The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [14]
“I don’t see how you could produce the witches as ordinary old women,” said Hermia, reverting to David’s earlier remark. “They must have a supernatural atmosphere about them, surely.”
“Oh, but just think,” said David. “It’s rather like madness. If you have someone who raves and staggers about with straws in their hair and looks mad, it’s not frightening at all! But I remember being sent once with a message to a doctor at a mental home and I was shown into a room to wait, and there was a nice elderly lady there, sipping a glass of milk. She made some conventional remark about the weather and then suddenly she leant forward and asked in a low voice:
“‘Is it your poor child who’s buried there behind the fireplace?’ And then she nodded her head and said ‘12:10 exactly. It’s always at the same time every day. Pretend you don’t notice the blood.’
“It was the matter-of-fact way she said it that was so spine-chilling.”
“Was there really someone buried behind the fireplace?” Poppy wanted to know.
David ignored her and went on:
“Then take mediums. At one moment trances, darkened rooms, knocks and raps. Afterwards the medium sits up, pats her hair and goes home to a meal of fish and chips, just an ordinary quite jolly woman.”
“So your idea of the witches,” I said, “is three old Scottish crones with second sight—who practise their arts in secret, muttering their spells around a cauldron, conjuring up spirits, but remaining themselves just an ordinary trio of old women. Yes—it could be impressive.”
“If you could ever get any actors to play it that way,” said Hermia drily.
“You have something there,” admitted David. “Any hint of madness in the script and an actor is immediately determined to go to town on it! The same with sudden deaths. No actor can just quietly collapse and fall down dead. He has to groan, stagger, roll his eyes, gasp, clutch his heart, clutch his head, and make a terrific performance of it. Talking of performances, what did you think of Fielding’s Macbeth? Great division of opinion among the critics.”
“I thought it was terrific,” said Hermia. “That scene with the doctor, after the sleepwalking scene. ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d.’ He made clear what I’d never thought of before—that he was really ordering the doctor to kill her. And yet he loved his wife. He brought out the struggle between his fear and his love. That ‘Thou shouldst have died hereafter’ was the most poignant thing I’ve ever known.”
“Shakespeare might get a few surprises if he saw his plays acted nowadays,” I said drily.
“Burbage and Co. had already quenched a good deal of his spirit, I suspect,” said David.
Hermia murmured:
“The eternal surprise of the author at what the producer has done to him.”
“Didn’t somebody called Bacon really write Shakespeare?” asked Poppy.
“That theory is quite out of date nowadays,” said David kindly. “And what do you know of Bacon?”
“He invented gunpowder,” said Poppy triumphantly.
“You see why I love this girl?” he said. “The things she knows are always so unexpected. Francis, not Roger, my love.”
“I thought it interesting,” said Hermia, “that Fielding played the part of Third Murderer. Is there a precedent for that?”
“I believe so,” said David. “How convenient it must have been in those times,” he went on, “to be able to call up a handy murderer whenever you wanted a little job done. Fun if one could do it nowadays.”
“But it is done,” protested Hermia. “Gangsters. Hoods—or whatever you call them. Chicago and all that.”
“Ah,” said David. “But what I meant was not gangsterdom, not racketeers or Crime Barons. Just ordinary everyday folk who want to get rid of someone. That business rival; Aunt Emily, so rich and so unfortunately long-lived; that awkward husband always in the way. How convenient if you could ring up Harrods and say ‘Please send along two good murderers, will you?’”
We all laughed.
“But one can do that in a way, can’t one?” said Poppy.
We turned towards her.
“What way, poppet?” asked David.
“Well, I mean, people