Agatha Christie: Endless Night

Oh yes, we set it up. Greta was a great planner. I don't think I could have planned it, but I knew I could play my part all right. I'd always enjoyed playing a part. And so that's how it happened. That's how I met Ellie.

It was fun, all of it. Mad fun because of course there was always a risk, there was always a danger that it wouldn't come off. The thing that made me really nervous were the times that I had to meet Greta. I had to be sure, you see, that I never gave myself away, by looking at Greta. I tried not to look at her. We agreed it was best that I should take a dislike to her, pretend jealousy of her. I carried that on all right. I remember the day she came down to stay. We staged a quarrel, a quarrel that Ellie could hear. I don't know whether we overdid it a bit. I don't think so. Sometimes I was nervous that Ellie might guess or something, but I don't think she did. I don't know. I don't know really. I never did know about Ellie.

It was very easy to make love to Ellie. She was very sweet. Yes, she was really sweet. Just sometimes I was afraid of her because she did things sometimes without telling me. And she knew things that I never dreamt she knew. But she loved me. Yes, she loved me. Sometimes – I think I loved her too…

I don't mean it was ever like Greta. Greta was the woman I belonged to. She was sex personified. I was mad for her and I had to hold myself in. Ellie was something different. I enjoyed living with her, you know. Yes, that sounds very queer now I think back to it. I enjoyed living with her very much.

I'm putting this down now because this is what I was thinking that evening when I arrived back from America. When I arrived back on top of the world, having got all I'd longed for in spite of the risks, in spite of the dangers, in spite of having done a pretty good murder, though I say it myself!

Yes, it was a bit tricky, I thought once or twice, but nobody could tell, not the way we'd done it. Now the risks were over, the dangers were over and here I was coming up to Gipsy's Acre. Coming as I'd come up it that day after I'd first seen the poster on the walls, and gone up to look at the ruins of the old house. Coming up and rounding the bend -

And then – it was then I saw her. I mean it was then I saw Ellie. Just as I came round the corner of the road in the dangerous place where the accidents happened. She was there in the same place just where she'd been before, standing in the shadow of the fir tree. Just as she'd stood, when she'd started a little as she saw me and I'd started, seeing her.

There we'd looked at each other first and I'd come up and spoken to her, played the part of the young man who's fallen suddenly in love. Played it jolly well too! Oh, I tell you I'm a fine actor!

But I hadn't expected to see her now… I mean, I couldn't see her now, could I? But I was seeing her… She was looking – looking straight at me. Only – there was something that frightened me – something that frightened me very much. It was, you see, just as though she didn't see me – I mean I knew she couldn't really be there, I knew she was dead – but I saw her. She was dead and her body was buried in the cemetery in the U.S.A. But all the same she was standing under the fir tree and she was looking at me. No, not at me. She was looking as though she expected to see me and there was love in her face. The same love that I had seen one day, one day when she'd been plucking the strings of her guitar. That day when she'd said to me, "What were you thinking of?" And I said "Why do you ask me?" and she said "You were looking at me as though you loved me." I'd said something silly like "Of course I love you."

I stopped dead. I stopped dead there in the road. I was shaking. I said out loud,

"Ellie."

She didn't move, she just stayed there, looking…

Looking straight through me. That's what frightened me, because I knew if I thought for a minute I'd know why she didn't see me, and I didn't want to know. No, I didn't want to know that. I was quite sure that I didn't want to know that. Looking straight at the place where I was – not seeing me. I ran then. I ran like a coward, up the rest of the road to where the lights were shining in my house, until I pulled myself out of the silly panic that I was in. This was my triumph. I'd got home. I was the hunter home from the hills, back to my house, back to the other thing that I'd wanted more than anything in the world, to the wonderful woman whom I belonged to body and soul.

And now we'd get married and we'd live in the house. We'd get all we'd played for! We'd won – won hands down!

The door wasn't latched. I went in, stamping my feet, and through the open door of the library. And there was Greta standing by the window waiting for me. She was glorious. She was the most glorious and the most lovely thing I'd ever seen. She was like a Brunhilde, a super Valkyrie with shining golden hair. She smelt and looked and tasted of sex. We'd denied ourselves so long except for occasional brief meetings up in the Folly.

I came straight into her arms, a sailor home from the sea to where he belonged. Yes, it was one of the most wonderful moments of my life.

Presently we came down to earth. I sat down and she shoved a small pile of letters towards me. I picked out almost automatically one with an American stamp. It was the air mail letter from Lippincott. I wondered what he'd put in it, why he'd had to write me a letter.

"Well," said Greta with a deep satisfied sigh, "we've made it."

"V-Day all right," I said.

We both laughed, laughed wildly. There was champagne on the table. I opened it and we drank to each other.

"This place is wonderful," I said, looking round. "It's more beautiful than I remember it. Santonix – But I haven't told you. Santonix is dead."

"Oh dear," said Greta, "what a pity. So he really was ill?"

"Of course he was ill. I never wanted to think so. I went and saw him when he was dying."

Greta gave a little shiver.

"I shouldn't like to do that. Did he say anything?"

"Not really. He said I was a damned fool – I ought to have gone the other way."

"What did he mean – what way?"

"I don't know what he meant," I said. "I suppose he was delirious. Didn't know what he was talking about."

"Well, this house is a fine monument to his memory," said Greta. "I think we'll stick to it, don't you?"

I stared at her. "Of course. Do you think I'm going to live anywhere else?"

"We can't live here all the time," said Greta. "Not all the year round. Buried in a hole like this village?"

"But it's where I want to live – it's where I always meant to live."

"Yes of course. But after all, Mike, we've got all the money in the world. We can go anywhere! We can go all over the Continent – we'll go on Safari in Africa. We'll have adventures. We'll go and look for things – exciting pictures. We'll go to the Angkor Vat. Don't you want to have an adventurous life?"

"Well, I suppose so. But we'll always come back here, won't we?"

I had a queer feeling, a queer feeling that something had gone wrong somewhere. That's all I'd ever thought of.

My House and Greta. I hadn't wanted anything else. But she did. I saw that. She was just beginning. Beginning to want things. Beginning to know she could have them. I had a sudden cruel foreboding. I began to shiver.

"What's the matter with you, Mike – you're shivering. Have you caught a cold or something?"

"It's not that," I said.

"What's happened, Mike?"

"I saw Ellie," I said.

"What do you mean, you saw Ellie?'

"As I was walking up the road I turned the corner and there she was, standing under a fir tree, looking at – I mean looking towards me."

Greta stared.

"Don't be ridiculous. You – you imagined things."