Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [32]
Smarting under a sense of failure, he made his way to the Arlecchino the day after his return. He hardly expected to be successful the first time, but to his satisfaction the familiar figure was sitting at the table in the recess, and the dark face of Mr Harley Quin smiled a welcome.
‘Well,’ said Mr Satterthwaite as he helped himself to a pat of butter, ‘you sent me on a nice wild-goose chase.’
Mr Quin raised his eyebrows.
‘I sent you?’ he objected. ‘It was your own idea entirely.’
‘Whosever idea it was, it’s not succeeded. Louisa Bullard has nothing to tell.’
Thereupon Mr Satterthwaite related the details of his conversation with the housemaid and then went on to his interview with Mr Denman. Mr Quin listened in silence.
‘In one sense, I was justified,’ continued Mr Satterthwaite. ‘She was deliberately got out of the way. But why? I can’t see it.’
‘No?’ said Mr Quin, and his voice was, as ever, provocative.
Mr Satterthwaite flushed.
‘I daresay you think I might have questioned her more adroitly. I can assure you that I took her over the story again and again. It was not my fault that I did not get what we want.’
‘Are you sure,’ said Mr Quin, ‘that you did not get what you want?’
Mr Satterthwaite looked up at him in astonishment, and met that sad, mocking gaze he knew so well.
The little man shook his head, slightly bewildered.
There was a silence, and then Mr Quin said, with a total change of manner:
‘You gave me a wonderful picture the other day of the people in this business. In a few words you made them stand out as clearly as though they were etched. I wish you would do something of that kind for the place–you left that in shadow.’
Mr Satterthwaite was flattered.
‘The place? Deering Hill? Well, it’s a very ordinary sort of house nowadays. Red brick, you know, and bay windows. Quite hideous outside, but very comfortable inside. Not a very large house. About two acres of ground. They’re all much the same, those houses round the links. Built for rich men to live in. The inside of the house is reminiscent of a hotel–the bedrooms are like hotel suites. Baths and hot and cold basins in all the bedrooms and a good many gilded electric-light fittings. All wonderfully comfortable, but not very country-like. You can tell that Deering Vale is only nineteen miles from London.’
Mr Quin listened attentively.
‘The train service is bad, I have heard,’ he remarked.
‘Oh! I don’t know about that,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, warming to his subject. ‘I was down there for a bit last summer. I found it quite convenient for town. Of course the trains only go every hour. Forty-eight minutes past the hour from Waterloo–up to 10.48.’
‘And how long does it take to Deering Vale?’
‘Just about three quarters of an hour. Twenty-eight minutes past the hour at Deering Vale.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Quin with a gesture of vexation. ‘I should have remembered. Miss Dale saw someone off by the 6.28 that evening, didn’t she?’
Mr Satterthwaite did not reply for a minute or two. His mind had gone back with a rush to his unsolved problem. Presently he said:
‘I wish you would tell me what you meant just now when you asked me if I was sure I had not got what I wanted?’
It sounded rather complicated, put that way, but Mr Quin made no pretence of not understanding.
‘I just wondered if you weren’t being a little too exacting. After all, you found out that Louisa Bullard was deliberately got out of the country. That being so, there must be a reason. And the reason must lie in what she said to you.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Satterthwaite argumentatively. ‘What did she say? If she’d given evidence at the trial, what could she have said?’
‘She might have told what she saw,’ said Mr Quin.
‘What did she see?’
‘A sign in the sky.’
Mr Satterthwaite stared at him.
‘Are you thinking of that nonsense? That superstitious notion of its being the hand of God?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mr Quin, ‘for all you and I know it may have been the hand of God, you know.’
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