The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [32]
Hermia shrugged her shoulders.
“Perhaps.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I think your imagination is running away with you a little, Mark. I daresay your middle-aged pussies are quite genuine in believing it all themselves. I’m sure they’re very nasty old pussies!”
“But not really sinister?”
“Really, Mark, how can they be?”
I was silent for a moment. My mind wavered—turning from light to darkness and back again. The darkness of the Pale Horse, the light that Hermia represented. Good everyday sensible light—the electric light bulb firmly fixed in its socket, illuminating all the dark corners. Nothing there—nothing at all—just the everyday objects you always find in a room. But yet—but yet—Hermia’s light, clear as it might make things seem, was after all an artificial light….
My mind swung back, resolutely, obstinately….
“I want to look into it all, Hermia. Get to the bottom of what’s going on.”
“I agree. I think you should. It might be quite interesting. In fact, really rather fun.”
“Not fun!” I said sharply.
I went on:
“I wanted to ask if you’d help me, Hermia.”
“Help you? How?”
“Help me to investigate. Get right down to what this is all about.”
“But Mark dear, just at present I’m most terribly busy. There’s my article for the Journal. And the Byzantium thing. And I’ve promised two of my students—”
Her voice went on reasonably—sensibly— I hardly listened.
“I see,” I said. “You’ve too much on your plate already.”
“That’s it.” Hermia was clearly relieved at my acquiescence. She smiled at me. Once again I was struck by her expression of indulgence. Such indulgence as a mother might show over her little son’s absorption in his new toy.
Damn it all, I wasn’t a little boy. I wasn’t looking for a mother—certainly not that kind of a mother. My own mother had been charming and feckless; and everyone in sight, including her son, had adored looking after her.
I considered Hermia dispassionately across the table.
So handsome, so mature, so intellectual, so well read! And so—how could one put it? So— yes, so damnably dull!
II
The next morning I tried to get hold of Jim Corrigan—without success. I left a message, however, that I’d be in between six and seven, if he could come for a drink. He was a busy man, I knew, and I doubted if he would be able to come at such short notice, but he turned up all right at about ten minutes to seven. While I was getting him a whisky he wandered round looking at my pictures and books. He remarked finally that he wouldn’t have minded being a Mogul Emperor himself instead of a hard-pressed overworked police surgeon.
“Though, I daresay,” he remarked as he settled down in a chair, “that they suffered a good deal from woman trouble. At least I escape that.”
“You’re not married, then?”
“No fear. And no more are you, I should say, from the comfortable mess in which you live. A wife would tidy all that up in next to no time.”
I told him that I didn’t think women were as bad as he made out.
I took my drink to the chair opposite him and began:
“You must wonder why I wanted to get hold of you so urgently, but as a matter of fact something has come up that may have a bearing on what we were discussing the last time we met.”
“What was that?—oh, of course. The Father Gorman business.”
“Yes—But first, does the phrase The Pale Horse mean anything to you?”
“The Pale Horse… The Pale Horse—No, I don’t think so—why?”
“Because I think it’s possible that it might have a connection with that list of names you showed me—I’ve been down in the country with friends—at a place called Much Deeping, and they took me to an old pub, or what was once a pub, called the Pale Horse.”
“Wait a bit! Much Deeping? Much Deeping… Is it anywhere near Bournemouth?”
“It’s about fifteen miles or so from Bournemouth.”
“I suppose you didn’t come across anyone called Venables down there?”
“Certainly I did.”
“You did?” Corrigan sat up in some excitement. “You certainly have a knack of going places! What is he like?”
“He’s a most remarkable man.”
“He is, is he? Remarkable in what way?”
“Principally in