Agatha Christie - The hound of death

"'Always - always. But of what use could I be to her? Let us not talk of it. She is dead - she so brilliant, so full of burning life...'"Miss Slater was a sympathetic woman. She went on to talk of other things. She was very worried about Felicie, so she told me. The girl had had a queer sort of nervous breakdown and ever since she had been very strange in manner."'You know,' said Miss Slater, after a momentary hesitation, 'that she is learning the piano?'"I did not know it and was very much surprised to hear it. Felicie - learning the piano! I would have declared the girl would not know one note from another."'She has talent, they say,' continued Miss Slater. 'I can't understand it. I have always put her down as - well, Raoul, you know yourself, she was always a stupid girl.'"I nodded."'She is so strange in her manner I don't know what to make of it.'"A few minutes later I entered the Salle de Lecture. Felicie was playing the piano. 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 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 for me again before I go?'"'I? Play? You are laughing at me, Monsieur Raoul.'"'Don't you remember playing for 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 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 starting 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 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. 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. S.O.S.

"Ah!" said Mr Dinsmead appreciatively. He stepped back and surveyed the round table with approval. The firelight gleamed on the coarse white tablecloth, the knives and forks, and the other table appointments."Is - is everything ready?" asked Mrs Dinsmead hesitatingly. She was a little faded woman, with a colorless face, meager hair scraped back from her forehead, and a perpetually nervous manner."Everything's ready," said her husband with a kind of ferocious geniality.

He was a big man, with stooping shoulders and a broad red face. He had little pig's eyes that twinkled under his bushy brows, and a big jowl devoid of hair."Lemonade?" suggested Mrs Dinsmead, almost in a whisper.

Her husband shook his head."Tea. Much better in every way. Look at the weather, streaming and blowing. A nice cup of hot tea is what's needed for supper on an evening like this."He winked facetiously, then fell to surveying the table again."A good dish of eggs, cold corned beef, and bread and cheese. That's my order for supper. So come along and get it ready, Mother. Charlotte's in the kitchen waiting to give you a hand."Mrs Dinsmead rose, carefully winding up the ball of her knitting."She's grown a very good-looking girl," she murmured."Ah!" said Mr Dinsmead. "The mortal image of her ma! So go along with you, and don't let's waste any more time."He strolled about the room humming to himself for a minute or two. Once he approached the window and looked out."Wild weather," he murmured to himself. "Not much likelihood of our having visitors tonight."Then he too left the room.

About ten minutes later Mrs Dinsmead entered bearing a dish of fried eggs. Her two daughters followed, bringing the rest of the provisions. Mr Dinsmead and his son Johnnie brought up the rear. The former seated himself at the head of the table."And for what we are to receive, et cetera," he remarked humorously. "And blessings on the man who first thought of tinned foods. What would we do, I should like to know, miles from anywhere, if we hadn't a tin now and then to fall back upon when the butcher forgets his weekly call?"He proceeded to carve corned beef dexterously."I wonder who ever thought of building a house like this, miles from anywhere," said his daughter Magdalen, pettishly. "We never see a soul."