turned blindingly away from the figure in the
chair. What did I seemthe famous patchwork
dressing-gown, the beaked nose (faked with that
useful substance, nose putty), the white crest of hair, the powerful lenses concealing the eyes.
What evidence is there that Mr. Farley ever had a
dream? Only the story I was told and the evidence
of Mrs. Farley. What evidence is there that
Benedict Farley kept a revolver in his desk? Again
only the story told me and the word of Mrs. Farley.
Two people carried this fraud throughJMrs.
Farley and Hugo Cornworthy. Cornworthy wrote
the letter to me, gave instructions to the butler,
went out ostensibly to the cinema, but let himself
in again immediately with a key, went to his room,
made himself up, and played the part of Benedict
Farley.
I "And so we come to this afternoon. The oppor-
176
Agatha Christie
tunity for which Mr. Cornworthy has been waiting
arrives. There are two witnesses on the landing to
swear that no one goes in or out of Benedict
Farley's room. Cornworthy waits until a Particu-larly
heavy batch of traffic is about to pass. Then
he leans out of his window, and with the lazytongs
which he has purloined from the desk next door he
holds an. object against the window of that room.
Benedict Farley comes to the window. Corn-worthy
snatches back the tongs and as Farley leans
out, and the lorries are passing outside, Corn-worthy
shoots him with the revolver that he has
ready. There is a blank wall opposite, remember.
There can be no witness of the crime. Cornworthy
waits for OVer half an hour, then gathers up some
papers, conceals the lazytongs and the revolver
between thea and goes out on to the landing and
into the next room. He replaces the tongs on the
desk, lays down the revolver after pressing the
dead man's fingers on it, and hurries out with the
news of Mr. Farley's 'suicide.'
"He arranges that the letter to me shall be
found and that I shall arrive with my story--the
story I hearl .from Mr. Farley's own lips--of his
extraordinary 'dream'--the strange compulsion
he felt to kill himself! A few credulous people will
discuss the hypnotism theory--but the main result
will be to confirm without a doubt that the actual
hand that held the revolver was Benedict Farley's
own."
Hercule Poirot's eyes went to the widow's face
--the dismay--the ashy pallor--the blind fear.
"And in due course," he finished gently, "the
happy ending would have been achieved. A
THE DREAM
177
quarter of a million and two hearts that beat as
one .... "
John Stillingfleet, M.D., and Hercule Poirot
walked along the side of Northway House. On
their right was the towering wall of the factory.
Above them, on their left, were the windows of
Benedict Farley's and Hugo Cornworthy's rooms.
Hercule Poirot stopped and picked up a small ob-ject--a
black stuffed cat.
"Voild," he said. "That is what Cornworthy
held in the lazytongs against Farley's window.
You remember, he hated cats? Naturally he
rushed to the window."
"Why on earth didn't Cornworthy come out
and pick it up after he'd dropped it?"
"How could he? To do so would have been
definitely suspicious. After all, if this object where
found what would anyone think--that some child
had wandered round here and dropped it."
"Yes," said Stillingfleet with a sigh. "That's
probably what the ordinary person would have
thought. But not good old Hercule! D'you know,
old horse, up to the very last minute I thought you
were leading up to some subtle theory of highfalu-tin
psychological 'suggested' murder? I bet those
two thought so too! Nasty bit of goods, the Far-ley.
Goodness, how she cracked! Cornworthy
might have got away with it if she hadn't had
hysterics and tried to spoil your beauty by going
for you with her nails. I only got her off you just
in 'time."
He paused a minute and then said:
"I rather like the girl. Grit, you know, and
brains. I suppose I'd be thought to be a fortune
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Agatha Christie
hunter if I had a shot at her... ?"
"You are too late, my friend. There is already
someone sur le tapis. Her father's death has
opened the way to happiness."
"Take it all round, she had a pretty good
motive for bumping off the unpleasant parent."
"Motive and opportunity are not enough," said
Poirot. "There must also be the criminal tempera-ment!''
"I wonder if you'll ever commit a crime,
Poirot?" said Stillingfleet. "I bet you could get
away with it all right. As a matter of fact, it would
be too easy for you--I mean the thing would be
off as definitely too unsporting."
"That," said Poirot, "is a typically English
idea."
Glass Darkly
I've no explanation of this story. I've no theories
about the why and wherefore of it. It's just a
thing--that happened.
All the same, I sometimes wonder how things
would have gone if I'd noticed at the time just that
one essential detail that I never appreciated until
so many years afterwards. If I had noticed it--well,
I suppose the course of three lives would
have been entirely altered. Somehow--that's a
very frightening thought.
For the beginning of it all, I've got to go back to
the summer of 1914--just before the war--when I
went down to Badgeworthy with Neil Carslake.
Neil was, I suppose, about my best friend. I'd
known his brother Alan too, but not so well.
Sylvia, their sister, I'd never met. She was two
years younger than Alan and three years younger
than Neil. Twice, while we were at school to181
184
Agatha Christie
the other door from the passage and asked me
what the hell I was trying to do.
He must have thought me slightly barmy as I
turned on him and demanded whether there was a
door behind the wardrobe. He said, yes, there was
a door, it led into the next room. I asked him we
was occupying the room and he said some people
called Oldham--a Major Oldham and his wife. I
asked him then if Mrs. Oldham had very fair hair
and when he replied dryly that she was dark I
began to realize that I was probably making a fool
of myself. I pulled myself together, made some
lame explanation and we went downstairs together.
I told myself that I must have had some
kind of hallucination--and felt generally rather
ashamed and a bit of an ass.
And then--and then--Nell said, "My sister
Sylvia," and I was looking into the lovely face of
the
girl I had just seen being suffocated to death
·.. and I was introduced to her fiance, a tall, dark
man with a scar down the left side of his face.
Wellwthat's that. I'd like you to think and say
what you'd have done in my place. Here was the
girl--the identical girl--and here was the man I'd
seen throttling her--and they were to be married
in about a month's time ....
Had I--or had I not--had a prophetic vision of
the future? Would Sylvia and her husband come
down here to stay sometime in the future, and be
given that room (the best spare room) and would
that scene I'd witnessed take place in grim reality?
What was I to do about it? Could I do anything?
Would anyone--Neil--or the girl herself--would
they believe me?
IN A GLASS DARKLY
18 I
turned the whole business over and over in m}
mind the week I was down there. To speak or not
to speak? And almost at once another complica
tion set in. You see, I fell in love with Sylvia Cars-
lake the first moment I saw her I
wanted her
more
than anything on earth And in
a way
that tied
my hands.
And yet,
if I didn't say anything, Sylvia would marry Charles
Crawley and Crawley would kill her ....
And so,
the day before I left, I blurted it all out to her.
I said I expected she'd think me touched in the intellect
or something but I swore solemnly that
I'd seen the thing just as I told it to her and that
I felt if she was determined to marry Crawley, I
ought to tell her my strange experience.
She
listened very quietly. There was something in
her eyes I didn't understand. She wasn't angry at
all. When I'd finished, she just thanked me gravely.
I kept repeating like an idiot, "I did see it. I
really did see it," and she said, "I'm sure you did if
you say so. I believe you."
Well,
the upshot was that I went off not knowing
whether I'd done right or been a fool, and a week later
Sylvia broke off her engagement to Charles Crawley.
After that
the war happened, and there wash'! much leisure
for thinking of anything else. Once or twice
when I was on leave, I came acr. oss Sylvia, but as
far as possible I avoided her.
I loved
her and wanted her just as badly as ever, but I
felt, somehow, that it wouldn't be playing the game.
It was owing to me that she'd broken off her
engagement to Crawley, and 1 kept sayin8
186
Agatha Christie
to myself that I could only justify the action I had
taken by making my attitude a purely disinterested
one.
Then, in 1916, Nell was killed and it fell to me
to tell Sylvia about his last moments. We couldn't
remain on a formal footing after that. Sylvia had
adored Nell and he had been my best friend. She
was sweet--adorably sweet in her grief. I just
managed to hold my tongue and went out again
praying that a bullet might end the whole miser-able
business. Life without Sylvia wasn't worth
living.
But there was no bullet with my name on it. One
nearly got me below the right ear and one was
deflected by a cigarette case in my pocket, but I
came through unscathed. Charles Crawley was
killed in action at the beginning of 1918.
Somehow--that made a difference. I came
home in the autumn of 1918 just before the Armis-tice
and I went straight to Sylvia and told her that
I loved her. I hadn't much hope that she'd care for
me straight away, and you could have knocked me
down with a feather when she asked me why I
hadn't told her sooner. I stammered out some-thing
about Crawley and she said, "But why did
you think I broke it off with him?" And then she
told me that she'd fallen in love with me just as I'd
done with her--from the very first minute.
I said I thought she'd broken off her engage-ment
because of the story I told her and she
laughed scornfully and said that if you loved a
man you wouldn't be as cowardly as that, and we
went over that old vision of mine again and agreed
that it was queer, but nothing more.
Well, there's nothing much to tell for some time
IN A GLASS DARKLY
187
after that. Sylvia and I were married and we were
happy. But I realized, as soon as she was really
mine, that I wasn't cut out for the best kind of
husband. I loved Sylvia devotedly, but I was jeal-ous,
absurdly jealous of anyone she so much as
smiled at. It amused her at first. I think she even
rather liked it. It proved, at least, how devoted I
was.
As for me, I realized quite fully and unmistak-ably
that I was not only making a fool of myself,
but that I was endangering all the peace and hap-piness
of our life together. I knew, I say, but I
couldn't change. Every time Sylvia got a letter she
didn't show to me I wondered who it was from. If
she laughed and talked with any man, I found my-self
getting sulky and watchful.
At first, as I say, Sylvia laughed at me. She
thought it a huge joke. Then she didn't think the
joke so funny. Finally she didn't think it a joke at
all--
And slowly, she began to draw away from me.
Not in any physical sense, but she withdrew her
secret mind from me. I no longer knew what her
thoughts were. She was kind--but sadly, as though
from a long distance.
Little by little I realized that she no longer loved
me. Her love had died and it was I who had killed
it ....
The next step was inevitable. I found myself
waiting for it--dreading it ....
Then Derek Wainwright came into our lives. He
had everything that I hadn't. He had brains and
a witty tongue. He was good-looking, too, and--I'm
forced to admit it--a thoroughly good chap.
As soon as I saw him I said to myself, "This is just
188
Agatha Christie
the man for Sylvia .... "
She fought against it. I know she struggled...
but I gave her no help. I couldn't. I was en
trenched in my gloomy, sullen reserve. I was suf
fering like hell--and I couldn't stretch out a finger
to save myself. I didn't help her. I made things
worse. I let loose at her one day--a string of sav
age, unwarranted abuse. I was nearly mad with
jealousy and misery. The things I said were cruel
and untrue and I knew while I was saying them
how cruel and how untrue they were. And yet I
took a savage pleasure in saying them ....
I remember how Sylvia flushed and shrank ....
I drove her to the edge of endurance.
I remember she said, "This can't go on "
Whe
n
I came home that night the house was empty--empty.
There was a note--quite in the traditional
fashion.
In
it she said that she was leaving me--for good. She
was going down to Badgeworthy for a day or two.
After that she was going to the one person who
loved her and needed her. I was to take tha as
final.
I
suppose that up to then I hadn't really believed my
own suspicions. This confirmation in black and
white of my worst fears sent me raving mad. I went
down to Badgeworthy after her as fast as the car
would take me.
She
had just changed her frock for dinner, I remember,
when I burst into the room. I can see her
face--startled--beautiful--afraid.
I
said, "No one but me shall ever have you. No one."
And
I caught her throat in my hands and gripped
it and bent her backwards.
IN A GLASS DARKLY
189
And stddenly I saw our reflection in the mirror.
Sylvia choking amd myself strangling her, and the
scar on rny cheek: where the bullet grazed it under
the right ear.
No--I didn't kill her. That sudden revelation
paralyzed me and I loosened my grasp and let her
slip onto the floo ....
And then I broke down--and she comforted
me .... Yes, she comforted me.
I told her everything and she told me that by the
phrase "the one person who loved and needed
her" she had meant her brother Alan .... We saw
AgathaChristie-TheReggataMystery Page 17
