The Hound of Death - Agatha Christie [36]
The point worried the old lady and the next day she sat down and wrote to her lawyer asking if he would send her will so that she might look over it. It was that same day that Charles startled her by something he said at lunch.
‘By the way, Aunt Mary,’ he said, ‘who is that funny old josser up in the spare room? The picture over the mantelpiece, I mean. The old johnny with the beaver and side whiskers?’
Mrs Harter looked at him austerely.
‘That is your Uncle Patrick as a young man,’ she said.
‘Oh, I say, Aunt Mary, I am awfully sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.’
Mrs Harter accepted the apology with a dignified bend of the head.
Charles went on rather uncertainly:
‘I just wondered. You see–’
He stopped undecidedly and Mrs Harter said sharply:
‘Well? What were you going to say?’
‘Nothing,’ said Charles hastily. ‘Nothing that makes sense, I mean.’
For the moment the old lady said nothing more, but later that day, when they were alone together, she returned to the subject.
‘I wish you would tell me, Charles, what it was made you ask me about that picture of your uncle.’
Charles looked embarrassed.
‘I told you, Aunt Mary. It was nothing but a silly fancy of mine–quite absurd.’
‘Charles,’ said Mrs Harter in her most autocratic voice, ‘I insist upon knowing.’
‘Well, my dear aunt, if you will have it, I fancied I saw him–the man in the picture, I mean–looking out of the end window when I was coming up the drive last night. Some effect of the light, I suppose. I wondered who on earth he could be, the face was so–early Victorian, if you know what I mean. And then Elizabeth said there was no one, no visitor or stranger in the house, and later in the evening I happened to drift into the spare room, and there was the picture over the mantelpiece. My man to the life! It is quite easily explained, really, I expect. Subconscious and all that. Must have noticed the picture before without realizing that I had noticed it, and then just fancied the face at the window.’
‘The end window?’ said Mrs Harter sharply.
‘Yes, why?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Harter.
But she was startled all the same. That room had been her husband’s dressing-room.
That same evening, Charles again being absent, Mrs Harter sat listening to the wireless with feverish impatience. If for the third time she heard the mysterious voice, it would prove to her finally and without a shadow of doubt that she was really in communication with some other world.
Although her heart beat faster, she was not surprised when the same break occurred, and after the usual interval of deathly silence the faint far-away Irish voice spoke once more.
‘Mary–you are prepared now…On Friday I shall come for you…Friday at half past nine…Do not be afraid–there will be no pain…Be ready…’
Then almost cutting short the last word, the music of the orchestra broke out again, clamorous and discordant.
Mrs Harter sat very still for a minute or two. Her face had gone white and she looked blue and pinched round the lips.
Presently she got up and sat down at her writing desk. In a somewhat shaky hand she wrote the following lines:
Tonight, at 9.15, I have distinctly heard the voice of my dead husband. He told me that he would come for me on Friday night at 9.30. If I should die on that day and at that hour I should like the facts made known so as to prove beyond question the possibility of communicating with the spirit world.
Mary Harter.
Mrs Harter read over what she had written, enclosed it in an envelope and addressed the envelope. Then she rang the bell which was promptly answered by Elizabeth. Mrs Harter got up from her desk and gave the note she had just written to the old woman.
‘Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘if I should die on Friday night I should like that note given to Dr Meynell. No.’–as Elizabeth appeared to be about to protest–‘do not argue with me. You have often told me you believe in premonitions. I have a premonition now. There is one thing more. I have left you in my will £50. I should like you to have £100. If I am not able to go to the bank myself