The Hound of Death - Agatha Christie [53]
Two balls lay on the green, Jack’s near the hole, the doctor’s some little distance away.
‘I’ve got this for it,’ said Lavington. ‘I must go for it, I suppose.’
He bent down, judging the line he should take. Jack stood rigid, his eyes glued to his watch. It was exactly twenty-five minutes past seven.
The ball ran swiftly along the grass, stopped on the edge of the hole, hesitated and dropped in.
‘Good putt,’ said Jack. His voice sounded hoarse and unlike himself…He shoved his wrist watch farther up his arm with a sigh of overwhelming relief. Nothing had happened. The spell was broken.
‘If you don’t mind waiting a minute,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have a pipe.’
They paused a while on the eighth tee. Jack filled and lit the pipe with fingers that trembled a little in spite of himself. An enormous weight seemed to have lifted from his mind.
‘Lord, what a good day it is,’ he remarked, staring at the prospect ahead of him with great contentment. ‘Go on, Lavington, your swipe.’
And then it came. Just at the very instant the doctor was hitting. A woman’s voice, high and agonized.
‘Murder–Help! Murder!’
The pipe fell from Jack’s nerveless hand, as he spun round in the direction of the sound, and then, remembering, gazed breathlessly at his companion.
Lavington was looking down the course, shading his eyes.
‘A bit short–just cleared the bunker, though, I think.’
He had heard nothing.
The world seemed to spin round with Jack. He took a step or two, lurching heavily. When he recovered himself, he was lying on the short turf, and Lavington was bending over him.
‘There, take it easy now, take it easy.’
‘What did I do?’
‘You fainted, young man–or gave a very good try at it.’
‘My God!’ said Jack, and groaned.
‘What’s the trouble? Something on your mind?’
‘I’ll tell you in one minute, but I’d like to ask you something first.’
The doctor lit his own pipe and settled himself on the bank.
‘Ask anything you like,’ he said comfortably.
‘You’ve been watching me for the last day or two. Why?’
Lavington’s eyes twinkled a little.
‘That’s rather an awkward question. A cat can look at a king, you know.’
‘Don’t put me off. I’m earnest. Why was it? I’ve a vital reason for asking.’
Lavington’s face grew serious.
‘I’ll answer you quite honestly. I recognized in you all the signs of a man labouring under a sense of acute strain, and it intrigued me what that strain could be.’
‘I can tell you that easily enough,’ said Jack bitterly. ‘I’m going mad.’
He stopped dramatically, but his statement not seeming to arouse the interest and consternation he expected, he repeated it.
‘I tell you I’m going mad.’
‘Very curious,’ murmured Lavington. ‘Very curious indeed.’
Jack felt indignant.
‘I suppose that’s all it does seem to you. Doctors are so damned callous.’
‘Come, come my young friend, you’re talking at random. To begin with, although I have taken my degree, I do not practise medicine. Strictly speaking, I am not a doctor–not a doctor of the body, that is.’
Jack looked at him keenly.
‘Or the mind?’
‘Yes, in a sense, but more truly I call myself a doctor of the soul.’
‘Oh!’
‘I perceive the disparagement in your tone, and yet we must use some word to denote the active principle which can be separated and exist independently of its fleshy home, the body. You’ve got to come to terms with the soul, you know, young man, it isn’t just a religious term invented by clergymen. But we’ll call it the mind, or the subconscious self, or any term that suits you better. You took offence at my tone just now, but I can assure you that it really did strike me as very curious that such a well-balanced and perfectly normal young man as yourself should suffer from the delusion that he was going out of his mind.’ ‘I’m out of my mind all right. Absolutely barmy.’
‘You will forgive me for saying so, but I don’t believe it.’
‘I suffer from delusions.’
‘After dinner?’
‘No, in the morning.’
‘Can’t be done,’ said the doctor, relighting his pipe which had gone out.
‘I tell you I hear things that no one