The Golden Ball and Other Stories

by Agatha Christie

"What is the meaning of Sea?"

  "That I confess I cannot explain. I introduced the word later and got the ordinary answer of Boat. To Seventh Sign

  I got first Life, the second time Love. To Eighth Sign, I got

  the answer None. I take it therefore that Seven was the sum

  and number of the signs."

  "But the Seventh was not achieved," I said on a sudden inspiration. "Since through the Sixth came Destruction.t"

  "Ah! You think so? But we are taking these--mad ramblings very seriously. They are really only interesting from

  a medical point of view."

  "Surely they will attract the attention of psychic investigators.''

  The doctor's eyes narrowed. "My dear sir, I have no intention of making them public."

  'q'ben your interest9.''

  THE HOUND OF DEATH

  141

  "Is purely personal. I shall make notes on the case, of course."

  "I see." But for the f'u-st time I felt, like the blind man, that I didn't see at all. I rose to my feet.

  "Well, I'll wish you good night, doctor. I'm off to town again tomorrow."

  "Ah!" I fancied there was satisfaction, relief perhaps, behind the exclamation.

  "I wish you good luck with your investigations," I continued lightly. "Don't loose the Hound of Death on me next

  time we meet!"

  His hand was in mine as I spoke, and I felt the start it gave. He recovered himself quickly. His lips drew back

  from his long pointed teeth in a smile.

  "For a man who loved power, what a power that would be!" he said. "To hold every human being's life in the hollow

  of your hand!"

  And his smile broadened.

  V

  That was the end of my direct connection with the affair. Later, the doctor's notebook and diary came into my

  hands. I will reproduce the few scanty entries in it here,

  though you will understand that it did not really come into

  my possession until sometime afterwards.

  Aug. 5th. Have discovered that by "the Chosen," Sister M.A. means those who reproduced the race. Apparently

  they were held in the highest honour, and exalted above the

  Priesthood. Contrast this with early Christians.

  Aug. 7th. Persuaded Sister M.A. to let me hypnotize her. Succeeded in inducing hypnotic sleep and trance, but

  no rapport established.

  Aug. 9th. Have there been civilizations in the past to which ours is as nothing? Strange if it should be so, and I

  the only man with the clue to it ....

  Aug. 12th. Sister M.A. not at all amenable to suggestion when hypnotized. Yet state of trance easily induced. Cannot

  understand it.

  142 Agatha Christie

  Aug. 13th. Sister M.A. mentioned today that in "state of grace" the "gate must be closed, lest another should

  command the body." Interesting--but baffling.

  Aug. 18th. So the First Sign is none other than... (words erased here).., then how many centuries will it take to

  reach the Sixth? But if there should be a short-cut to Power...

  Aug. 20th. Have arranged for M.A. to come here with Nurse. Have told her it is necessary to keep patient under

  morphia. Am I mad? Or shall I be the Superman, with the

  Power of Death in my hands?

  (Here the entries cease.)

  VI

  It was, I think, on August 29 that I received the letter. It was directed to me, care of my sister-in-law, in a sloping

  foreign handwriting. I opened it with some curiosity. It ran

  as follows:

  Cher Monsieur,--I have seen you but twice, but I

  have felt that I could trust you. Whether my dreams

  are real or not, they have grown clearer of late And,

  monsieur, one thing at all events, the Hound of Death is

  no dream .... In the days I told you of (whether they

  are real or not, I do not know) He Who was Guardian

  of the Crystal revealed the Sixth Sign to the People

  too soon .... Evil entered into their hearts. They

  had the power to slay at will--and they slew without

  justice--in anger. They were drunk with the lust

  of Power. When we saw this, we who were yet pure,

  we knew that once again we should not complete the

  Circle and come to the Sign of Everlasting Life. He

  who would have been the next Guardian of the Crystal

  was bidden to act. That the old might die, and the

  new, after endless ages, might come again, he loosed

  the Hound of Death upon the sea (being careful not

  to close the Circle), and the sea rose up in the shape

  of a Hound and swallowed the land utterly ....

  Once

  before I remembered this--on the altar steps in

  Belgium ....

  THE HOUND OF DEATH

  143

  The Dr. Rose, he is of the Brotherhood. He knows

  the First Sign, and the form of the Second, though its

  meaning is hidden to all save a chosen few. He would

  learn of me the Sixth. I have withstood him so far--but

  I grow weak. Monsieur, it is not well that a man

  should come to power before his time. Many centuries

  must go by ere the world is ready to have the power

  of death delivered into its hand .... I beseech of you,

  monsieur, you who love goodness and truth, to help

  me... before it is too late.

  Your sister in Christ,

  Marie Angelique.

  I let the paper fall. The solid earth beneath me seemed

  a little less solid than usual. Then I began to rally. The poor

  woman's belief, genuine enough, had almost affected me!

  One thing was clear. Dr. Rose, in his zeal for a case, was

  grossly abusing his professional standing. I would run down

  and--

  Suddenly I noticed a letter from Kitty among my other

  correspondence. I tore it open. I read:

  Such an awful thing has happened. You remember

  Dr. Rose's little cottage on the cliff? It was swept

  away by a landslide last night, and the doctor and that

  poor nun, Sister Marie Angelique, were killed. The

  debris on the beach is too awful--all piled up in a

  fantastic mass--fron a distance it looks like a great hound ....

  The letter dropped from my hand.

  The other facts may be coincidence. A Mr. Rose, whom

  I discovered to be a wealthy relative of the doctor's, died

  suddenly that same night--it was said struck by lightning.

  As far as was known, no thunderstorm had occurred in the

  neighbourhood, but one or two people declared they had

  heard one peal of thunder. He had an electric bum on him

  "of a curious shape." His will left everything to his nephew,

  Dr. Rose.

  Now, supposing that Dr. Rose succeeded in obtaining

  the secret of the Sixth Sign from Sister Marie Angelique.

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  Agatha Christie

  I had always felt him to be an unscrupulous man--he would

  not shrink at taking his uncle's life if he were sure it could

  not be brought home to him. But one sentence of Sister

  Marie Angclique's letter rings in my brain: "... being careful

  not to close the Circle .... ' Dr. Rose did not exercise

  that care--was perhaps unaware of the steps to take, or

  even of the need for them. So the Force he employed returned,

  completing its circuit ....

  But of course it is all nonsense! Everything can be accounted

  for quite naturally. That the doctor believed in Sister


  Marie Angelique's hallucinations merely proves that his mind, too, was slightly unbalanced.

  Yet sometimes I dream of a continent under the seas

  where men once lived and attained to a degree of civilization

  far ahead of ours ....

  Or did Sister Marie Angelique remember backwards-- as some say is possible--and is this City of the Circles in the future and not the past?

  Nonsense--of course the whole thing was mere hallucination!

  The Gipsy

  Macfarlane had often noticed that his friend, Dickie Carpenter, had a strange aversion to gipsies. He had never

  known the reason for it. But when Dickie's engagement to

  Esther Lawes was broken off, there was a momentary tearing

  down of reserves between the two men.

  Macfarlane had been engaged to the younger sister, Rachel, for about a year. He had known both the Lawes

  girls since they were children. Slow and cautious in all

  things, he had been unwilling to admit to himself the growing

  attraction that Rachel's childlike face and honest brown

  eyes had for him. Not a beauty like Esther, no! But unutterably

  truer and sweeter. With Dickie's engagement to the

  elder sister, the bond between the two men seemed to be

  drawn closer.

  And now, after a few brief weeks, the engagement was off again, and Dickie, simple Dickie, hard-hit. So far in his

  young life all had gone so smoothly. His career in the navy

  had been well chosen. His craving for the sea was inborn.

  There was something of the Viking about him, primitive

  and direct, a nature on which subtleties of thought were

  wasted. He belonged to that inarticulate order of young

  Englishmen who dislike any form of emotion, and who find

  it peculiarly hard to explain their mental processes in

  words ....

  Macfarlane, that dour Scot, with a Celtic imagination hidden away somewhere, listened and smoked while his

  friend floundered along in a sea of words. He had known

  an unburdening was coming. But he had expected the subject

  matter to be different. To begin with, anyway, there was

  no mention of Esther Lawes. Only, it seemed, the story of

  a childish terror.

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  146 Agatha Christie

  "It all started with a dream I had when I was a kid. Not

  a nightmare exactly. She--the gipsy, you know--would

  just come into any old dream--even a good dream (or a

  kid's idea of what's good--a party and crackers and things).

  I'd be enjoying myself no end, and then I'd feel, I'd know, that if I looked up, she'd be there, standing as she always

  stood, watching me .... With sad eyes, you know, as though

  she understood something that I didn't .... Can't explain

  why it rattled me so--but it did! Every time! I use( to wake

  up howling with terror, and my old nurse used to say:

  'There! Master Dickie's had one of kis gipsy dreams again!'"

  "Ever been frightened by real gipsies?"

  "Never saw one till later. That was queer, too. I was

  chasing a pup of mine. He'd run away, I got out through

  the garden door, and along one of the forest paths. We lived

  in the New Forest then, you know. I came to a sort of

  clearing at the end, with a wooden bridge over a stream.

  And just beside it a gipsy was standingmwith a red hand

  kerchief over her head--just the same as in my dream. And

  at once I was frightened! She looked at me, you know Just

  the

  same look--as though she knew something I didn't, and

  was sorry about it .... And then she said quite quietly, nodding

  her head at me: "I shouMn' t go that way, ill were you.' I can't tell you why, but it frightened me to death. I dashed

  past her onto the bridge. I suppose it was rotten. Anyway,

  it gave way, and I was chucked into the stream. It

  was running pretty fast, and I was nearly drowned. Beastly to

  be nearly drowned. I've never forgotten it. And I felt it had

  all to do with the gipsy .... "

  "Actually,

  though, she warned you against it?"

  "I suppose you could put it like that." Dickie paused, then went on: "I've told you about this dream of mine, not

  because it has anything to do with what happened after (at

  least, I suppose it hasn't), but because it's the jumping-off

  point, as it were. You'll understand now what I mean by

  the 'gipsy feeling.' So I'll go on to that first night at the

  Lawes'. I'd just come back from the west coast then. It was

  awfully rum to be in England again. The Lawes were old

  friends of my people's. I hadn't seen the girls since I was

  about seven, but young Arthur was a great pal of mine, and

  after he died, Esther used to write to me, and send me out

  THE GPSY

  147

  papers. Awfully jolly letters, she wrote! Cheered me up no-end.

  I always wished I was a better hand at writing back.

  I was awfully keen to see her. It seemed odd to know a girl

  quite well from her letters, and not otherwise. Well, I went

  down to the Lawes' place first thing. Esther was away when

  I arrived, but was expected back that evening. I sat next to

  Rachel at dinner, and as I looked up and down the long

  table, a queer feeling came over me. I felt someone was

  watching me, and it made me uncomfortable. Then I saw

  her--"

  "Saw who?"

  "Mrs. HawoCah--what I'm telling you about."

  It was on the tip of Macfarlane's tongue to say: "I thought

  you were telling me about Esther Lawes." But he remained

  silent, and Dickie went on.

  "There was something about her quite different from all

  the rest. She was sitting next to old Lawes--listening to

  him very gravely with her head bent down. She had some

  of that red tulle stuff round her neck. It had got torn, I

  think; anyway, it stood up behind her head like little tongues of flame .... I said to Rachel: 'Who's that woman over

  there? Dark--with a red scad!'"

  "Do you Alistair Haworth? She's got a red scad.

  But she's fair. Very fair."

  "So she was, you know. Her hair was a lovely pale

  shining yellow. Yet I could have sworn positively she was

  dark. Queer what tricks one's eyes play on one .... After

  dinner, Rachel introduced us, and we walked up and down

  in the garden. We talked about reincarnation "

  "Rather

  out of your line, Dickie!"

  "I suppose it is. I remember saying that it seemed to be

  a jolly sensible way of accounting for how one seems to

  know some people right off--as if you'd met them before.

  She said: 'You mean lovers...' There was something queer

  about the way she said it--something soft and eager. It

  reminded me of something--but I couldn't remember what.

  We went on jawing a bit, and then old Lawes called us from

  the terrace--said Esther had come and wanted to see me.

  Mrs. Haworth put her hand on my arm and said: 'You're

  going in?' 'Yes,' I said. 'l suppose we'd better,' and then--then---"

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  Agatha Christie

  "Well.*"

  "It sounds such rot. Mrs. Haworth said: 'I shouldn't go

  in if I were you .... '" He paused. "It frightened me, you

  know. It frighten
ed me badly. That's why I told you about

  the dream .... Because, you sec, she said it just the same

  way--quietly, as though she knew something I didn't. It

  wasn't just a pretty woman who wanted to keep me out in

  the garden with her. Her voice was just kind--and very

  sorry. Almost as though she knew what was to come .... I

  suppose it was rude, but I turned and left her--almost ran

  to the house. It seemed like safety. I knew then that I'd

  been afraid of her from the first. It was a relief to see old

  Lawes. Esther was there beside him .... "He hesitated a minute, and then muttered rather obscurely: "There was no

  question--the moment I saw her, I knew I'd got it in the

  Macfarlane's mind flew swiftly to Esther Lawes. He had

  once heard her summed up as "Six foot one of Jewish

  perfection." A shrewd portrait, he thought, as he remembered

  her unusual height and the long slenderness of her,

  the marble whiteness of her face with its delicate down-drooping

  nose, and the black splendour of hair and eyes.

  Yes, he did not wonder that the boyish simplicity of Dickie

  had capitulated. Esther could never have made his own

  pulses beat one jot faster, but he admitted her magnificence.

  "And then," continued Dickie, "we got engaged."

  "At once?"

  "Well, after about a week. It took her about a fortnight

  after that to find out that she didn't care after all "

  gave

  a short bitter laugh.

  "It

  was the last evening before I went back to the o

  ship.

  I was coming back from the village through the

  woods--and

  then I saw her--Mrs. Haworth, I mean. She

  had

  on a red tam-o'-shanter, and--just for a minute, you

  know--it

  made me jump! I've told you about my dream,

  so

  you'll understand .... Then we walked along a bit. Not that there