Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors

Do you really prefer living here to - well - somewhere of your own?'

Mildred Strete flushed.

'After all, it's my home,' she said. 'It was my father's house. Nothing can alter that. I've a right to be here if I choose. And I do choose. If only mother were not so impossible! She won't even buy herself proper clothes. It worries Jolly a lot.'

'I was going to ask you about Miss Bellever.'

'Such a comfort having her here. She adores mother.

She's been with her a long time now - she came in John Restarick's time. And was wonderful, I believe, during the whole sad business. I expect you heard that he ran away with a dreadful Yugoslavian woman - a most abandoned creature. She'd had any amount of lovers, I believe. Mother was very fine and dignified about it all.

Divorced him as quietly as possible. Even went so far as to have the Restarick boys for their holidays - quite unnecessary, really, other arrangements could have been made. It would have been unthinkable, of course, to have let them go to their father and that woman. Anyway, mother had them here… And Miss Bellever stood by all through things and was a tower of strength. I sometimes think she makes mother even more vague than she need be, by doing all the practical things herself. But I really don't know what mother would do without her.' She paused and then remarked in a tone of surprise: 'Here is Lewis. How odd. He seldom comes out in the garden.' Mr Serrocold came towards them in the same single-minded way that he did everything. He appeared not to notice Mildred, because it was only Miss Marple who was in his mind.

'I'm so sorry,' he said. 'I wanted to take you round our institution and show you everything. Caroline asked me to. Unfortunately I have to go off to Liverpool. The case of that boy and the railway parcels office. But Maverick will take you. He'll be here in a few minutes. I shan't be back until the day after tomorrow. It will be splendid if we can get them not to prosecute.' Mildred Strete got up and walked away. Lewis Serrocold did not notice her go. His earnest eyes gazed at Miss Marple through thick glasses.

'You see,' he said, 'the Magistrates nearly always take the wrong view. Sometimes they're too severe, but sometimes they're too lenient. If these boys get a sentence of a few months it's no deterrent - they get a kind of a kick out of it, even. Boast about it to their girl friends. But a severe sentence often sobers them. They realize that the game isn't worth it. Or else it's better not to serve a prison sentence at all. Corrective training - constructional training like we have here ' Miss Marple interrupted him.

'Mr Serrocold,' she said. 'Are you quite satisfied about young Mr Lawson. Is he - is he quite normal?' A disturbed expression appeared on Lewis Serrocold's face.

'I do hope he's not relapsing. What has he been saying?'

'He told me that he was Winston Churchill's son.'

'Of course - of course. The usual statements. He's illegitimate, as you've probably guessed, poor lad, and of very humble beginnings. He was a case recommended to me by a Society in London. He'd assaulted a man in the street who he said was spying on him. All very typical Dr Maverick will tell you. I went into his case history.

Mother was of a poor class but a respectable family in Plymouth. Father a sailor - she didn't even know his name… Child brought up in difficult circumstances.

Started romancing about his father and later about himself. Wore uniform and decorations he wasn't entitled to - all quite typical. But Maverick considers the prognosis hopeful. If we can give him confidence in himself. I've given him responsibility here, tried to make him appreciate that it's not a man's birth that matters but what he is. I've tried to give him confidence in his own ability. The improvement was marked. I was very happy about him. And now you say ' He shook his head.

'Mightn't he be dangerous, Mr Serrocold?'

'Dangerous? I don't think he has shown any suicidal tendencies.'

'I wasn't thinking of suicide. He talked to me of enemies - of persecution. Isn't that, forgive me - a dangerous sign?'

'I don't really think it has reached such a pitch. But I'll speak to Maverick. So far, he has been hopeful - very hopeful.'

He looked at his watch.

'I must go. Ah, here is our dear Jolly. She will take charge of you.'

Miss Bellever, arriving briskly, said, 'The car is at the door, Mr Serrocold. Dr Maverick rang through from the Institute. I said I would bring Miss Marple over. He will meet us at the gates.'

'Thank you. I must go. My brief case?'

'In the car, Mr Serrocold.'

Lewis Serrocold hurried away. Looking after him, Miss Bellever said:

'Some day that man will drop dead in his tracks. It's against human nature never to relax or rest. He only sleeps four hours a night.'

'He is very devoted to this cause,' said Miss Marple.

'Never thinks of anything else,' said Miss Bellever grimly. 'Never dreams of looking after his wife or considering her in any way. She's a sweet creature, as you know, Miss Marple, and she ought to have love and attention. But nothing's thought of or considered here except a lot of whining boys and young men who want to live easily and dishonestly and don't care about the idea of doing a little hard work. What about the decent boys from decent homes? Why isn't something done for them?

Honesty just isn't interesting to cranks like Mr Serrocold and Dr Maverick and all the bunch of half-baked sentimentalists we've got here. I and my brothers were brought up the hard way, Miss Marple, and we weren't encouraged to whine. Soft, that's what the world is nowadays?'

They had crossed the garden and passed through a palisaded gate and had come to the arched gate which Eric Gulbrandsen had erected as an entrance to his College, a sturdily built, hideous, red brick building.

Dr Maverick, looking, Miss Marple decided, distinctly abnormal himself, came out to meet them.

'Thank you, Miss Bellever,' he said. 'Now, Miss - er oh yes, Miss Marple - I'm sure you're going to be interested in what we're doing here. In our splendid approach to this great problem. Mr Serrocold is a man of great insight - great vision. And we've got Sir John Stillwell behind us - my old chief. He was at the Home Office until he retired and his influence turned the scales in getting this started. It's a medical problem - that's what we've got to get the legal authorities to understand.

Psychiatry came into its own in the war. The one positive good that did come out of it - Now first of all I want you to see our initial approach to the problem. Look up ' Miss Marple looked up at the words carved over the large arched doorway:

RECOVER HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

'Isn't that splendid! Isn't that just the right note to strike. You don't want to scold these lads - or punish them. That's what they're hankering after half the time, punishment. We want to make them feel what fine fellows they are.'

'Like Edgar Lawson?' said Miss Marple.

'Interesting case, that. Have you been talking to him?'

'He has been talking to me,' said Miss Marple. She added apologetically, 'I wondered if, perhaps, he isn't a little mad?.' Dr Maverick laughed cheerfully.

'We're all mad, dear lady,' he said as he ushered her in through the door. 'That's the secret of existence. We're all a little mad.'

On the whole it was rather an exhausting day.

Enthusiasm in itself can be extremely wearing, Miss Marple thought. She felt vaguely dissatisfied with herself and her own reactions. There was a pattern here, perhaps several patterns, and yet she herself could obtain no clear glimpse of it or them. Any vague disquietude she felt centred round the pathetic but inconspicuous personality of Edgar Lawson. If she could only find in her memory the right parallel.