Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [45]
‘They often do have fancy dress shows at the Hotels, I suppose?’
‘Oh! quite,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Quite, quite, quite.’
He paused breathlessly, then added:
‘You must excuse my excitement. Do you happen to know anything about catalysis?’
The young man stared at him.
‘Never heard of it. What is it?’
Mr Satterthwaite quoted gravely: ‘A chemical reaction depending for its success on the presence of a certain substance which itself remains unchanged.’
‘Oh,’ said the young man uncertainly.
‘I have a certain friend–his name is Mr Quin, and he can best be described in the terms of catalysis. His presence is a sign that things are going to happen, because when he is there strange revelations come to light, discoveries are made. And yet–he himself takes no part in the proceedings. I have a feeling that it was my friend you met here last night.’
‘He’s a very sudden sort of chap then. He gave me quite a shock. One minute he wasn’t there and the next minute he was! Almost as though he came up out of the sea.’
Mr Satterthwaite looked along the little plateau and down the sheer drop below.
‘That’s nonsense, of course,’ said the other. ‘But it’s the feeling he gave me. Of course, really, there isn’t the foothold for a fly.’ He looked over the edge. ‘A straight clear drop. If you went over–well, that would be the end right enough.’
‘An ideal spot for a murder, in fact,’ said Mr Satterthwaite pleasantly.
The other stared at him, almost as though for the moment he did not follow. Then he said vaguely: ‘Oh! yes–of course…’
He sat there, making little dabs at the ground with his stick and frowning. Suddenly Mr Satterthwaite got the resemblance he had been seeking. That dumb bewildered questioning. So had the dog looked who was run over. His eyes and this young man’s eyes asked the same pathetic question with the same reproach. ‘Oh! world that I have trusted–what have you done to me?’
He saw other points of resemblance between the two, the same pleasure-loving easy-going existence, the same joyous abandon to the delights of life, the same absence of intellectual questioning. Enough for both to live in the moment–the world was a good place, a place of carnal delights–sun, sea, sky–a discreet garbage heap. And then–what? A car had hit the dog. What had hit the man?
The subject of these cogitations broke in at this point, speaking, however, more to himself than to Mr Satterthwaite.
‘One wonders,’ he said, ‘what it’s All For?’
Familiar words–words that usually brought a smile to Mr Satterthwaite’s lips, with their unconscious betrayal of the innate egoism of humanity which insists on regarding every manifestation of life as directly designed for its delight or its torment. He did not answer and presently the stranger said with a slight, rather apologetic laugh:
‘I’ve heard it said that every man should build a house, plant a tree and have a son.’ He paused and then added: ‘I believe I planted an acorn once…’
Mr Satterthwaite stirred slightly. His curiosity was aroused–that ever-present interest in the affairs of other people of which the Duchess had accused him was roused. It was not difficult. Mr Satterthwaite had a very feminine side to his nature, he was as good a listener as any woman, and he knew the right moment to put in a prompting word. Presently he was hearing the whole story.
Anthony Cosden, that was the stranger’s name, and his life had been much as Mr Satterthwaite had imagined it. He was a bad hand at telling a story but his listener supplied the gaps easily enough. A very ordinary life–an average income, a little soldiering, a good deal of sport whenever sport offered, plenty of friends, plenty of pleasant things to do, a sufficiency of women. The kind of life that practically inhibits thought of any description and substitutes sensation. To speak frankly, an animal’s life. ‘But there are worse things than that,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite from the depths of his experience. ‘Oh! many worse things than that…’ This world had seemed a very good place to Anthony Cosden.