Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [12]
It was fast growing dusk. The window could still be plainly descried, and apparently pressed against one of the panes was a man’s face surmounted by a plumed Cavalier’s hat.
‘Very curious,’ said Porter. ‘Really very curious. What will happen when that pane of glass gets smashed some day?’
Mr Satterthwaite smiled.
‘That is one of the most interesting parts of the story. That pane of glass has been replaced to my certain knowledge at least eleven times, perhaps oftener. The last time was twelve years ago when the then owner of the house determined to destroy the myth. But it’s always the same. The stain reappears–not all at once, the discolouration spreads gradually. It takes a month or two as a rule.’
For the first time, Porter showed signs of real interest. He gave a sudden quick shiver.
‘Damned odd, these things. No accounting for them. What’s the real reason of having the room boarded up inside?’
‘Well, an idea got about that the room was–unlucky. The Eveshams were in it just before the divorce. Then Stanley and his wife were staying here, and had that room when he ran off with his chorus girl.’
Porter raised his eyebrows.
‘I see. Danger, not to life, but to morals.’
‘And now,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite to himself, ‘the Scotts have it…I wonder…’
They retraced their steps in silence to the house. Walking almost noiselessly on the soft turf, each absorbed in his own thoughts, they became unwittingly eavesdroppers.
They were rounding the corner of the holly hedge when they heard Iris Staverton’s voice raised fierce and clear from the depths of the Privy Garden.
‘You shall be sorry–sorry–for this!’
Scott’s voice answered low and uncertain, so that the words could not be distinguished, and then the woman’s voice rose again, speaking words that they were to remember later.
‘Jealousy–it drives one to the Devil–it is the Devil! It can drive one to black murder. Be careful, Richard, for God’s sake, be careful!’
And then on that she had come out of the Privy Garden ahead of them, and on round the corner of the house without seeing them, walking swiftly, almost running, like a woman hag-ridden and pursued.
Mr Satterthwaite thought again of Lady Cynthia’s words. A dangerous woman. For the first time, he had a premonition of tragedy, coming swift and inexorable, not to be gainsaid.
Yet that evening he felt ashamed of his fears. Everything seemed normal and pleasant. Mrs Staverton, with her easy insouciance, showed no sign of strain. Moira Scott was her charming, unaffected self. The two women appeared to be getting on very well. Richard Scott himself seemed to be in boisterous spirits.
The most worried looking person was stout Mrs Unkerton. She confided at length in Mr Satterthwaite.
‘Think it silly or not, as you like, there’s something giving me the creeps. And I’ll tell you frankly, I’ve sent for the glazier unbeknown to Ned.’
‘The glazier?’
‘To put a new pane of glass in that window. It’s all very well. Ned’s proud of it–says it gives the house a tone. I don’t like it. I tell you flat. We’ll have a nice plain modern pane of glass, with no nasty stories attached to it.’
‘You forget,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘or perhaps you don’t know. The stain comes back.’
‘That’s as it may be,’ said Mrs Unkerton. ‘All I can say is if it does, it’s against nature!’
Mr Satterthwaite raised his eyebrows, but did not reply.
‘And what if it does?’ pursued Mrs Unkerton defiantly. ‘We’re not so bankrupt, Ned and I, that we can’t afford a new pane of glass every month–or every week if need be for the matter of that.’
Mr Satterthwaite did not meet the challenge. He had seen too many things crumple and fall before the power of money to believe that even a Cavalier ghost could put up a successful fight. Nevertheless, he was interested by Mrs Unkerton’s manifest uneasiness. Even she was not exempt from the tension in the atmosphere–only she attributed it to an attenuated ghost story, not to the clash of personalities amongst her guests.
Mr Sattherwaite was fated to hear yet another scrap of conversation which threw light upon