The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Mystery & Detective - General, Detective, Private investigators, Murder, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Fiction - Mystery, Political, General, Mystery fiction, Detective and mystery stories, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Large type books, Crime, Traditional British, Fiction, Short stories, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British
ISBN: 9780312981600
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2002-03-15T07:57:34.864000+00:00

"Of course not," said Margery. "What an idea!"

Mr. Satterthwaite started on another line of attack.

"What visitors have you had during the last two months?"

"You don't mean just people for week-ends, I suppose? Marcia Keane has 'been with me all along. She is my best friend, and just as keen on horses as I am. Then my cousin Roley Vavasour has been here a good deal."

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded. He suggested that he should see Clayton, the maid.

"She has been with you a long time, I suppose?" he asked.

"Donkey's years," said Margery." She was Mother's and Aunt Beatrice's maid when they were girls. That is why Mother has kept her on, I suppose, although she has got a French maid for herself. Clayton does sewing and pottering little odd jobs."

She took him upstairs and presently Clayton came to them. She was a tall, thin, old woman, with grey hair neatly parted, and she looked the acme of respectability.

"No, sir," she said in answer to Mr. Satterthwaite's inquiries. "I have never heard anything of the house being haunted. To tell you the truth, sir, I thought it was all Miss Margery's imagination until last night. But I actually felt something--brushing by me in the darkness. And I can tell you this, sir, it was not anything human. And then there is that wound in Miss Margery's neck. She didn't do that herself, poor lamb."

But her words were suggestive to Mr. Satterthwaite. Was it possible that Margery could have inflicted that wound herself? He had heard of strange cases where girls apparently just as sane and well-balanced as Margery had done the most amazing things.

"It will soon heal up," said Clayton. "It's not like this scar of mine."

She pointed to a mark on her own forehead.

"That was done forty years ago, sir-- I still bear the mark of it."

"It was the time the Uralia went down," put in Margery. "Clayton was hit on the head by a spar, weren't you, Clayton?"

"Yes, Miss."

"What do you think yourself, Clayton," asked Mr. Satterthwaite, "what do you think was the meaning of this attack on Miss Margery?"

"I really should not like to say, sir." Mr. Satterthwaite read this correctly as the reserve of the well-trained servant.

"What do you really think, Clayton?" he said persuasively. "I think, sir, that something very wicked must have been done in this house, and that until that is wiped out there won't be any peace."

The woman spoke gravely, and her faded blue eyes met his steadily.

Mr. Satterthwaite went downstairs rather disappointed. Clayton evidently held the orthodox view, a deliberate "haunting" as a consequence of some evil deed in the past. Mr., Satterthwaite himself was not so easily satisfied. The phenomena had only taken place in the last two months. Had only taken place since Marcia Keane and Roley Vavasour had been there. He must find out something about these two. It was possible that the whole thing was a practical joke. But he shook his head, dissatisfied with that solution. The thing was more sinister than that.

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