Agatha Christie - The Pale Horse

"But in actual fact he could simply have been following him?"

"That's what I'm sure he was doing now – not that I thought anything of it at the time. What with the fog coming up, I lost sight of them both almost at once."

"Can you describe this man at all?"

Lejeune's voice was not confident. He was prepared for the usual nondescript characteristics. But Mr Osborne was made of different mettle from Tony of Tony's Place.

"Well, yes, I think so," he said with complacency. "He was a tall man -"

"Tall? How tall?"

"Well – five eleven to six feet, at least, I'd say. Though he might have seemed taller than he was because he was very thin. Sloping shoulders he had, and a definite Adam's apple. Grew his hair rather long under his Homburg. A great beak of a nose. Very noticeable. Naturally I couldn't say as to the colour of his eyes. I saw him in profile as you'll appreciate. Perhaps fifty as to age. I'm going by the walk. A youngish man moves quite differently."

Lejeune made a mental survey of the distance across the street, then back again to Mr Osborne, and wondered. He wondered very much…

A description such as that given by the chemist could mean one of two things. It could spring from an unusually vivid imagination – he had known many examples of that kind, mostly from women. They built up a fancy portrait of what they thought a murderer ought to look like. Such fancy portraits, however, usually contained some decidedly spurious details – such as rolling eyes, beetle brows, ape-like jaws, snarling ferocity. The description given by Mr Osborne sounded like the description of a real person. In that case it was possible that here was the witness in a million – a man who observed accurately and in detail and who would be quite unshakable as to what he had seen.

Again Lejeune considered the distance across the street. His eyes rested thoughtfully on the chemist.

He asked: "Do you think you would recognize this man if you saw him again?"

"Oh yes," Mr Osborne was supremely confident. "I never forget a face. It's one of my hobbies. I've always said that if one of these wife murderers came into my place and bought a nice little package of arsenic, I'd be able to swear to him at the trial. I've always had my hopes that something like that would happen one day."

"But it hasn't happened yet?"

Mr Osborne admitted sadly that it hadn't.

"And not likely to now," he added wistfully. "I'm selling this business. Getting a very nice price for it, and retiring to Bournemouth."

"It looks a nice place you've got here."

"It's got class," said Mr Osborne, a note of pride in his voice. "Nearly a hundred years we've been established here. My grandfather and my father before me. A good old-fashioned family business. Not that I saw it that way as a boy. Stuffy, I thought it. Like many a lad, I was bitten by the stage. Felt sure I could act. My father didn't try to stop me. 'See what you can make of it, my boy,' he said. 'You'll find you're no Sir Henry Irving.' And how right he was! Very wise man, my father. Eighteen months or so in repertory and back I came into the business. Took a pride in it. I did. We've always kept good solid stuff. Old-fashioned. But quality. But nowadays -" he shook his head sadly – "disappointing for a pharmacist. All this toilet stuff. You've got to keep it. Half the profits come from all that muck. Powder and lipstick and face creams; and hair shampoos and fancy sponge bags. I don't touch the stuff myself. I have a young lady behind the counter who attends to all that. No, it's not what it used to be, having a chemist's establishment. However, I've a good sum put by, and I'm getting a very good price, and I've made a down payment on a very nice little bungalow near Bournemouth."

He added:

"Retire while you can still enjoy life. That's my motto. I've got plenty of hobbies. Butterflies, for instance. And a bit of bird watching now and then. And gardening – plenty of good books on how to start a garden. And there's travel. I might go on one of these cruises – see foreign parts before it's too late."

Lejeune rose.

"Well, I wish you the best of luck," he said. "And if before you actually leave these parts, you should catch sight of that man -"

"I'll let you know at once, Mr Lejeune. Naturally. You can count on me. It will be a pleasure. As I've told you, I've a very good eye for a face. I shall be on the lookout. On the qui vive, as they say. Oh yes. You can rely on me. It will be a pleasure."

I came out of the Old Vic, my friend Hermia Redcliffe beside me. We had been to see a performance of Macbeth. It was raining hard. As we ran across the street to the spot where I had parked my car, Hermia remarked unjustly that whenever one went to the Old Vic it always rained.

"It's just one of those things."

I dissented from this view. I said that, unlike sundials, she remembered only the rainy hours.

"Now at Glyndebourne," went on Hermia as I let in the clutch, "I've always been lucky. I can't imagine it other than perfection; the music – and the glorious flower borders – the white flower border in particular."

We discussed Glyndebourne and its music for a while, and then Hermia remarked:

"We're not going to Dover for breakfast, are we?"

" Dover? What an extraordinary idea. I thought we'd go to the Fantasie. One needs some really good food and drink after all the magnificent blood and gloom of Macbeth. Shakespeare always makes me ravenous."

"Yes. So does Wagner. Smoked salmon sandwiches at Covent Garden in the intervals are never enough to stay the pangs. As to why Dover, it's because you're driving in that direction."

"One has to go round," I explained.

"But you've overdone going round. You're well away on the Old (or is it the New?) Kent Road."

I took stock of my surroundings and had to admit that Hermia, as usual, was quite right.

"I always get muddled here," I said in apology.

"It is confusing," Hermia agreed. "Round and round Waterloo Station."

Having at last successfully negotiated Westminster Bridge we resumed our conversation, discussing the production of Macbeth that we had just been viewing. My friend Hermia Redcliffe was a handsome young woman of twenty-eight. Cast in the heroic mould, she had an almost flawless Greek profile, and a mass of dark chestnut hair coiled on the nape of her neck. My sister always referred to her as "Mark's girlfriend" with an intonation of inverted commas about the term that never failed to annoy me.

The Fantasie gave us a pleasant welcome and showed us to a small table against the crimson velvet wall. The Fantasie is deservedly popular, and the tables are close together. As we sat down, our neighbours at the next table greeted us cheerfully. David Ardingly was a lecturer in History at Oxford. He introduced his companion, a very pretty girl with a fashionable hairdo, all ends, bits and pieces sticking out at improbable angles on the crown of her head. Strange to say, it suited her. She had enormous blue eyes and a mouth that was usually half open. She was, as all David's girls were known to be, extremely silly. David, who was a remarkably clever young man, could only find relaxation with girls who were practically half-witted.

"This is my particular pet, Poppy," he explained. "Meet Mark and Hermia. They're very serious and highbrow and you must try and live up to them. We've just come from Do It for Kicks. Lovely show! I bet you two are straight from Shakespeare or a revival of Ibsen."

"Macbeth at the Old Vic," said Hermia.

"Ah, what do you think of Batterson's production?"

"I liked it," said Hermia. "The lighting was very interesting. And I've never seen the banquet scene so well managed."

"Ah, but what about the witches?"