Agatha Christie: Peril at End House

'The dear sweet girl,' murmured Mrs Croft, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. 'I wish she could look down and see us now. Perhaps she does-who knows?'

'Perhaps,' agreed Poirot.

Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him. He looked round.

'An idea! We are all here seated round a table. Let us hold a séance.'

'A séance?' said Mrs Croft, somewhat shocked. 'But surely-'

'Yes, yes, it will be most interesting. Hastings, here, has pronounced mediumistic powers.' (Why fix on me, I thought.) 'To get through a message from the other world-the opportunity is unique! I feel the conditions are propitious. You feel the same, Hastings.'

'Yes,' I said resolutely, playing up.

'Good. I knew it. Quick, the lights.'

In another minute he had risen and switched them off. The whole thing had been rushed on the company before they had had the energy to protest had they wanted to do so. As a matter of fact they were, I think, still dazed with astonishment over the will.

The room was not quite dark. The curtains were drawn back and the window was open for it was a hot night, and through those windows came a faint light. After a minute or two, as we sat in silence, I began to be able to make out the faint outlines of the furniture. I wondered very much what I was supposed to do and cursed Poirot heartily for not having given me my instructions beforehand.

However, I closed my eyes and breathed in a rather stertorous manner.

Presently Poirot rose and tiptoed to my chair. Then returning to his own, he murmured.

'Yes, he is already in a trance. Soon-things will begin to happen.'

There is something about sitting in the dark, waiting, that fills one with unbearable apprehension. I know that I myself was a prey to nerves and so, I was sure, was everyone else. And yet I had at least an idea of what was about to happen. I knew the one vital fact that no one else knew.

And yet, in spite of all that, my heart leapt into my mouth as I saw the dining-room door slowly opening.

It did so quite soundlessly (it must have been oiled) and the effect was horribly grisly. It swung slowly open and for a minute or two that was all. With its opening a cold blast of air seemed to enter the room. It was, I suppose, a common or garden draught owing to the open window, but it felt like the icy chill mentioned in all the ghost stories I have ever read.

And then we all saw it! Framed in the doorway was a white shadowy figure. Nick Buckley…

She advanced slowly and noiselessly-with a kind of floating ethereal motion that certainly conveyed the impression of nothing human…

I realized then what an actress the world had missed. Nick had wanted to play a part at End House. Now she was playing it, and I felt convinced that she was enjoying herself to the core. She did it perfectly.

She floated forward into the room-and the silence was broken.

There was a gasping cry from the invalid chair beside me. A kind of gurgle from Mr Croft. A startled oath from Challenger. Charles Vyse drew back his chair, I think. Lazarus leaned forward. Frederica alone made no sound or movement.

And then a scream rent the room. Ellen sprang up from her chair.

'It's her!' she shrieked. 'She's come back. She's walking! Them that's murdered always walks. It's her! It's her!'

And then, with a click the lights went on.

I saw Poirot standing by them, the smile of the ringmaster on his face. Nick stood in the middle of the room in her white draperies.

It was Frederica who spoke first. She stretched out an unbelieving hand-touched her friend.

'Nick,' she said. 'You're-you're real!' It was almost a whisper. Nick laughed. She advanced.

'Yes,' she said. 'I'm real enough. Thank you so much for what you did for my father, Mrs Croft. But I'm afraid you won't be able to enjoy the benefit of that will just yet.'

'Oh, my God,' gasped Mrs Croft. 'Oh, my God.' She twisted to and fro in her chair. 'Take me away, Bert. Take me away. It was all a joke, my dear-all a joke, that's all it was. Honest.'

'A queer sort of joke,' said Nick.

The door had opened again and a man had entered so quietly that I had not heard him. To my surprise I saw that it was Japp. He exchanged a quick nod with Poirot as though satisfying him of something. Then his face suddenly lit up and he took a step forward towards the squirming figure in the invalid chair.

'Hello-ello-ello,' he said. 'What's this? An old friend! Milly Merton, I declare! And at your old tricks again, my dear.'

He turned round in an explanatory way to the company disregarding Mrs Croft's shrill protests.

'Cleverest forger we've ever had, Milly Merton. We knew there had been an accident to the car they made their last getaway in. But there! Even an injury to the spine wouldn't keep Milly from her tricks. She's an artist, she is!'

'Was that will a forgery?' said Vyse. He spoke in tones of amazement.

'Of course it was a forgery,' said Nick scornfully. 'You don't think I'd make a silly will like that, do you? I left you End House, Charles, and everything else to Frederica.'

She crossed as she spoke and stood by her friend, and just at that moment it happened!

A spurt of flame from the window and the hiss of a bullet. Then another and the sound of a groan and a fall outside…

And Frederica on her feet with a thin trickle of blood running down her arm…

It was all so sudden that for a moment no one knew what had happened.

Then, with a violent exclamation, Poirot ran to the window. Challenger was with him.

A moment later they reappeared, carrying with them the limp body of a man. As they lowered him carefully into a big leather armchair and his face came into view, I uttered a cry.

'The face-the face at the window…'

It was the man I had seen looking in on us the previous evening. I recognized him at once. I realized that when I had said he was hardly human I had exaggerated as Poirot had accused me of doing.

Yet there was something about his face that justified my impression. It was a lost face-the face of one removed from ordinary humanity.

White, weak, depraved-it seemed a mere mask-as though the spirit within had fled long ago.

Down the side of it there trickled a stream of blood.

Frederica came slowly forward till she stood by the chair.

Poirot intercepted her.

'You are hurt, Madame?'

She shook her head.

'The bullet grazed my shoulder-that is all.'

She put him aside with a gentle hand and bent down.

The man's eyes opened and he saw her looking down at him.

'I've done for you this time, I hope,' he said in a low vicious snarl, and then, his voice changing suddenly till it sounded like a child's, 'Oh! Freddie, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. You've always been so decent to me…'

'It's all right-'

She knelt down beside him.

'I didn't mean-'

His head dropped. The sentence was never finished.

Frederica looked up at Poirot.

'Yes, Madame, he is dead,' he said, gently.

She rose slowly from her knees and stood looking down at him. With one hand she touched his forehead-pitifully, it seemed. Then she sighed and turned to the rest of us.

'He was my husband,' she said, quietly.

'J.,' I murmured.

Poirot caught my remark, and nodded a quick assent.

'Yes,' he said softly. 'Always I felt that there was a J. I said so from the beginning, did I not?'

'He was my husband,' said Frederica again. Her voice was terribly tired. She sank into a chair that Lazarus brought for her. 'I might as well tell you everything-now.'

'He was-completely debased. He was a drug fiend. He taught me to take drugs. I have been fighting the habit ever since I left him. I think-at last-I am nearly cured. But it has been difficult. Oh! so horribly difficult. Nobody knows how difficult!'