The Clocks - Agatha Christie [2]
Sheila uttered a faint sound, no more than a croak. The wide blue eyes came to her and the woman spoke sharply:
“Is somebody there?”
“I—it’s—” The girl broke off as the woman came swiftly towards her round the back of the sofa.
And then she screamed.
“Don’t—don’t … you’ll tread on it—him … And he’s dead….”
One
COLIN LAMB’S NARRATIVE
I
To use police terms: at 2:59 p.m. on September 9th, I was proceeding along Wilbraham Crescent in a westerly direction. It was my first introduction to Wilbraham Crescent, and frankly Wilbraham Crescent had me baffled.
I had been following a hunch with a persistence becoming more dogged day by day as the hunch seemed less and less likely to pay off. I’m like that.
The number I wanted was 61, and could I find it? No, I could not. Having studiously followed the numbers from 1 to 35, Wilbraham Crescent then appeared to end. A thoroughfare uncompromisingly labelled Albany Road barred my way. I turned back. On the north side there were no houses, only a wall. Behind the wall, blocks of modern flats soared upwards, the entrance of them being obviously in another road. No help there.
I looked up at the numbers I was passing. 24, 23, 22, 21. Diana Lodge (presumably 20, with an orange cat on the gatepost washing its face), 19—
The door of 19 opened and a girl came out of it and down the path with what seemed to be the speed of a bomb. The likeness to a bomb was intensified by the screaming that accompanied her progress. It was high and thin and singularly inhuman. Through the gate the girl came and collided with me with a force that nearly knocked me off the pavement. She did not only collide. She clutched—a frenzied desperate clutching.
“Steady,” I said, as I recovered my balance. I shook her slightly. “Steady now.”
The girl steadied. She still clutched, but she stopped screaming. Instead she gasped—deep sobbing gasps.
I can’t say that I reacted to the situation with any brilliance. I asked her if anything was the matter. Recognizing that my question was singularly feeble I amended it.
“What’s the matter?”
The girl took a deep breath.
“In there!” she gestured behind her.
“Yes?”
“There’s a man on the floor … dead … She was going to step on him.”
“Who was? Why?”
“I think—because she’s blind. And there’s blood on him.” She looked down and loosened one of her clutching hands. “And on me. There’s blood on me.”
“So there is,” I said. I looked at the stains on my coat sleeve. “And on me as well now,” I pointed out. I sighed and considered the situation. “You’d better take me in and show me,” I said.
But she began to shake violently.
“I can’t—I can’t … I won’t go in there again.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” I looked round. There seemed nowhere very suitable to deposit a half-fainting girl. I lowered her gently to the pavement and sat her with her back against the iron railings.
“You stay there,” I said, “until I come back. I shan’t be long. You’ll be all right. Lean forward and put your head between your knees if you feel queer.”
“I—I think I’m all right now.”
She was a little doubtful about it, but I didn’t want to parley. I gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and strode off briskly up the path. I went in through the door, hesitated a moment in the hallway, looked into the door on the left, found an empty dining room, crossed the hall and entered the sitting room opposite.
The first thing I saw was an elderly woman with grey hair sitting in a chair. She turned her head sharply as I entered and said:
“Who’s that?”
I realized at once that the woman was blind. Her eyes which looked directly towards me were focused on a spot behind my left ear.
I spoke abruptly and to the point.
“A young woman rushed out into the street saying there was a dead man in here.”
I felt a sense of absurdity as I said the words. It did not seem possible that there should be a dead man in this tidy room