The Hound of Death. Агата Кристи
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really got at the truth of the matter—hadn’t time. But miracles were all the rage just then—angels at Mons and all that. I wrote up the thing, put in a bit of sob stuff, and pulled the religious stop out well, and sent it to my paper. It went down very well in the States. They were liking that kind of thing just then.
‘But (I don’t know if you’ll understand this) in writing, I got kinder interested. I felt I’d like to know what really had happened. There was nothing to see at the spot itself. Two walls still left standing, and on one of them was a black powder mark that was the exact shape of a great hound. The peasants round about were scared to death of that mark. They called it the Hound of Death and they wouldn’t pass that way after dark.
‘Superstition’s always interesting. I felt I’d like to see the lady who worked the stunt. She hadn’t perished, it seemed. She’d gone to England with a batch of other refugees. I took the trouble to trace her. I found she’d been sent to Trearne, Folbridge, Cornwall.’
I nodded.
‘My sister took in a lot of Belgian refugees the beginning of the war. About twenty.’
‘Well, I always meant, if I had time, to look up the lady. I wanted to hear her own account of the disaster. Then, what with being busy and one thing and another, it slipped my memory. Cornwall’s a bit out of the way anyhow. In fact, I’d forgotten the whole thing till your mentioning Folbridge just now brought it back.’
‘I must ask my sister,’ I said. ‘She may have heard something about it. Of course, the Belgians have all been repatriated long ago.’
‘Naturally. All the same, in case your sister does know anything I’ll be glad if you’d pass it on to me.’
‘Of course I will,’ I said heartily.
And that was that.
It was the second day after my arrival at Trearne that the story recurred to me. My sister and I were having tea on the terrace.
‘Kitty,’ I said, ‘didn’t you have a nun among your Belgians?’
‘You don’t mean Sister Marie Angelique, do you?’
‘Possibly I do,’ I said cautiously. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘Oh! my dear, she was the most uncanny creature. She’s still here, you know.’
‘What? In the house?’
‘No, no, in the village. Dr Rose—you remember Dr Rose?’
I shook my head.
‘I remember an old man of about eighty-three.’
‘Dr Laird. Oh! he died. Dr Rose has only been here a few years. He’s quite young and very keen on new ideas. He took the most enormous interest in Sister Marie Angelique. She has hallucinations and things, you know, and apparently is most frightfully interesting from a medical point of view. Poor thing, she’d nowhere to go—and really was in my opinion quite potty—only impressive, if you know what I mean—well, as I say, she’d nowhere to go, and Dr Rose very kindly fixed her up in the village. I believe he’s writing a monograph or whatever it is that doctors write, about her.’
She paused and then said:
‘But what do you know about her?’
‘I heard a rather curious story.’
I passed on the story as I had received it from Ryan. Kitty was very much interested.
‘She looks the sort of person who could blast you—if you know what I mean,’ she said.
‘I really think,’ I said, my curiosity heightened, ‘that I must see this young woman.’
‘Do. I’d like to know what you think of her. Go and see Dr Rose first. Why not walk down to the village after tea?’
I accepted the suggestion.
I found Dr Rose at home and introduced myself. He seemed a pleasant young man, yet there was something about his personality that rather repelled me. It was too forceful to be altogether agreeable.
The moment I mentioned Sister Marie Angelique he stiffened to attention. He was evidently keenly interested. I gave him Ryan’s account of the matter.
‘Ah!’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That explains a great deal.’
He looked up quickly at me and went on.
‘The case is really an extraordinarily interesting one. The woman arrived here having evidently suffered some severe mental shock. She was in a state of great mental excitement also. She was given to hallucinations of a most startling character. Her personality is most unusual. Perhaps you would like to come with me and call upon her. She is really well worth seeing.’
I agreed readily.
We set out together. Our objective was a small cottage on the outskirts of the village. Folbridge is a most picturesque place. It lies at the mouth of the river Fol mostly on the east bank, the west bank is too precipitous for building, though a few cottages do cling to the cliffside there. The doctor’s own cottage was perched on the extreme edge of the cliff on the west side. From it you looked down on the big waves lashing against the black rocks.
The little cottage to which we were now proceeding lay inland out of sight of the sea.
‘The district nurse lives here,’ explained Dr Rose. ‘I have arranged for Sister Marie Angelique to board with her. It is just as well that she should be under skilled supervision.’
‘Is she quite normal in her manner?’ I asked curiously.
‘You can judge for yourself in a minute,’ he replied, smiling.
The district nurse, a dumpy pleasant little body, was just setting out on her bicycle when we arrived.
‘Good evening, nurse, how’s your patient?’ called out the doctor.
‘She’s much as usual, doctor. Just sitting there with her hands folded and her mind far away. Often enough she’ll not answer when I speak to her, though for the matter of that it’s little enough English she understands even now.’
Rose nodded, and as the nurse bicycled away, he went up to the cottage door, rapped sharply and entered.
Sister Marie Angelique was lying in a long chair near the window. She turned her head as we entered.
It was a strange face—pale, transparent looking, with enormous eyes. There seemed to be an infinitude of tragedy in those eyes.
‘Good evening, my sister,’ said the doctor in French.
‘Good evening, M. le docteur.’
‘Permit me to introduce a friend, Mr Anstruther.’
I bowed and she inclined her head with a faint smile.
‘And how are you today?’ inquired the doctor, sitting down beside her.
‘I am much the same as usual.’ She paused and then went on. ‘Nothing seems real to me. Are they days that pass—or months—or years? I hardly know. Only my dreams seem real to me.’
‘You still dream a lot, then?’
‘Always—always—and, you understand?—the dreams seem more real than life.’
‘You dream of your own country—of Belgium?’
She shook her head.
‘No. I dream of a country that never existed—never. But you know this, M. le docteur. I have told you many times.’ She stopped and then said abruptly: ‘But perhaps this gentleman is also a doctor—a doctor perhaps for the diseases of the brain?’
‘No, no.’ Rose said reassuring, but as he smiled I noticed how extraordinarily pointed his canine teeth were, and it occurred to me that there was something wolf-like about the man. He went on:
‘I