Timothy and
little Roland had only two or three months in age between
them. Simon's marriage, I believe, has been
quite happy enough though I've not seen them, of
course, because they continued to live in Kenya. The
boys were brought up like brothers. They went to the
same school in England and spent their holidays usually
in Kenya. I have not seen them, of course, for
many years. Well, you know what has happened in
Kenya. Some people have managed to stay on. Some



AGATHA

CHRISTIE



people, friends of mine, have gone to Western Australia
and have settled again happily there with their
families. Some have come home to this country.

"Simon Gilliatt and his wife and their two children
left Kenya. It was not the same to them and so they came
home and accepted the invitation that has always been
given them and renewed every year by old Torn Addison.
They have come, his son-in-law, his son-in-law's
second wife, and the two children, now grown-up boys,
or rather, young men. They have come to live as a family
there and they are happy. Tom's other grandchild,
Inez Horton, as I told you, lives in the village with her father,
the doctor, and she spends a good deal of her time,
I gather, at Doverton Kingsbourne with Torn Addison,
who is very devoted to his granddaughter. They sound
all very happy together there. He has urged me several
times to come there and see. Meet them all again. And
so I accepted the invitation. Just for a weekend. It will
be sad in some ways to see dear old Torn again, somewhat
crippled, with perhaps not a very long expectation
of life but still cheerful and gay, as far as I can make
out. And to see also the old house again. Doverton
Kingsbourne. Tied up with all my boyish memories.
When one has not lived a very eventful life, when nothing
has happened to one personally, and that is true of
me, the things that remain with you are the friends, the
houses, and the things you did as a child and a boy and
a young man. There is only one thing that worries me."



"You should not be worried. What is it that worries
yotl?"
"That I might be--disappointed. The house one remembers,
one has dreams of, when one might come to
see it again it would not be as you remembered it or
dreamed it. A new wing would have been added, the
garden would have been altered, all sorts of things can
have happened to it. It is a very long time, really, since
I have been there."
"I think your memories will go with you," said Mr.
Quin. "I am glad you are going there."
"[ have an idea," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Come
with me. Come with me on this visit. You need not fear
that you'll not be welcome. Dear Torn Addison is the
most hospitable fellow in the world. Any friend of mine
would immediately be a friend of his. Come with me.
You must. I insist."
Making an impulsive gesture, Mr. Satterthwaite
nearly knocked his coffee cup off the table. He caught
it just in time.
At that moment the shop door was pushed open,
ringing its old-fashioned bell as it did so. A middle-aged
woman came in. She was slightly out of breath
and looked somewhat hot. She was good-looking still,
with a head of auburn hair only just touched here and
there with grey. She had that clear ivory-colored skin
that so often goes with reddish hair and blue eyes, and
she had kept her figure well. The newcomer swept a



AGATHA CHRISTIE


quick glance round the cafe and turned immediately
into the china shop.


"Oh!" she exclaimed, "you've still got some of the
Harlequin cups."


"Yes, Mrs. Gilliatt, we had a new stock arrive in
yesterday."

"Oh, I'm so pleased. I really have been very wor-ried.
I rushed down here. I took one of the boys' mo-torbikes.
They'd gone off somewhere and I couldn't
find either of them. But I really had to do something.
There was an unfortunate accident this morning with
some of the cups and we've got people arriving for tea
and a party this afternoon. So if you can give me a blue
and a green and perhaps I'd Detter have another red
one as well in case. That's the worst of these different-colored
cups, isn't it?"


"Well, I know they do say as it's a disadvantage and
you can't always replace the particular color you
want."

Mr. Satterthwaite's head had gone over his shoul-der
now and he was looking with some interest at what
was going on. Mrs. Gilliatt, the shop woman had said.
But of course. He realized it now. This must be--he
rose from his seat, half hesitating, and then took a step
or two into the shop.


"Excuse me," he said, "but are you--are you Mrs.
Gilliatt from Doverton Kingsbourne?"
"Oh yes. I am Beryl Gilliatt. Do you--I mean... ?"



She looked at him, wrinkling her brows a little. An
attractive woman, Mr. Satterthwaite thought. Rather a
hard face, perhaps, but competent. So this was Simon
Gilliatt's second wife. She hadn't got the beauty of Lily,
but she seemed an attractive woman, pleasant and efficient.
Suddenly a smile came to Mrs. Gilliatt's face.

"I do believe.., yes, of course. My father-in-law, Torn , has got a photograph of you and you must be the
guest we are expecting this afternoon. You must be Mr.
Satterthwaite."
"Exactly," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "That is who I
am. But I shall have to apologize very much for being
so much later in arriving than I said. But unfortunately
my car has had a breakdown. It's in the garage now,
being attended to."
"Oh, how miserable for you. But what a shame. But
it's not tea time yet. Don't worry. We've put it off anyway.
As you probably heard, I ran down to replace a
few cups which unfortunately got swept off the table
this morning. Whenever one has anyone to lunch or
tea or dinner, something like that always happens."
"There you are, Mrs. Gilliatt," said the woman in
the shop. I'll wrap them up in here. Shall I put them in
a box for you?"

"No, if you'll just put some paper around them and
put them in this shopping bag of mine, they'll be quite
all right that way."

"If you are returning to Doverton Kingsbourne,"



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I could give you a lift in my
car. It will be arriving from the garage any moment
now."
"That's very kind of you. I wish really I could accept.
But I've simply got to take the motorbike back.
The boys will be miserable without it. They're going
somewhere this evening."

"Let me introduce you," said Mr. Satterthwaite. He
turned towards Mr. Quin, who had risen to his feet and
was now standing quite near. "This is an old friend of
mine, Mr. Harley Quin, whom I have just happened to
run across here. I've been trying to persuade him to
come along to Doverton Kingsbourne. Would it be possible,
do you think, for Torn to put up yet another guest
for tonight?"

"Oh, I'm sure it would be quite all right," said Beryl
Gilliatt. "I'm sure he'd be delighted to see another
friend of yours. Perhaps it's a friend of his as well."
"No," said Mr. Quin, "I've never met Mr. Addison,
though I've often heard my friend Mr. Satterthwaite
speak of him."

"Well then, do let Mr. Satterthwaite bring you. We
should be delighted."
"I am very sorry," said Mr. Quin. "Unfortunately, I
have another engagement. Indeed"--he looked at his
watch-- "I must start for it immediately. I am late already,
which is what comes of meeting old friends."

"Here you are, Mrs. Gilliatt," said the saleswoman.
"It'll be quite all right, I think, in your bag."



Beryl Gilliatt put the parcel carefully into the bag
she was carrying, then said to Mr. Satterthwaite:

"Well, see you presently. Tea isn't until quarter
past five, so don't worry. I'm so pleased to meet you at
last, having heard so much about you always, both
from Simon and from my father-in-law."

She said a hurried good-bye to Mr. Quin and went
out of the shop.

"Bit of a hurry she's in, isn't she?" said the shop
woman, "but she's always like that. Gets through a lot
in a day, I'd say."

The sound of the motor bicycle outside was heard
as it revved up.


"Quite a character, isn't she?" said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"It would seem so," said Mr. Quin.
"And I really can't persuade you?"
"I'm only passing by," said Mr. Quin.

"And when shall I see you again? I wonder now."

"Oh, it will not be very long," said Mr. Quin. "I
think you will recognize me when you do see me."


"Have you nothing more--nothing more to tell me?


Nothing more to explain?"

"To explain what?"

"To explain why I have met you here."

"You are a man of considerable knowledge," said
Mr. Quin. "One word might mean something to you. I

think it would and it might come in useful."

?What word?"

"Da|tonism," said Mr. Quin. He smiled.



AGATHA CHRISTIE

"I don't think--" Mr. Satterthwaite frowned for a
moment. "Yes. Yes, I do know, only just for the moment

I can't remember 	"

"Goodbye
for the present," said Mr. Quin. "Here is
your car."

At that moment the car was indeed pulling up by
the post office door. Mr. Satterthwaite went out to it. He
was anxious not to waste more time and keep his hosts
waiting longer than need be. But he was sad all the
same at saying good-bye to his friend.

"There is nothing I can do for you?" he said, and
his tone was almost wistful.
"Nothing you can do for me."

"For someone else?"

"I think so. Very likely."
"I hope I know what you mean."

"I have the utmost faith in you," said Mr. Quin.
"You always know things. You are very quick to observe
and to know the meaning of things. You have not
changed, I assure you."

His hand rested for a moment on Mr. Satterthwaite's
shoulder, then he walked out and proceeded
briskly down the village street in the opposite direction
to Doverton Kingsbourne. Mr. Satterthwaite got into
his car.

"I hope we shan't have any more trouble," he said.
His chauffeur reassured him.
"It's no distance from here, sir. Three or four miles
at most, and she's running beautifully now."



He ran the car a little way along the street and
turned where the road widened so as to return the way

he had just come. He said again,
"Only three or four miles."

Mr. Satterthwaite said again, "Daltonism." It still
didn't mean anything to him, but yet he felt it should. It
was a word he'd heard used before.
"Doverton Kingsbourne," said Mr. Satterthwaite to
himself. He said it very softly under his breath. The
two words still meant to him what they had always
meant. A place of joyous reunion, a place where he
couldn't get there too quickly. A place where he was
going to enjoy himself, even though so many of those
whom he had known would not be there any longer.
But Torn would be there. His old friend Torn, and he
thought again of the grass and the lake and the river
and the things they had done together as boys.

Tea was set out upon the lawn. Steps led out from
the French windows in the drawing room and down to
where a big copper beech at one side and a cedar of
Lebanon on the other made the setting for the afternoon
scene. There were two painted and carved white
tables and various garden chairs. Upright ones with
colored cushions, and lounging ones where you could
lean back and stretch your feet out and sleep, if you
wished to do so. Some of them had hoods over them to
guard you from the sun.

It was a beautiful early evening and the green of
the grass was a soft deep color. The golden light came



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

through the copper beech and the cedar showed the
lines of its beauty against a soft pinkish-golden sky.
Torn Addison was waiting for his guest in a long
basket chair, his feet up. Mr. Satterthwaite noted with
some amusement what he remembered from many
other occasions of meeting his host--he had comfortable
bedroom slippers suited to his slightly swollen
gouty feet, and the shoes were odd ones. One red and
one green. Good old Torn, thought Mr. Satterthwaite,
he hasn't changed. Just the same. And he thought,
"What an idiot I am. Of course I know what the word
meant. Why didn't I think of it at once?"

"Thought you were never going to turn up, you old
devil," said Torn Addison.
He was still a handsome old man, a broad face with
deepset twinkling grey eyes, shoulders that were still
square and gave him a look of power. Every line in his
face seemed a line of good humor and affectionate
welcome. "He never changes," thought Mr. Satterthwaite.

"Can't get up to greet you," said Torn Addison.
"Takes two strong men and a stick to get me on my
feet. Now, do you know our little crowd, or don't you?
You know Simon, of course."
"Of course I do. It's a good few years since I've seen
you, but you hayen't changed much."

Squadron Leader Simon Gilliatt was a lean, handsome
man with a mop of red hair.
"Sorry you never came to see us when we were in



Kenya," he said. "You'd have enjoyed yourself. Lots of
things we could have shown you. Ah well, one can't
see what the future may bring. I thought I'd lay my
bones in that country."
"We've got a very nice churchyard here," said Torn
Addison. "Nobody's ruined our church yet by restoring
it and we haven't very much new building round about
so there's plenty of room in the churchyard still. We
haven't had one of these terrible additions of a new intake
of graves."
"What a gloomy conversation you're having," said
Beryl Gilliatt, smiling. "These are our boys," she said,
"but you know them already, don't you, Mr. Satterthwaite?"
"I don't think I'd have known them now," said Mr.
Satterthwaite.

Indeed, the last time he had seen the two boys was
on a day when he had taken them out from their prep
school. Although there was no relationship between
them--they had different fathers and mothers--the
boys could have been, and often were, taken for brothers.
They were about the same height and they both
had red hair. Roland, presumably, having inherited it
from his father and Timothy from his auburn-haired
mother. There seemed also to be a kind of comradeship
between them. Yet really, Mr. Satterthwaite thought,
they were very different. The difference was clearer
now when they were, he supposed, between twenty-two
and twenty-five years old. He could see no resem-



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

blance in Roland to his grandfather. Nor apart from his
red hair did he look like his father.
Mr. Satterthwaite had wondered sometimes
whether the boy would look like Lily, his dead mother.
But there again he could see little resemblance. If anything,
Timothy looked more as a son of Lily's might
have looked. The fair skin and the high forehead and a
delicacy of bone structure. At his elbow, a soft deep
voice said,
"I'm Inez. I don't expect you remember me. It was
quite a long time ago when I saw you."

A beautiful girl, Mr. Satterthwaite thought at once.
A dark type. He cast his mind back a long way to the
days when he had come to be best man at Torn Addison's
wedding to Pilar. She showed her Spanish blood,
he thought, the carriage of her head and the dark aristocratic
beauty. Her father, Dr. Hort0n, was standing
just behind her. He looked much older than when Mr.
Satterthwaite had seen him last. A nice man and
kindly. A good general practitioner, unambitious but
reliable and devoted, Mr. Satterthwaite thought, to his
daughter. He was obviously immensely proud of her.
Mr. Satterthwaite felt an enormous happiness
creeping over him. All these people, he thought, although
some of them strange to him, seemed like
friends he had already known. The dark beautiful girl,
the two red-haired boys, Beryl Gilliatt, fussing over the
tea tray, arranging cups and saucers, beckoning to a
maid from the house to bring out cakes and plates of



sandwiches. A splendid tea. There were chairs that
pulled up to the tables so that you could sit comfortably
eating all you wanted to eat. The boys settled themselves,
inviting Mr. Satterthwaite to sit between them.
He was pleased at that. He had already planned in
his own mind that it was the boys he wanted to talk to
first, to see how much they recalled to him Torn Addison
in the old days, and he thought, "Lily. How I wish
Lily could be here now." Here he was, thought Mr. Sat-terthwaite,
here he was back in his boyhood. Here
where he had come and been welcomed by Tom's father
and mother, an aunt or so, too, there had been,
and a great-uncle and cousins. And now, well, there
were not so many in this family, but it was a family. Torn in his bedroom slippers, one red, one green, old
but still merry and happy. Happy in those who were
spread round him. And here was Doverton just, or almost
just, as it had been. Not quite so well kept up, perhaps,
but the lawn was in good condition. And down
there he could see the gleam of the river through the
trees and the trees, too. More trees than there had
been. And the house needing, perhaps, another coat of
paint but not too badly. After all, Torn Addison was a
rich man. Well provided for, owning a large quantity of
land. A man with simple tastes who spent enough to
keep his place up but was not a spendthrift in other
ways. He seldom traveled or went abroad nowadays,
but he entertained. Not big parties, just friends.
Friends who came to stay, friends who usually had



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE


some connections going back into the past. A friendly
house.

He turned a little in his chair, drawing it away from
the table and turning it sideways so that he could see
better the view down to the river. Down there was the
mill, of course, and beyond the other side there were
fields. And in one of the fields, it amused him to see a
kind of scarecrow, a dark figure on which birds were
settling on the straw. Just for a moment he thought it
looked like Mr. Harley Quin. Perhaps, thought Mr. Sat-terthwaite,
it is my friend Mr. Quin. It was an absurd
idea, and yet if someone had piled up the scarecrow
and tried to make it look like Mr. Quin, it could have
had the sort of slender elegance that was foreign to
most scarecrows one saw.


"Are you looking at our scarecrow?" said Timothy.
"We've got a name for him, you know. We call him Mis-ter
Harley Barley."

"Do you indeed," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Dear me,
I find that very interesting."

"Why do you find it interesting?" said Roly, with
some curiosity.


"Well, because it rather resembles someone that I
know, whose name happens to be Harley. His first
name, that is."

The boys began singing, "Harley Barley, stands on
guard, Harley Barley takes things hard. Guards the
ricks and guards the hay, Keeps the trespassers away.'



"Cucumber sandwich, Mr. Satterthwaite?" said
Beryl Gilliatt, "or do you prefer a home-made pt6 one?"

Mr. Satterthwaite accepted the home-made pt6.
She deposited by his side a puce cup, the same color as
he had admired in the shop. How gay it looked, all that
tea set on the table. Yellow, red, blue, green, and all the
rest of it. He wondered if each one had his favorite
color. Timothy, he noticed, had a red cup, Roland had a
yellow one. Beside Timothy's cup was an object Mr.
Satterthwaite could not at first identify. Then he saw it
was a meerschaum pipe. It was years since Mr. Sat-terthwaite
had thought of or seen a meerschaum pipe.
Roland, noticing what he was looking at, said, "Tim
brought that back from Germany when he went. He's
killing himself with cancer smoking his pipe all the
time."

"Don't you smoke, Roland?"


"No. I'm not one for smoking. I don't smoke ciga-rettes
and I don't smoke pot either."


Inez came to the table and sat down on the other
side of him. Both the young men pressed food upon
her. They started a laughing conversation together.


Mr. Satterthwaite felt very happy among these
young people. Not that they took very much notice of
him apart from their natural politeness. But he liked
hearing them. He liked, too, making up his judgement
about them. He thought, he was almost sure, that both
the young men were in love with Inez. Well, it was not



AGATHA CHRISTIE

surprising. Propinquity brings these things about.
They had come to live here with their grandfather. A
beautiful girl, Roland's first cousin, was living almost
next door. Mr. Satterthwaite turned his head. He could
just see the house through the trees where it poked up
from the road just beyond the front gate. That was the
same house that Dr. Horton had lived in last time he
came here, seven or eight years ago.

He looked at Inez. He wondered which of the two
young men she preferred or whether her affections
were already engaged elsewhere. There was no reason
why she should not fall in love with one of these
two attractive young specimens of the male race.

Having eaten as much as he wanted--it was not
very much--Mr. Satterthwaite drew his chair back, altering
its angle a little so that he could look all round
him.
Mrs. Gilliatt was still busy. Very much the housewife,
he thought, making perhaps rather more of a fuss
than she need of domesticity. Continually offering people
cakes, taking their cups away and replenishing
them, handing things round. Somehow, he thought, it
would be more pleasant and more informal if she let
people help themselves. He wished she was not so
busy a hostess.

He looked up to the place where Torn Addison lay
stretched out in his chair. Torn Addison was also
watching Beryl Gilliatt. Mr. Satterthwaite thought to
himself: "He doesn't like her. No. Torn doesn't like her.



Well, perhaps that's to be expected." After all, Beryl
had taken the place of his own daughter, of Simon
Gilliatt's first wife, Lily. "My beautiful Lily," thought
Mr. Satterthwaite again, and wondered why for some
reason he felt that although he could not see anyone
like her, Lily in some strange way was here. She was
here at this tea party.
"I suppose one begins to imagine these things as
one gets old," said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself. "After
all, why shouldn't Lily be here to see her son."
He looked affectionately at Timothy and then suddenly
realized that he was not looking at Lily's son.
Roland was Lily's son. Timothy was Beryl's son.
"I believe Lily knows I'm here. I believe she'd like
to speak to me," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Oh dear, oh
dear, I mustn't start imagining foolish things."
For some reason he looked again at the scarecrow.
It didn't look like a scarecrow now. It looked like Mr.
Harley Quin. Some tricks of the light, of the sunset,
were providing it with color, and there was a black dog
like Hermes chasing the birds.

"Color," said Mr. Satterthwaite, and looked again
at the table and the tea set and the people having tea.
"Why am I here?" said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Why am I
here and what ought I to be doing? There's a rea	son
	"

Now
he knew, he felt, there was something, some
crisis, something
affecting--affecting all these people or
only some of them? Beryl Gilliatt, Mrs. Gilliatt. She



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

was nervous about something. On edge. Torn? Nothing
wrong with Torn. He wasn't affected. A lucky man to
own this beauty, to own Doverton and to have a grandson
so that when he died all this would come to Roland.
All this would be Roland's. Was Torn hoping that Roland
would marry Inez? Or would he have a fear of first
cousins marrying? Though throughout history, Mr.
Satterthwaite thought, brothers had married sisters
with no ill result. "Nothing must happen," said Mr. Sat-terthwaite,
"nothing must happen. I must prevent it."

Really, his thoughts were the thoughts of a madman.
A peaceful scene. A tea set. The varying colors of
the Harlequin cups. He looked at the white meerschaum
pipe lying against the red of the cup. Beryl
Gilliatt said something to Timothy. Timothy nodded,
got up and went off towards the house. Beryl removed
some empty plates from the table, adjusted a chair or
two, murmured something to Roland, who went across
and offered a frosted cake to Dr. Horton.

Mr. Satterthwaite watched her. He had to watch
her. The sweep of her sleeve as she passed the table.
He saw a red cup get pushed off the table. It broke on
the iron feet of a chair. He heard her little exclamation
as she picked up the bits. She went to the tea tray,
came back and placed on the table a pale blue cup and
saucer. She replaced the meerschaum pipe, putting it
close against it. She brought the teapot and poured tea,
then she moved away.



The table was untenanted now. Inez also had got
up and left it. Gone to speak to her grandfather. "I don't
understand," said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself. "Some-thing's
going to happen. What's going to happen?"

A table with different-colored cups round, and--yes,
Timothy, his red hair glowing in the sun. Red
hair glowing with that same tint, that attractive side-ways
wave that Simon Gilliatt's hair had always had.
Timothy, coming back, standing a moment, looking at
the table with a slightly puzzled eye, then going to
where the meerschaum pipe rested against the pale
blue cup.


Inez came back then. She laughed suddenly and
she said, "Timothy, you're drinking your tea out of the
wrong cup. The blue cup's mine. Yours is the red one."


And Timothy said, "Don't be silly, Inez, I know my
own cup. It's got sugar in it and you won't like it. Non-sense.
This is my cup. The meerschaum's up against
it."

It came to Mr. Satterthwaite then. A shock. Was he
mad? Was he imagining things? Was any of this real?


He got up. He walked quickly towards the table,
and as Timothy raised the blue cup to his lips, he
shouted.

"Don't drink that!" he called. "Don't drink it, I say."
Timothy turned a surprised face. Mr. Satterthwaite
turned his head. Dr. Horton, rather startled, got up
from his seat and was coming near.



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

"What's the matter, Satterthwaite?"
"That cup. There's something wrong about it," said
Mr.
	Satterthwaite. "Don't let the boy drink from it."
Horton stared at it. "My dear fellow--"
"I know what I'm saying. The red cup was his,"
said Mr. Satterthwaite, "and the red cup's broken. It's
been replaced with a blue one. He doesn't know the
red from blue, does he?"
Dr. Horton looked puzzled. "D'you mean--d'you
mean like Torn?"
"Torn Addison. He's color-blind. You know that,
don't you?"

"Oh yes, of course. We all know that. That's why
he'd got odd shoes on today. He never knew red from
green."

"This boy is the same."

"But--but surely not. Anyway, there's never been
any sign of it in--in Roland."

"There might be, though, mightn't there?" said Mr.
Satterthwaite. "I'm right in thinking--Daltonism.
That's what they call it, don't they?"

"It was a name they used to call it by, yes."
"It's not inherited by a female, but it passes
through the female. Lily wasn't color-blind, but Lily's
son might easily be colorblind."

"But my dear Satterthwaite, Timothy isn't Lily's
son. Roly is Lily's son. I know they're rather alike.
Same age, same-colored hair and things, but--well,
perhaps you don't remember."



"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I shouldn't have remembered.
But I know now. I can see the resemblance
too. Roland's Beryl's son. They were both babies,
weren't they, when Simon remarried. It is very easy for
a woman looking after two babies, especially if both of
them were going to have red hair. Timothy's Lily's son
and Roland is Beryl's son. Beryl's and Christopher
Eden's. There is no reason why he should be colorblind.
I know it, I tell you. I know it!"

He saw Dr. Horton's eyes go from one to the other.
Timothy, not catching what they said but standing
holding the blue cup and looking puzzled.
"I saw her buy it," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Listen to
me, man. You must listen to me. You've known me for
some years. You know that I don't make mistakes if I
say a thing positively."

"Quite true. I've never known you to make a mistake."

"Take that cup away from him," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Take it back to your surgery or take it to an
analytic chemist and find out what's in it. I saw that
woman buy that cup. She bought it in the village shop.
She knew then that she was going to break a red cup,
replace it by a blue and that Timothy would never
know that the colors were different."

"I think you're mad, Satterthwaite. But all the same
I'm going to do what you say."

He advanced on the table, stretched out a hand to
the blue cup.

275



I
	AGATHA CHRISTIE

"Do you mind letting me have a look at that?" said
Dr. Horton.
"Of course," said Timothy. He looked slightly sur~
prised.

"I think there's a flaw in the china, here, you know.
Rather interesting."

Beryl came across the lawn. She came quickly and
sharply.
"What are you doing? What's the matter? What is
happening?"
"Nothing's the matter," said Dr. Horton, cheerfully.
"I just want to show the boys a little experiment I'm go-lng
to make with a cup of tea."

He was looking at her very closely and he saw the
expression of fear, of terror. Mr. Satterthwaite saw the
entire change of countenance.
"Would you like to come with me, Satterthwaite?
Just a little experiment, you know. A matter of testing
porcelain and different qualities in it nowadays. A very
interesting discovery was made lately."

Chatting, he walked along the grass. Mr. Satterthwaite
followed him and the two young men, chatting
to each other, followed him.
"What's the Doc up to now, Roly?" said Timothy.

"I don't know," said Roland. "He seems to have got
some very extraordinary ideas. Oh well, we shall hear
about it later, I expect. Let's go and get our bikes."
Beryl Gilliatt turned abruptly. She retraced her

276



steps rapidly up the lawn towards the house. Torn Addison
called to her:
"Anything the matter, Beryl?"
"Something I'd forgotten," said Beryl Gilliatt.
"That's all."
Torn Addison looked inquiringly towards Simon
Gilliatt.
"Anything wrong with your wife?" he said.
"Beryl? Oh no, not that I know of. I expect it's some
little thing or other that she's forgotten. Nothing I can
do for you, Beryl?" he called.
"No. No, I'll be back later." She turned her head
half sideways, looking at the old man lying back in the
chair. She spoke suddenly and vehemently. "You silly
old fool. You've got the wrong shoes on again today.
They don't match. Do you know you've got one shoe
that's red and one shoe that's green?"

"Ah, done it again, have I?" said Torn Addison.
"They look exactly the same color to me, you know. It's
odd, isn't it, but there it is."
She went past him, her steps quickening.
Presently Mr. Satterthwaite and Dr. Horton reached
the gate that led out into the roadway. They heard a
motor bicycle speeding along.

"She's gone," said Dr. Horton. "She's run for it. We
ought to have stopped her, I suppose. Do you think
she'll come back?"

"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I don't think she'll



	AGATHA
	CHRISTIE

come back. Perhaps," he said thoughtfully, "it's best
left that way."

"You mean?"

"It's an old house," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "And an
old family. A good family. A lot of good people in it. One
doesn't want trouble, scandal, everything brought
upon it. Best to let her go, I think."

"Torn Addison never liked her," said Dr. Horton- "Never.
He was always polite and kind but he didn't
like her."
"And there's the boy to think of," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"The boy. You mean?"

"The other boy. Roland. This way he needn't know
about what his mother was trying to do."

"Why did she do it? Why on earth did she do it?"

"You've no doubt now that she did," said Mr. Sat-terthwaite.

"No. I've no doubt now. I saw her face, Satterthwaite,
when she looked at me. I knew then that what
you'd said was truth. But why?"

"Greed, I suppose,"
hadn't any money of her
Christopher Eden, was a
he hadn't anything in the
said Mr. Satterthwaite. "She
own, I believe. Her husband,
nice chap by all accounts but
way of means. But Torn Addi-

son's grandchild has got big money coming to him. A
lot of money. Property all around here has appreciated
enormously. I've no doubt that Torn Addison will leave
the bulk of what he has to his grandson. She wanted it



for her own son and through her own son, of course,
for herself. She is a greedy woman."
Mr. Satterthwaite turned his head back suddenly.
"Something's on fire over there," he said.

"Good lord, so it is. Oh, it's the scarecrow down in
the field. Some young chap or other's set fire to it, I
suppose. But there's nothing to worry about. There are
no ricks or anything anywhere near. It'll just burn itself
out."
"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Well, you go on,
Doctor. You don't need me to help you in your tests."

"I've no doubt of what I shall find. I don't mean the
exact substance, but I have come to your belief that
this blue cup holds death."

Mr. Satterthwaite had turned back through the gate.
He was going now down in the direction where the
scarecrow was burning. Behind it was the sunset. A remarkable
sunset that evening. Its colors illuminated
the air round it, illuminated the burning scarecrow.

"So that's the way you've chosen to go," said Mr.
Satterthwaite.
He looked slightly startled then, for in the neighborhood
of the flames he saw the tall, slight figure of a
woman. A woman dressed in some pale mother-of-pearl
coloring. She was walking in the direction of Mr.
Satterthwaite. He stopped dead, watching.
"Lily," he said. "Lily."
He saw her quite plainly now. It was Lily walking
towards him. Too far away for him to see her face but



AGATHA CHRISTIE

he knew very well who it was. Just for a moment or
two he wondered whether anyone else would see her
or whether the sight was only for him. He said, not
very loud, only in a whisper,

"It's all right, Lily, your son is safe."

She stopped then. She raised one hand to her lips.
He didn't see her smile, but he knew she was smiling.
She kissed her hand and waved it to him and then she
turned. She walked back towards where the scarecrow
was disintegrating into a mass of ashes.

"She's going away again," said Mr. Satterthwaite to
himself. "She's going away with him. They're walking
away together. They belong to the same world, of
course. They only come--those sort of people--they
only come when it's a case of love or death or both."

He wouldn't see Lily again, he supposed, but he
wondered how soon he would meet Mr. Quin again.
He turned then and went back across the lawn towards
the tea table and the Harlequin tea set, and beyond
that, to his old friend Torn Addison. Beryl wouldn't
come back. He was sure of it. Doverton Kingsbourne
was safe again.

Across the lawn came the small black dog in flying
leaps. It came to Mr. Satterthwaite, panting a little and
wagging its tail. Through its collar was twisted a scrap
of paper. Mr. Satterthwaite stooped and detached it--smoothing
it out--on it in colored letters was written a
message:



Congratulations. To Our Next Meeting


"Thank you, Hermes," said Mr. Satterthwaite, and
watched the black dog flying across the meadowt0 re-join
the two figures that he himself knew were here
but could no longer see.