Agatha Christie - Murder is Easy

Then he lifted his eyes to the long frowning line of Ashe Ridge, and at once the unreality passed. Ashe Ridge was real; it knew strange things — witchcraft and cruelty and forgotten blood lusts and evil rites.

He startled. Two figures were walking along the side of the ridge. He recognized them easily — Bridget and Ellsworthy. The young man was gesticulating with those curious unpleasant hands of his. His head was bent to Bridget's. They looked like two figures out of a dream. One felt that their feet made no sound as they sprang cat-like from tuft to tuft. He saw her black hair stream out behind her, blown by the wind. Again that queer magic of hers held him. "Bewitched, that's what I am — betwitched," he said to himself.

He stood quite still; a queer numbed feeling spreading over him. He thought to himself ruefully, "Who's to break the spell? There's no one."

A soft sound behind him made him turn sharply. A girl was standing there, a remarkably pretty girl, with brown hair curling round her ears and rather timid-looking dark blue eyes. She flushed a little with embarrassment before she spoke. "Mr. Fitzwilliam, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes. I –"

"I'm Rose Humbleby. Bridget told me that — that you knew some people who knew my father."

Luke had the grace to flush slightly under his tan. "It was a long time ago," he said rather lamely. "They — er — knew him as a young man — before he was married."

"Oh, I see." Rose Humbleby looked a little crestfallen. But she went on, "You're writing a book, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm making notes for one, that is. About local superstitions. All that sort of thing."

"I see. It sounds frightfully interesting."

Luke smiled at her. He thought, "Our Doctor Thomas is in luck."

"There are people," he said, "who can make the most exciting subject unbearably boring. I'm afraid I'm one of them."

Rose Humbleby smiled back. Then she said, "Do you believe in — in superstitions and all that?"

"That's a difficult question. It doesn't follow, you know. One can be interested in things one doesn't believe in."

"Yes, I suppose so." The girl sounded doubtful.

"Are you superstitious?"

"N-no, I don't think so. But I do think things come in — in waves."

"Waves?"

"Waves of bad luck and good luck. I mean, I feel as though lately all Wychwood was under a spell of — of misfortune. Father dying, and Miss Fullerton being run over, and that little boy who fell out of the window. I — I began to feel as though I hated this place — as though I must get away."

Her breath came rather faster. Luke looked at her thoughtfully. "So you feel like that?"

"Oh, I know it's silly. I suppose really it was poor Daddy dying so unexpectedly — it was so horribly sudden." She shivered. "And then Miss Fullerton. She said –" The girl paused.

"What did she say? She was a delightful old lady, I thought — very like a rather special aunt of mine."

"Oh, did you know her?" Rose's face lit up. "I was very fond of her and she was devoted to Daddy. But I've sometimes wondered if she was what the Scotch call 'fey.'"

"Why?"

"Because — it's so odd — she seemed quite afraid that something was going to happen to Daddy. She almost warned me. Especially about accidents. And then that day, just before she went up to town, she was so odd in her manner — absolutely in a dither. I really do think, Mr. Fitzwilliam, that she was one of those people who have second sight. I think she knew that something was going to happen to her. And she must have known that something was going to happen to Daddy too. It's — it's rather frightening, that sort of thing!" She moved a step nearer to him.

"There are times when one can foresee the future," said Luke. "It isn't always supernatural, though."

"No, I suppose it's quite natural, really — just a faculty that most people lack. All the same it worries me."

"You mustn't worry," said Luke gently. "Remember, it's all behind you now. It's no good going back over the past. It's the future one has to live for."

"I know. But there's more, you see." Rose hesitated. "There was something — to do with your cousin."

"My cousin? Bridget?"

"Yes. Miss Fullerton was worried about her in the same way. She was always asking me questions. I think she was afraid for her too."

Luke turned, sharply scanning the hillside. He had an unreasoning sense of fear for Bridget. Fancy — all fancy! Ellsworthy was only a harmless dilettante who played at shopkeeping. As though reading his thoughts. Rose said, "Do you like Mr. Ellsworthy?"

"Emphatically no."

"Geoffrey — Doctor Thomas, you know — doesn't like him either."

"And you?"

"Oh, no, I think he's dreadful." She drew a little nearer. "There's a lot of talk about him. I was told that he had some queer ceremony in the Witches' Meadow — a lot of his friends came down from London — frightfully queer-looking people. And Tommy Pierce was a kind of acolyte."

"Tommy Pierce?" said Luke sharply.

"Yes. He had a surplice and a red cassock."

"When was this?"

"Oh, some time ago. I think it was in March."

"Tommy Pierce seems to have been mixed up in everything that ever took place in this village."

Rose said, "He was frightfully inquisitive. He always had to know whatever was going on."

"He probably knew a bit too much in the end," said Luke grimly.

Rose accepted the words at their face value.

"He was rather an odious little boy. He liked cutting up wasps and he teased dogs."

"The kind of boy whose decease is hardly to be regretted."

"No, I suppose not. It was terrible for his mother, though."

"I gather she has six blessings left to console her. She's got a good tongue, that woman."

"She does talk a lot, doesn't she?"

"After buying a few cigarettes from her, I feel I know the full history of everyone in the place."

Rose said ruefully, "That's the worst of a place like this. Everybody knows everything about everybody else."

"Oh, no," said Luke.

She looked at him inquiringly.

Luke said, with significance, "No one human being knows the full truth about another human being. Not even one's nearest and dearest."

"Not even –" She stopped. "Oh, I suppose you're right, but I wish you wouldn't say frightening things like that, Mr. Fitzwilliam."

"Does it frighten you?"

Slowly, she nodded her head. Then she turned abruptly. "I must be going now. If — if you have nothing better to do — I mean if you could — do come and see us. Mother would — would like to see you because of your knowing friends of Daddy's so long ago."

She walked slowly away down the road. Her head was bent a little, as though some weight of care or perplexity bowed it down.

Luke stood looking after her. A sudden wave of solicitude swept over him. He felt a longing to shield and protect this girl. From what? Asking himself the question, he shook his head with a momentary impatience at himself. It was true that Rose Humbleby had recently lost her father, but she had a mother, and she was engaged to be married, to a decidedly attractive young man who was fully adequate to anything in the protection line. Then why should he, Luke Fitzwilliam, be assailed by this protection complex?

"All the same," he said to himself, as he strolled on toward the looming mass of Ashe Ridge, "I like that girl. She's much too good for Thomas — a cool, superior devil like that."

A memory of the doctor's last smile on the doorstep recurred to him. Decidedly smug, it had been! Complacent!

The sound of footsteps a little way ahead roused Luke from his slightly irritable meditations. He looked up to see young Mr. Ellsworthy coming down the path from the hillside. His eyes were on the ground and he was smiling to himself. His expression struck Luke disagreeably. Ellsworthy was not so much walking as prancing — like a man who keeps time to some devilish little jig running in his brain. His smile was a strange secret contortion of the lips; it had a gleeful slyness that was definitely unpleasant. Luke had stopped and Ellsworthy was nearly abreast of him when he at last looked up. His eyes, malicious and dancing, met the other man's for just a minute before recognition came. Then — or so it seemed to Luke — a complete change came over the man. Where, a minute before, there had been the suggestion of a dancing satyr, there was now a somewhat priggish young man. "Oh, Mr. Fitzwilliam, good morning."