Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [13]
‘I hadn’t the least idea the Scotts were going to be here. I daresay, if I had known, I shouldn’t have come, but I can assure you, my dear John, that now I am here, I’m not going to run away–’
Mr Satterthwaite passed on up the staircase out of earshot. He thought to himself: ‘I wonder now–How much of that is true? Did she know? I wonder–what’s going to come of it?’
He shook his head.
In the clear light of the morning he felt that he had perhaps been a little melodramatic in his imaginings of the evening before. A moment of strain–yes, certainly–inevitable under the circumstances–but nothing more. People adjusted themselves. His fancy that some great catastrophe was pending was nerves–pure nerves–or possibly liver. Yes, that was it, liver. He was due at Carlsbad in another fortnight.
On his own account he proposed a little stroll that evening just as it was growing dusk. He suggested to Major Porter that they should go up to the clearing and see if Mrs Unkerton had been as good as her word, and had a new pane of glass put in. To himself, he said: ‘Exercise, that’s what I need. Exercise.’
The two men walked slowly through the words. Porter, as usual, was taciturn.
‘I can’t help feeling,’ said Mr Satterthwaite loquaciously, ‘that we were a little foolish in our imaginings yesterday. Expecting–er–trouble, you know. After all, people have to behave themselves–swallow their feelings and that sort of thing.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Porter. After a minute or two he added: ‘Civilized people.’
‘You mean–?’
‘People who’ve lived outside civilization a good deal sometimes go back. Revert. Whatever you call it.’
They emerged on to the grassy knoll. Mr Satterthwaite was breathing rather fast. He never enjoyed going up hill.
He looked towards the window. The face was still there, more life-like than ever.
‘Our hostess has repented, I see.’
Porter threw it only a cursory glance.
‘Unkerton cut up rough, I expect,’ he said indifferently. ‘He’s the sort of man who is willing to be proud of another family’s ghost, and who isn’t going to run the risk of having it driven away when he’s paid spot cash for it.’
He was silent a minute or two, staring, not at the house, but at the thick undergrowth by which they were surrounded.
‘Has it ever struck you,’ he said, ‘that civilization’s damned dangerous?’
‘Dangerous?’ Such a revolutionary remark shocked Mr Satterthwaite to the core.
‘Yes. There are no safety valves, you see.’
He turned abruptly, and they descended the path by which they had come.
‘I really am quite at a loss to understand you,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, pattering along with nimble steps to keep up with the other’s strides. ‘Reasonable people–’
Porter laughed. A short disconcerting laugh. Then he looked at the correct little gentleman by his side.
‘You think it’s all bunkum on my part, Mr Satterthwaite? But there are people, you know, who can tell you when a storm’s coming. They feel it beforehand in the air. And other people can foretell trouble. There’s trouble coming now, Mr Satterthwaite, big trouble. It may come any minute. It may–’
He stopped dead, clutching Mr Satterthwaite’s arm. And in that tense minute of silence it came–the sound of two shots and following them a cry–a cry in a woman’s voice.
‘My god!’ cried Porter, ‘it’s come.’
He raced down the path, Mr Satterthwaite panting behind him. In a minute they came out on to the lawn, close by the hedge of the Privy Garden. At the same time, Richard Scott and Mr Unkerton came round the opposite corner of the house. They halted, facing each other, to left and right of the entrance to the Privy Garden.
‘It–it came from in there,’ said Unkerton, pointing with a flabby hand.
‘We must see,’ said Porter. He led the way into the enclosure. As he rounded the last bend of the holly hedge, he stopped dead. Mr Satterthwaite peered over his shoulder. A loud cry burst from Richard