The Hound of Death - Agatha Christie [60]
I bowed my head silently.
We were driving up close to the house now. On our right the green lawn sloped gently away. And suddenly I saw a most charming picture. A young girl was coming slowly across the lawn to the house. She wore no hat, and the sunlight enhanced the gleam of her glorious golden hair. She carried a great basket of roses, and a beautiful grey Persian cat twined itself lovingly round her feet as she walked.
I looked at Settle interrogatively.
‘That is Miss Patterson,’ he said.
‘Poor girl,’ I said, ‘poor girl. What a picture she makes with the roses and her grey cat.’
I heard a faint sound and looked quickly round at my friend. The reins had slipped out of his fingers, and his face was quite white.
‘What’s the matter?’ I exclaimed.
He recovered himself with an effort.
In a few moments more we had arrived, and I was following him into the green drawing-room, where tea was laid out.
A middle-aged but still beautiful woman rose as we entered and came forward with an outstretched hand.
‘This is my friend, Dr Carstairs, Lady Carmichael.’
I cannot explain the instinctive wave of repulsion that swept over me as I took the proffered hand of this charming and stately woman who moved with the dark and languorous grace that recalled Settle’s surmise of Oriental blood.
‘It is very good of you to come, Dr Carstairs,’ she said in a low musical voice, ‘and to try and help us in our great trouble.’
I made some trivial reply and she handed me my tea.
In a few minutes the girl I had seen on the lawn outside entered the room. The cat was no longer with her, but she still carried the basket of roses in her hand. Settle introduced me and she came forward impulsively.
‘Oh! Dr Carstairs, Dr Settle has told us so much about you. I have a feeling that you will be able to do something for poor Arthur.’
Miss Patterson was certainly a very lovely girl, though her cheeks were pale, and her frank eyes were outlined with dark circles.
‘My dear young lady,’ I said reassuringly, ‘indeed you must not despair. These cases of lost memory, or secondary personality, are often of very short duration. At any minute the patient may return to his full powers.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe in this being a second personality,’ she said. ‘This isn’t Arthur at all. It is no personality of his. It isn’t him. I–’
‘Phyllis, dear,’ said Lady Carmichael’s soft voice, ‘here is your tea.’
And something in the expression of her eyes as they rested on the girl told me that Lady Carmichael had little love for her prospective daughter-in-law.
Miss Patterson declined the tea, and I said, to ease the conversation: ‘Isn’t the pussy cat going to have a saucer of milk?’
She looked at me rather strangely.
‘The–pussy cat?’
‘Yes, your companion of a few moments ago in the garden–’
I was interrupted by a crash. Lady Carmichael had upset the tea kettle, and the hot water was pouring all over the floor. I remedied the matter, and Phyllis Patterson looked questioningly at Settle. He rose.
‘Would you like to see your patient now, Carstairs?’
I followed him at once. Miss Patterson came with us. We went upstairs and Settle took a key from his pocket.
‘He sometimes has a fit of wandering,’ he explained. ‘So I usually lock the door when I’m away from the house.’
He turned the key in the lock and went in.
The young man was sitting on the window seat where the last rays of the westerly sun struck broad and yellow. He sat curiously still, rather hunched together, with every muscle relaxed. I thought at first that he was quite unaware of our presence until I suddenly saw that, under immovable lids, he was watching us closely. His eyes dropped as they met mine, and he blinked. But he did not move.
‘Come, Arthur,’ said Settle cheerfully. ‘Miss Patterson and a friend of mine have come to see you.’
But the young fellow in the window seat only blinked. Yet a moment or two later I saw him watching us again–furtively and secretly.
‘Want your tea?’ asked Settle, still