Collins Chillers. Агата Кристи
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She was playing the air that I had heard Annette sing in Paris. You understand, Messieurs, it gave me quite a turn. And then, hearing me, she broke off suddenly and looked round at me, her eyes full of mockery and intelligence. For a moment I thought—Well, I will not tell you what I thought.
‘“Tiens!” she said. “So it is you—Monsieur Raoul.”
‘I cannot describe the way she said it. To Annette I had never ceased to be Raoul. But Felicie, since we had met as grown-ups, always addressed me as Monsieur Raoul. But the way she said it now was different—as though the Monsieur, slightly stressed, was somehow very amusing.
‘“Why, Felicie,” I stammered. “You look quite different today.”
‘“Do I?” she said reflectively. “It is odd, that. But do not be so solemn, Raoul—decidedly I shall call you Raoul—did we not play together as children?—Life was made for laughter. Let us talk of the poor Annette—she who is dead and buried. Is she in Purgatory, I wonder, or where?”
‘And she hummed a snatch of song—untunefully enough, but the words caught my attention.
‘“Felicie,” I cried. “You speak Italian?”
‘“Why not, Raoul? I am not as stupid as I pretend to be, perhaps.” She laughed at my mystification.
‘“I don’t understand—” I began.
‘“But I will tell you. I am a very fine actress, though no one suspects it. I can play many parts—and play them very well.”
‘She laughed again and ran quickly out of the room before I could stop her.
‘I saw her again before I left. She was asleep in an armchair. She was snoring heavily. I stood and watched her, fascinated, yet repelled. Suddenly she woke with a start. Her eyes, dull and lifeless, met mine.
‘“Monsieur Raoul,” she muttered mechanically.
‘“Yes, Felicie, I am going now. Will you play to me again before I go?”
‘“I? Play? You are laughing at me, Monsieur Raoul.”
‘“Don’t you remember playing to me this morning?”
‘She shook her head.
‘“I play? How can a poor girl like me play?”
‘She paused for a minute as though in thought, then beckoned me nearer.
‘“Monsieur Raoul, there are strange things going on in this house! They play tricks upon you. They alter the clocks. Yes, yes, I know what I am saying. And it is all her doing.”
‘“Whose doing?” I asked, startled.
‘“That Annette’s. That wicked one’s. When she was alive she always tormented me. Now that she is dead, she comes back from the dead to torment me.”
‘I stared at Felicie. I could see now that she was in an extremity of terror, her eyes staring from her head.
‘“She is bad, that one. She is bad, I tell you. She would take the bread from your mouth, the clothes from your back, the soul from your body …”
‘She clutched me suddenly.
‘“I am afraid, I tell you—afraid. I hear her voice—not in my ear—no, not in my ear. Here, in my head—” She tapped her forehead. “She will drive me away—drive me away altogether, and then what shall I do, what will become of me?”
‘Her voice rose almost to a shriek. She had in her eyes the look of the terrified brute beast at bay …
‘Suddenly she smiled, a pleasant smile, full of cunning, with something in it that made me shiver.
‘“If it should come to it, Monsieur Raoul, I am very strong with my hands—very strong with my hands.”
‘I had never noticed her hands particularly before. I looked at them now and shuddered in spite of myself. Squat brutal fingers, and as Felicie had said, terribly strong … I cannot explain to you the nausea that swept over me. With hands such as these her father must have strangled her mother …
‘That was the last time I ever saw Felicie Bault. Immediately afterwards I went abroad—to South America. I returned from there two years after her death. Something I had read in the newspapers of her life and sudden death. I have heard fuller details tonight—from you—gentlemen! Felicie 3 and Felicie 4—I wonder? She was a good actress, you know!’
The train suddenly slackened speed. The man in the corner sat erect and buttoned his overcoat more closely.
‘What is your theory?’ asked the lawyer, leaning forward.
‘I can hardly believe—’ began Canon Parfitt, and stopped.
The doctor said nothing. He was gazing steadily at Raoul Letardeau.
‘The clothes from your back, the soul from your body,’ quoted the Frenchman lightly. He stood up. ‘I say to you, Messieurs, that the history of Felicie Bault is the history of Annette Ravel. You did not know her, gentlemen. I did. She was very fond of life …’
His hand on the door, ready to spring out, he turned suddenly and bending down tapped Canon Parfitt on the chest.
‘M. le docteur over there, he said just now, that all this’—his hand smote the Canon’s stomach, and the Canon winced—‘was only a residence. Tell me, if you find a burglar in your house what do you do? Shoot him, do you not?’
‘No,’ cried the Canon. ‘No, indeed—I mean—not in this country.’
But he spoke the last words to empty air. The carriage door banged.
The clergyman, the lawyer and the doctor were alone. The fourth corner was vacant.
‘And now, Dr Pender, what are you going to tell us?’
The old clergyman smiled gently.
‘My life has been passed in quiet places,’ he said. ‘Very few eventful happenings have come my way. Yet once, when I was a young man, I had one very strange and tragic experience.’
‘Ah!’ said Joyce Lemprière encouragingly.
‘I have never forgotten it,’ continued the clergyman. ‘It made a profound impression on me at the time, and to this day by a slight effort of memory I can feel again the awe and horror of that terrible moment when I saw a man stricken to death by apparently no mortal agency.’
‘You make me feel quite creepy, Pender,’ complained Sir Henry.
‘It made me feel creepy, as you call it,’ replied the other. ‘Since then I have never laughed at the people who use the word atmosphere. There is such a thing. There are certain places imbued and saturated with good or evil influences which can make their power felt.’
‘That house, The Larches, is a very unhappy one,’ remarked Miss Marple. ‘Old Mr Smithers lost all his money and had to leave it, then the Carslakes took it and Johnny Carslake fell downstairs and broke his leg and Mrs Carslake had to go away to the south of France for her health, and now the Burdens have got it and I hear that poor Mr Burden has got to have an operation almost immediately.’
‘There is, I think, rather too much superstition about such matters,’ said Mr Petherick. ‘A lot of damage is done to property by foolish reports heedlessly circulated.’
‘I have known one or two “ghosts” that have had a very robust personality,’ remarked Sir Henry with a chuckle.
‘I think,’ said Raymond, ‘we should allow Dr Pender to go on with his story.’
Joyce got up and switched