Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  "How do you know?" he shot at her.

  The old woman flushed. "I know her step," she muttered.

  Sir Edward left the kitchen rapidly. Martha had been right.

  Magdalen had just reached the bottom stair. She looked at him hopefully.

  "Not very far on as yet," said Sir Edward, answering her look, and added, "You don't happen to know what letters your aunt received on the day of her death?"

  "They are all together. The police have been through them, of course."

  She led the way to the big double drawing-room and, unlocking a drawer, took out a large black velvet bag with an old-fashioned silver clasp.

  "This is Aunt's bag. Everything is in here just as it was on the day of her death. I've kept it like that."

  Sir Edward thanked her and proceeded to turn out the contents of the bag on the table. It was, he fancied, a fair specimen of an eccentric elderly lady's handbag.

  There were some odd silver change, two ginger nuts, three newspaper cuttings about Joanna Southcott's box, a trashy, printed poem about the unemployed, an Old Moore's Almanack, a large piece of camphor, some spectacles, and three letters. A spidery one from someone called "Cousin Lucy," a bill for mending a watch, and an appeal from a charitable institution.

  Sir Edward went through everything very carefully, then repacked the bag and handed it to Magdalen with a sigh.

  "Thank you, Miss Magdalen. I'm afraid there isn't much there."

  He rose, observed that the window commanded a good view of the front door steps, then took Magdalen's hand in his.

  "You are going?"

  "Yes."

  "But it's - it's going to be all right?"

  "Nobody connected with the law ever commits himself to a rash statement like that," said Sir Edward solemnly, and made his escape.

  He walked along the street, lost in thought. The puzzle was there under his hand - and he had not solved it. It needed something some little thing. Just to point the way.

  A hand fell on his shoulder and he started. It was Matthew Vaughan, somewhat out of breath.

  "I've been chasing you, Sir Edward. I want to apologize. For my rotten manners half an hour ago. But I've not got the best temper in the world, I'm afraid. It's awfully good of you to bother about this business. Please ask me whatever you like. If there's anything I can do to help -"

  Suddenly Sir Edward stiffened. His glance was fixed - not on Matthew - but across the street. Somewhat bewildered, Matthew repeated: "If there's anything I can do to help -"

  "You have already done it, my dear young man," said Sir Edward.

  "By stopping me at this particular spot and so fixing my attention on something I might otherwise have missed."

  He pointed across the street to a small restaurant opposite.

  "The Four and Twenty Blackbirds?" asked Matthew in a puzzled voice.

  "Exactly."

  "It's an odd name - but you get quite decent food there, I believe."

  "I shall not take the risk of experimenting," said Sir Edward. "Being further from my nursery days than you are, my young friend, I probably remember my nursery rhymes better. There is a classic that runs thus, if I remember rightly: Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie - and so on. The rest of it does not concern us."

  He wheeled round sharply.

  "Where are you going?" asked Matthew Vaughan.

  "Back to your house, my friend."

  They walked there in silence, Matthew Vaughan shooting puzzled glances at his companion. Sir Edward entered, strode to a drawer, lifted out a velvet bag, and opened it. He looked at Matthew and the young man reluctantly left the room.

  Sir Edward tumbled out the silver change on the table. Then he nodded. His memory had not been at fault.

  He got up and rang the bell, slipping something into the palm of his hand as he did so.

  Martha answered the bell.

  "You told me, Martha, if I remember rightly, that you had a slight altercation with your late mistress over one of the new sixpences."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Ah! but the curious thing is, Martha, that among this loose change, there is no new sixpence. There are two sixpences, but they are both old ones."

  She stared at him in a puzzled fashion.

  "You see what that means? Someone did come to the house that evening - someone to whom your mistress gave sixpence... I think she gave it to him in exchange for this..."

  With a swift movement he shot his hand forward, holding out the doggerel verse about unemployment.

  One glance at her face was enough.

  "The game is up, Martha - you see, I know. You may as well tell me everything."

  She sank down on a chair - the tears raced down her face.

  "It's true - it's true - the bell didn't ring properly - I wasn't sure, and then I thought I'd better go and see. I got to the door just as he struck her down. The roll of five-pound notes was on the table in front of her - it was the sight of them as made him do it - that and thinking she was alone in the house as she'd let him in. I couldn't scream. I was too paralyzed and then he turned - and I saw it was my boy...

  "Oh, he's been a bad one always. I gave him all the money I could.

  He's been in jail twice. He must have come around to see me, and then Miss Crabtree, seeing as I didn't answer the door, went to answer it herself, and he was taken aback and pulled out one of those unemployment leaflets, and the mistress being kind of charitable, told him to come in, and got out a sixpence. And all the time that roll of notes was lying on the table where it had been when I was giving her the change. And the devil got into my Ben and he got behind her and struck her down."

  "And then?" asked Sir Edward.

  "Oh, sir, what could I do? My own flesh and blood. His father was a bad one, and Ben takes after him - but he was my own son. I hustled him out, and I went back to the kitchen, and I went to lay for supper at the usual time. Do you think it was very wicked of me, sir? I tried to tell you no lies when you was asking me questions."

  Sir Edward rose.

  "My poor woman," he said with feeling in his voice. "I am very sorry for you. All the same, the law will have to take its course, you know."

  "He's fled the country, sir. I don't know where he is."

  "There's a chance, then, that he may escape the gallows, but don't build upon it. Will you send Miss Magdalen to me?"

  "Oh, Sir Edward. How wonderful of you - how wonderful you are," said Magdalen when he had finished his brief recital. "You've saved us all. How can I ever thank you?"

  Sir Edward smiled down at her and patted her hand gently. He was very much the great man. Little Magdalen had been very charming on the Siluric. That bloom of seventeen - wonderful! She had completely lost it now, of course.

  "Next time you need a friend -" he said.

  "I'll come straight to you."

  "No, no," cried Sir Edward in alarm. "That's just what I don't want you to do. Go to a younger man." He extricated himself with dexterity from the grateful household and hailing a taxi sank into it with a sigh of relief. Even the charm of a dewy seventeen seemed doubtful. It could not really compare with a really well-stocked library on criminology. The taxi turned into Queen Anne's Close. His cul-de-sac.

  THE MANHOOD OF EDWARD ROBINSON "With a swing of his mighty arms, Bill lifted her right off her feet, crushing her to his breast. With a deep sigh she yielded her lips in such a kiss as he had never dreamed of -" With a sigh, Mr Edward Robinson put down 'When Love Is King' and stared out of the window of the underground train. They were running through Stamford Brook. Edward Robinson was thinking about Bill. Bill was the real hundred per cent he-man beloved of lady novelists. Edward envied him his muscles, his rugged good looks, and his terrific passions. He picked up the book again and read the description of the proud Marchesa Bianca (she who had yielded her lips). So ravishing was her beauty, the intoxication of her was so great, that strong men went down before her like ninepins, faint
and helpless with love.

  "Of course," said Edward to himself, "it's all bosh, this sort of stuff.

  All bosh, it is. And yet, I wonder -"

  His eyes looked wistful. Was there such a thing as a world of romance and adventure somewhere? Where there women whose beauty intoxicated? Was there such a thing as love that devoured one like a flame?

  "This is real life, this is," said Edward. "I've got to go on the same just like all the other chaps."

  On the whole, he supposed, he ought to consider himself a lucky young man. He had an excellent berth - a clerkship in a flourishing concern. He had good health, no one dependent upon him, and he was engaged to Maud.

  But the mere thought of Maud brought a shadow over his face.

  Though he would never have admitted it, he was afraid of Maud.

  He loved her - yes - he still remembered the thrill with which he had admired the back of her white neck rising out of the cheap four and elevenpenny blouse on the first occasion they had met. He had sat behind her at the cinema, and the friend he was with had known her and had introduced them. No doubt about it, Maud was very superior. She was good-looking and clever and very ladylike, and she was always right about everything. The kind of girl, everyone said, who would make such an excellent wife.

  Edward wondered whether the Marchesa Bianca would have made an excellent wife. Somehow, he doubted it. He couldn't picture the voluptuous Bianca, with her red lips and her swaying form, tamely sewing on buttons, say, for the virile Bill. No, Bianca was Romance, and this was real life. He and Maud would be very happy together. She had so much common sense...

  But all the same, he wished that she wasn't quite so - well, sharp in manner. So prone to "jump upon him."

  It was, of course, her prudence and her common sense which made her do so. Maud was very sensible. And, as a rule, Edward was very sensible, too, but sometimes - He had wanted to get married this Christmas, for instance. Maud had pointed out how much more prudent it would be to wait a while - a year or two, perhaps. His salary was not large. He had wanted to give her an expensive ring - she had been horror-stricken, and had forced him to take it back and exchange it for a cheaper one. Her qualities were all excellent qualitites, but sometimes Edward wished that she had more faults and less virtues. It was her virtues that drove him to desperate deeds.

  For instance -

  A blush of guilt overspread his face. He had got to tell her - and tell her soon. His secret guilt was already making him behave strangely. Tomorrow was the first of three days' holiday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. She had suggested that he should come around and spend the day with her people, and in a clumsy, foolish manner, a manner that could not fail to arouse her suspicions, he had managed to get out of it - had told a long, lying story about a pal of his in the country with whom he had promised to spend the day. And there was no pal in the country.

  There was only his guilty secret.

  Three months ago, Edward Robinson, in company with a few hundred thousand other young men, had gone in for a competition in one of the weekly papers. Twelve girls' names had to be arranged in order of popularity. Edward had had a brilliant idea.

  His own preference was sure to be wrong - he had noticed that in several similar competitions. He wrote down the twelve names arranged in his own order of merit, then he wrote them down again, this time placing one from the top and one from the bottom of the list alternately.

  When the result was announced, Edward had got eight right out of the twelve, and was awarded the first prize of £500. This result, which might easily be ascribed to luck, Edward persisted in regarding as the direct outcome of his "system." He was inordinately proud of himself.

  The next thing was, what to do with the £500? He knew very well what Maud would say. Invest it. A nice little nest egg for the future.

  And, of course, Maud would be quite right, he knew that. But to win money as the result of a competition is an entirely different feeling from anything else in the world.

  Had the money been left to him as a legacy, Edward would have invested it religiously in Conversion Loan or Savings Certificates as a matter of course. But money that one has achieved by a mere stroke of the pen, by a lucky and unbelievable chance, comes under the same heading as a child's sixpence - "for your very own to spend as you like."

  And in a certain rich shop which he passed daily on his way to the office, was the unbelievable dream, a small two-seater car, with a long shining nose, and the price clearly displayed on it - £465.

  "If I were rich," Edward had said to it, day after day. "If I were rich, I'd have you."

  And now he was - if not rich - at least possessed of a lump sum of money sufficient to realize his dream. That car, that shining, alluring piece of loveliness, was his if he cared to pay the price.

  He had meant to tell Maud about the money. Once he had told her, he would have secured himself against temptation. In face of Maud's horror and disapproval, he would never have the courage to persist in his madness. But, as it chanced, it was Maud herself who clinched the matter. He had taken her to the cinema - and to the best seats in the house. She had pointed out to him, kindly but firmly, the criminal folly of his behaviour - wasting good money three and sixpence against two and fourpence, when one saw just as well from the latter places.

  Edward took her reproaches in sullen silence. Maud felt contentedly that she was making an impression. Edward could not be allowed to continue in these extravagant ways. She loved Edward, but she realized that he was weak - hers the task of being ever at hand to influence him in the way he should go. She observed his wormlike demeanour with satisfaction.

  Edward was indeed wormlike. Like worms, he turned. He remained crushed by her words, but it was at that precise minute that he made up his mind to buy the car.

  "Damn it," said Edward to himself. "For once in my life, I'll do what I like. Maud can go hang!"

  And the very next morning he had walked into that palace of plate glass, with its lordly inmates in their glory of gleaming enamel and shimmering metal, and with an insouciance that surprised himself, he bought the car. It was the easiest thing in the world, buying a car!

  It had been his for four days now. He had gone about, outwardly calm, but inwardly bathed in ecstasy. And to Maud he had as yet breathed no word. For four days, in his luncheon hour, he had received instruction in the handling of the lovely creature. He was an apt pupil.

  Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, he was to take her out into the country.

  He had lied to Maud, and he would lie again if need be. He was enslaved body and soul by his new possession. It stood to him for Romance, for Adventure, for all the things that he had longed for and had never had. Tomorrow, he and his mistress would take the road together. They would rush through the keen cold air, leaving the throb and fret of London far behind them - out into the wide, clear spaces...

  At this moment, Edward, though he did not know it, was very near to being a poet.

  Tomorrow -

  He looked down at the book in his hand - When Love Is King. He laughed and stuffed it into his pocket. The car, and the red lips of the Marchesa Bianca, and the amazing prowess of Bill seemed all mixed up together.

  Tomorrow -

  The weather, usually a sorry jade to those who count upon her, was kindly disposed towards Edward. She gave him the day of his dreams, a day of glittering frost, and pale-blue sky, and a primrose-yellow sun.

  So, in a mood of high adventure, of daredevil wickedness, Edward drove out of London. There was trouble at Hyde Park Corner, and a sad contretemps at Putney Bridge, there was much protesting of gears, and a frequent jarring of brakes, and much abuse was freely showered upon Edward by the drivers of other vehicles. But for a novice he did not acquit himself so badly, and presently he came out onto one of those fair, wide roads that are the joy of the motorist. There was little congestion on this particular road today.

  Edward drove on and on, drunk with his mastery over this creature o
f the gleaming sides, speeding through the cold white world with the elation of a god.

  It was a delirious day. He stopped for lunch at an old-fashioned inn, and again later for tea. Then reluctantly he turned homewards - back again to London, to Maud, to the inevitable explanation, recriminations...

  He shook off the thought with a sigh. Let tomorrow look after itself.

  He still had today. And what could be more fascinating than this?

  Rushing through the darkness with the headlights searching out the way in front. Why, this was the best of all!

  He judged that he had no time to stop anywhere for dinner. This driving through the darkness was a ticklish business. It was going to take longer to get back to London than he had thought. It was just eight o'clock when he passed through Hindhead and came out upon the rim of the Devil's Punch Bowl. There was moonlight, and the snow that had fallen two days ago was still unmelted.

  He stopped the car and stood staring. What did it matter if he didn't get back to London until midnight? What did it matter if he never got back? He wasn't going to tear himself away from this all at once.

  He got out of the car and approached the edge. There was a path winding down temptingly near him. Edward yielded to the spell.

  For the next half-hour he wandered deliriously in a snowbound world. Never had he imagined anything quite like this. And it was his, his very own, given to him by his shining mistress who waited for him faithfully on the road above.

  He climbed up again, got into the car and drove off, still a little dizzy from that discovery of sheer beauty which comes to the most prosaic men once in a while.

  Then, with a sigh, he came to himself, and thrust his hand into the pocket of the car where he had stuffed an additional muffler earlier in the day.

  But the muffler was no longer there. The pocket was empty. No, not completely empty - there was something scratchy and hard like pebbles.

  Edward thrust his hand deep down. In another minute he was staring like a man bereft of his senses. The object that he held in his hand, dangling from his fingers, with the moonlight striking a hundred fires from it, was a diamond necklace.