While the Light Lasts - Agatha Christie [6]
‘She’s all right,’ said Segrave. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her.’
His voice sounded hoarse and unnatural in his own ears.
‘One never knows, her mother was quite all right when she was young. And she wasn’t just–peculiar, you know. She was quite raving mad. It’s a dreadful thing–insanity.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s a most awful Thing.’
He knew now what it was that had looked at him from the window of the House.
Maisie was still talking on. He interrupted her brusquely.
‘I really came to say goodbye–and to thank you for all your kindness.’
‘You’re not–going away?’
There was alarm in her voice.
He smiled sideways at her–a crooked smile, pathetic and attractive.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘To Africa.’
‘Africa!’
Maisie echoed the word blankly. Before she could pull herself together he had shaken her by the hand and gone. She was left standing there, her hands clenched by her sides, an angry spot of colour in each cheek.
Below, on the doorstep, John Segrave came face to face with Allegra coming in from the street. She was in black, her face white and lifeless. She took one glance at him then drew him into a small morning room.
‘Maisie told you,’ she said. ‘You know?’
He nodded.
‘But what does it matter? You’re all right. It–it leaves some people out.’
She looked at him sombrely, mournfully.
‘You are all right,’ he repeated.
‘I don’t know,’ she almost whispered it. ‘I don’t know. I told you–about my dreams. And when I play–when I’m at the piano–those others come and take hold of my hands.’
He was staring at her–paralysed. For one instant, as she spoke, something looked out from her eyes. It was gone in a flash–but he knew it. It was the Thing that had looked out from the House.
She caught his momentary recoil.
‘You see,’ she whispered. ‘You see–but I wish Maisie hadn’t told you. It takes everything from you.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes. There won’t even be the dreams left. For now–you’ll never dare to dream of the House again.’
IV
The West African sun poured down, and the heat was intense.
John Segrave continued to moan.
‘I can’t find it. I can’t find it.’
The little English doctor with the red head and the tremendous jaw, scowled down upon his patient in that bullying manner which he had made his own.
‘He’s always saying that. What does he mean?’
‘He speaks, I think, of a house, monsieur.’ The soft-voiced Sister of Charity from the Roman Catholic Mission spoke with her gentle detachment, as she too looked down on the stricken man.
‘A house, eh? Well, he’s got to get it out of his head, or we shan’t pull him through. It’s on his mind. Segrave! Segrave!’
The wandering attention was fixed. The eyes rested with recognition on the doctor’s face.
‘Look here, you’re going to pull through. I’m going to pull you through. But you’ve got to stop worrying about this house. It can’t run away, you know. So don’t bother about looking for it now.’
‘All right.’ He seemed obedient. ‘I suppose it can’t very well run away if it’s never been there at all.’
‘Of course not!’ The doctor laughed his cheery laugh. ‘Now you’ll be all right in no time.’ And with a boisterous bluntness of manner he took his departure.
Segrave lay thinking. The fever had abated for the moment, and he could think clearly and lucidly. He must find that House.
For ten years he had dreaded finding it–the thought that he might come upon it unawares had been his greatest terror. And then, he remembered, when his fears were quite lulled to rest, one day it had found him. He recalled clearly his first haunting terror, and then his sudden, his exquisite, relief. For, after all, the House was empty!
Quite empty and exquisitely peaceful. It was as he remembered it ten years before. He had not forgotten. There was a huge black furniture van moving slowly away from the House. The last tenant, of course, moving out with his goods. He went up to the men in charge of the van and spoke to