Agatha Christie: Dumb Witness

"It's that damned dog's ball! He must have left it here and she tripped over it. See? Here it is!"

And then she was conscious of authority, putting the others aside, kneeling beside her, touching her with hands that did not fumble but knew.

A feeling of relief swept over her. It would be all right now.

Dr Tanios was saying in firm, reassuring tones:

"No, it's all right. No bones broken… Just badly shaken and bruised – and of course she's had a bad shock. But she's been very lucky that it's no worse."

Then he had cleared the others off a little and picked her up quite easily and carried her up to her bedroom, where he had held her wrist for a minute, counting, then nodded his head, sent Minnie (who was still crying and being generally a nuisance) out of the room to fetch brandy and to heat water for a hot bottle.

Confused, shaken, and racked with pain, she felt acutely grateful to Jacob Tanios in that moment. The relief of feeling oneself in capable hands. He gave you just that feeling of assurance – of confidence – that a doctor ought to give.

There was something – something she couldn't quite get hold of – something vaguely disquieting – but she wouldn't think of it now. She would drink this and go to sleep as they told her.

But surely there was something missing – someone.

Oh, well, she wouldn't think… Her shoulder hurt her. She drank down what she was given.

She heard Dr Tanios say – and in what a comfortable assured voice: "She'll be all right, now."

She closed her eyes.

She awoke to a sound that she knew – a soft, muffled bark.

She was wide awake in a minute.

Bob – naughty Bob! He was barking outside the front door – his own particular 'out all night very ashamed of myself' bark, pitched in a subdued key but repeated hopefully.

Miss Arundell strained her ears. Ah, yes, that was all right. She could hear Minnie going down to let him in. She heard the creak of the opening front door, a confused low murmur – Minnie's futile reproaches -

"Oh, you naughty little doggie – a very naughty little Bobsie -" She heard the pantry door open. Bob's bed was under the pantry table.

And at that moment Emily realized what it was she had subconsciously missed at the moment of her accident. It was Bob! All that commotion – her fall, people running – normally Bob would have responded by a crescendo of barking from inside the pantry.

So that was what had been worrying her at the back of her mind. But it was explained now – Bob, when he had been let out last night, had shamelessly and deliberately gone off on pleasure bent. From time to time he had these lapses from virtue – though his apologies afterwards were always all that could be desired.

So that was all right. But was it? What else was there worrying her, nagging at the back of her head. Her accident – something to do with her accident.

Ah, yes, somebody had said – Charles – that she had slipped on Bob's ball which he had left on the top of the stairs…

The ball had been there – he had held it up in his hand…

Emily Arundell's head ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Her bruised body suffered…

But in the midst of her suffering her mind was clear and lucid. She was no longer confused by shock. Her memory was perfectly clear.

She went over in her mind all the events from six o'clock yesterday evening… She retraced every step… till she came to the moment when she arrived at the stairhead and started to descend the stairs…

A thrill of incredulous horror shot through her…

Surely – surely, she must be mistaken… One often had queer fancies after an event had happened. She tried – earnestly she tried – to recall the slippery roundness of Bob's ball under her foot…

But she could recall nothing of the kind. Instead -

"Sheer nerves," said Emily Arundell. "Ridiculous fancies."

But her sensible, shrewd, Victorian mind would not admit that for a moment. There was no foolish optimism about the Victorians.

They could believe the worst with the utmost ease.

Emily Arundell believed the worst.

It was Friday. The relations had left.

They left on the Wednesday as originally planned. One and all, they had offered to stay on. One and all they had been steadfastly refused. Miss Arundell explained that she preferred to be "quite quiet."

During the two days that had elapsed since their departure, Emily Arundell had been alarmingly meditative. Often she did not hear what Minnie Lawson said to her. She would stare at her and curtly order her to begin all over again.

"It's the shock, poor dear," said Miss Lawson. And she added with the kind of gloomy relish in disaster which brightens so many otherwise drab lives: "I dare say she'll never be quite herself again."

Dr Grainger, on the other hand, rallied her heartily.

He told her that she'd be downstairs again by the end of the week, that it was a positive disgrace she had no bones broken, and what kind of a patient was she for a struggling medical man. If all his patients were like her, he might as well take down his shingle straight away.

Emily Arundell replied with spirit – she and old Dr Grainger were allies of long standing. He bullied and she defied – they always got a good deal of pleasure out of each other's company!

But now, after the doctor had stumped away, the old lady lay with a frown on her face, thinking – thinking – responding absent-mindedly to Minnie Lawson's well-meant fussing – and then suddenly coming back to consciousness and rending her with a vitriolic tongue.

"Poor little Bobsie," twittered Miss Lawson, bending over Bob, who had a rug spread on the corner of his mistress's bed. "Wouldn't little Bobsie be unhappy if he knew what he'd done to his poor, poor Missus?"

Miss Arundell snapped:

"Don't be idiotic, Minnie. And where's your English sense of justice? Don't you know that every one in this country is accounted innocent until he or she is proved guilty?"

"Oh, but we do know -"

Emily snapped:

"We don't know anything at all. Do stop fidgeting, Minnie. Pulling this and pulling that. Haven't you any idea how to behave in a sick-room? Go away and send Ellen to me."

Meekly Miss Lawson crept away.

Emily Arundell looked after her with a slight feeling of self-reproach. Maddening as Minnie was, she did her best.

Then the frown settled down again on her face.

She was desperately unhappy. She had all a vigorous strong-minded old lady's dislike of inaction in any given situation. But in this particular situation she could not decide upon her line of action.

There were moments when she distrusted her own faculties, her own memory of events. And there was no one, absolutely no one, in whom she could confide.

Half an hour later, when Miss Lawson tiptoed creakingly into the room, carrying a cup of beef-tea, and then paused irresolute at the view of her employer lying with closed eyes, Emily Arundell suddenly spoke two words with such force and decision that Miss Lawson nearly dropped the cup.

"Mary Fox," said Miss Arundell.

"A box, dear?" said Miss Lawson. "Did you say you wanted a box?"

"You're getting deaf, Minnie. I didn't say anything about a box. I said Mary Fox. The woman I met at Cheltenham last year. She was the sister of one of the Canons of Exeter Cathedral. Give me that cup. You've spilt it into the saucer. And don't tiptoe when you come into a room. You don't know how irritating it is. Now go downstairs and get me the London telephone book."

"Can I find the number for you, dear? Or the address?"

"If I'd wanted you to do that I'd have told you so. Do what I tell you. Bring it here, and put my writing things by the bed."