The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [33]
“Corrigan interrupted me sharply—
“What?”
“He had polio some years ago. He’s paralysed from the waist down.”
Corrigan threw himself back in his chair with a look of disgust.
“That tears it! I thought it was too good to be true.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
Corrigan said, “You’ll have to meet the D.D.I. Divisional Detective-Inspector Lejeune. He’ll be interested in what you have to say. When Gorman was killed, Lejeune asked for information from anyone who had seen him in the street that night. Most of the answers were useless, as is usual. But there was a pharmacist, name of Osborne, who has a shop in those parts. He reported having seen Gorman pass his place that night, and he also saw a man who followed close after him—naturally he didn’t think anything of it at that time. But he managed to describe this chap pretty closely—seemed quite sure he’d know him again. Well, a couple of days ago Lejeune got a letter from Osborne. He’s retired, and living in Bournemouth. He’d been over to some local fête and he said he’d seen the man in question there. He was at the fête in a wheeled chair. Osborne asked who he was and was told his name was Venables.”
He looked at me questioningly. I nodded.
“Quite right,” I said. “It was Venables. He was at the fête. But he couldn’t have been the man who was walking along a street in Paddington following Father Gorman. It’s physically impossible. Osborne made a mistake.”
“He described him very meticulously. Height about six feet, a prominent beaked nose, and a noticeable Adam’s apple. Correct?”
“Yes. It fits Venables. But all the same—”
“I know. Mr. Osborne isn’t necessarily as good as he thinks he is at recognising people. Clearly he was misled by the coincidence of a chance resemblance. But it’s disturbing to have you come along shooting your mouth off about that very district—talking about some pale horse or other. What is this pale horse? Let’s have your story.”
“You won’t believe it,” I warned him. “I don’t really believe it myself.”
“Come on. Let’s have it.”
I told him of my conversation with Thyrza Grey. His reaction was immediate.
“What unutterable balderdash!”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is! What’s the matter with you, Mark? White cockerels. Sacrifices, I suppose! A medium, the local witch, and a middle-aged country spinster who can send out a death ray guaranteed lethal. It’s mad, man—absolutely mad!”
“Yes, it’s mad,” I said heavily.
“Oh! stop agreeing with me, Mark. You make me feel there’s something in it when you do that. You believe there’s something in it, don’t you?”
“Let me ask you a question first. This stuff about everybody having a secret urge or wish for death. Is there any scientific truth in that?”
Corrigan hesitated for a moment. Then he said:
“I’m not a psychiatrist. Strictly between you and me I think half these fellows are slightly barmy themselves. They’re punch drunk on theories. And they go much too far. I can tell you that the police aren’t at all fond of the expert medical witness who’s always being called in for the defence to explain away a man’s having killed some helpless old woman for the money in the till.”
“You prefer your glandular theory?”
He grinned.
“All right. All right. I’m a theorist, too. Admitted. But there’s a good physical reason behind my theory—if I can ever get at it. But all this subconscious stuff! Pah!”
“You don’t believe in it?”
“Of course I believe in it. But these chaps take it much too far. The unconscious ‘death wish’ and all that, there’s something in it, of course, but not nearly so much as they make out.”
“But there is such a thing,” I persisted.
“You’d better go and buy yourself a book on psychology and read all about it.”
“Thyrza Grey claims that she knows all there is to know.”
“Thyrza Grey!” he snorted. “What does a half-baked spinster in a country village know about mental psychology?”
“She says she knows a lot.”
“As I said before, balderdash!”
“That,” I remarked, “is what people have always said about