Agatha Christie - The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite

‘The Voice in the Dark’ was first published in the USA in Flynn’s Weekly , 4 December 1926, and then as ‘The Magic of Mr Quin No. 4’ in Storyteller magazine, March 1927.

‘I am a little worried about Margery,’ said Lady Stranleigh.

‘My girl, you know,’ she added.

She sighed pensively.

‘It makes one feel terribly old to have a grown-up daughter.’

Mr Satterthwaite, who was the recipient of these confidences, rose to the occasion gallantly.

‘No one could believe it possible,’ he declared with a little bow.

‘Flatterer,’ said Lady Stranleigh, but she said it vaguely and it was clear that her mind was elsewhere.

Mr Satterthwaite looked at the slender white-clad figure in some admiration. The Cannes sunshine was searching, but Lady Stranleigh came through the test very well. At a distance the youthful effect was really extraordinary. One almost wondered if she were grown-up or not. Mr Satterthwaite, who knew everything, knew that it was perfectly possible for Lady Stranleigh to have grown-up grandchildren. She represented the extreme triumph of art over nature. Her figure was marvellous, her complexion was marvellous. She had enriched many beauty parlours and certainly the results were astounding.

Lady Stranleigh lit a cigarette, crossed her beautiful legs encased in the finest of nude silk stockings and murmured: ‘Yes, I really am rather worried about Margery.’

‘Dear me,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘what is the trouble?’

Lady Stranleigh turned her beautiful blue eyes upon him

‘You have never met her, have you? She is Charles’ daughter,’ she added helpfully.

If entries in ‘Who’s Who’ were strictly truthful, the entries concerning Lady Stranleigh might have ended as follows: hobbies: getting married . She had floated through life shedding husbands as she went. She had lost three by divorce and one by death.

‘If she had been Rudolph’s child I could have understood it,’ mused Lady Stranleigh. ‘You remember Rudolf? He was always temperamental. Six months after we married I had to apply for those queer things – what do they call them? Conjugal what nots, you know what I mean. Thank goodness it is all much simpler nowadays. I remember I had to write him the silliest kind of letter – my lawyer practically dictated it to me. Asking him to come back, you know, and that I would do all I could, etc., etc., but you never could count on Rudolf, he was so temperamental. He came rushing home at once, which was quite the wrong thing to do, and not at all what the lawyers meant.’

She sighed.

‘About Margery?’ suggested Mr Satterthwaite, tactfully leading her back to the subject under discussion.

‘Of course. I was just going to tell you, wasn’t I? Margery has been seeing things, or hearing them. Ghosts, you know, and all that. I should never have thought that Margery could be so imaginative. She is a dear good girl, always has been, but just a shade – dull.’

‘Impossible,’ murmured Mr Satterthwaite with a confused idea of being complimentary.

‘In fact, very dull,’ said Lady Stranleigh. ‘Doesn’t care for dancing, or cocktails or any of the things a young girl ought to care about. She much prefers staying at home to hunt instead of coming out here with me.’

‘Dear, dear,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘she wouldn’t come out with you, you say?’

‘Well, I didn’t exactly press her. Daughters have a depressing effect upon one, I find.’

Mr Satterthwaite tried to think of Lady Stranleigh accompanied by a serious-minded daughter and failed.

‘I can’t help wondering if Margery is going off her head,’ continued Margery’s mother in a cheerful voice. ‘Hearing voices is a very bad sign, so they tell me. It is not as though Abbot’s Mede were haunted. The old building was burnt to the ground in 1836, and they put up a kind of early Victorian château which simply cannot be haunted. It is much too ugly and common-place.’

Mr Satterthwaite coughed. He was wondering why he was being told all this.

‘I thought perhaps,’ said Lady Stranleigh, smiling brilliantly upon him, ‘that you might be able to help me.’

‘I?’

‘Yes. You are going back to England tomorrow, aren’t you?’

‘I am. Yes, that is so,’ admitted Mr Satterthwaite cautiously.

‘And you know all these psychical research people. Of course you do, you know everybody.’

Mr Satterthwaite smiled a little. It was one of his weaknesses to know everybody.

‘So what can be simpler?’ continued Lady Stranleigh. ‘I never get on with that sort of person. You know – earnest men with beards and usually spectacles. They bore me terribly and I am quite at my worst with them.’

Mr Satterthwaite was rather taken aback. Lady Stranleigh continued to smile at him brilliantly.

‘So that is all settled, isn’t it?’ she said brightly. ‘You will go down to Abbot’s Mede and see Margery, and make all the arrangements. I shall be terribly grateful to you. Of course if Margery is really going off her head, I will come home. Ah! here is Bimbo.’

Her smile from being brilliant became dazzling.

A young man in white tennis flannels was approaching them. He was about twenty-five years of age and extremely good-looking.

The young man said simply:

‘I have been looking for you everywhere, Babs.’

‘What has the tennis been like?’

‘Septic.’

Lady Stranleigh rose. She turned her head over her shoulder and murmured in dulcet tones to Mr Satterthwaite: ‘It is simply marvellous of you to help me. I shall never forget it.’

Mr Satterthwaite looked after the retreating couple.

‘I wonder,’ he mused to himself, ‘If Bimbo is going to be No. 5.’

The conductor of the Train de Luxe was pointing out to Mr Satterthwaite where an accident on the line had occurred a few years previously. As he finished his spirited narrative, the other looked up and saw a well-known face smiling at him over the conductor’s shoulder.

‘My dear Mr Quin,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.

His little withered face broke into smiles.

‘What a coincidence! That we should both be returning to England on the same train. You are going there, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Quin. ‘I have business there of rather an important nature. Are you taking the first service of dinner?’

‘I always do so. Of course, it is an absurd time – half-past six, but one runs less risk with the cooking.’

Mr Quin nodded comprehendingly.

‘I also,’ he said. ‘We might perhaps arrange to sit together.’

Half-past six found Mr Quin and Mr Satterthwaite established opposite each other at a small table in the dining-car. Mr Satterthwaite gave due attention to the wine list and then turned to his companion.

‘I have not seen you since – ah, yes not since Corsica. You left very suddenly that day.’

Mr Quin shrugged his shoulders.

‘Not more so than usual. I come and go, you know. I come and go.’

The words seemed to awake some echo of remembrance in Mr Satterthwaite’s mind. A little shiver passed down his spine – not a disagreeable sensation, quite the contrary. He was conscious of a pleasurable sense of anticipation.

Mr Quin was holding up a bottle of red wine, examining the label on it. The bottle was between him and the light but for a minute or two a red glow enveloped his person.

Mr Satterthwaite felt again that sudden stir of excitement.

‘I too have a kind of mission in England,’ he remarked, smiling broadly at the remembrance. ‘You know Lady Stranleigh perhaps?’

Mr Quin shook his head.

‘It is an old title,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘a very old title. One of the few that can descend in the female line. She is a Baroness in her own right. Rather a romantic history really.’