The Last Seance Read online

  She stared. They all stared at Miss Marple.

  ‘Then that seems to settle it,’ said Miss Marple. She shook her head regretfully. ‘And the wasp season and everything. And of course the gas.’

  ‘It reminds you, I suppose, of countless village tragedies?’ said Sir Henry.

  ‘Not tragedies,’ said Miss Marple. ‘And certainly nothing criminal. But it does remind me a little of the trouble we are having with the District Nurse. After all, nurses are human beings, and what with having to be so correct in their behaviour and wearing those uncomfortable collars and being so thrown with the family—well, can you wonder that things sometimes happen?’

  A glimmer of light broke upon Sir Henry.

  ‘You mean Nurse Carstairs?’

  ‘Oh no. Not Nurse Carstairs. Nurse Copling. You see, she had been there before, and very much thrown with Mr Pritchard, who you say is an attractive man. I dare say she thought, poor thing—well, we needn’t go into that. I don’t suppose she knew about Miss Instow, and of course afterwards, when she found out, it turned her against him and she tried to do all the harm she could. Of course the letter really gave her away, didn’t it?’

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘Well, she wrote to the fortune-teller at Mrs Pritchard’s request, and the fortune-teller came, apparently in answer to the letter. But later it was discovered that there never had been such a person at that address. So that shows that Nurse Copling was in it. She only pretended to write—so what could be more likely than that she was the fortune-teller herself?’

  ‘I never saw the point about the letter,’ said Sir Henry. ‘That’s a most important point, of course.’

  ‘Rather a bold step to take,’ said Miss Marple, ‘because Mrs Pritchard might have recognized her in spite of the disguise—though of course if she had, the nurse could have pretended it was a joke.’

  ‘What did you mean,’ said Sir Henry, ‘when you said that if you were a certain person you would not have trusted to fright?’

  ‘One couldn’t be sure that way,’ said Miss Marple. ‘No, I think that the warnings and the blue flowers were, if I may use a military term,’ she laughed self-consciously—‘just camouflage.’

  ‘And the real thing?’

  ‘I know,’ said Miss Marple apologetically, ‘that I’ve got wasps on the brain. Poor things, destroyed in their thousands—and usually on such a beautiful summer’s day. But I remember thinking, when I saw the gardener shaking up the cyanide of potassium in a bottle with water, how like smelling-salts it looked. And if it were put in a smelling-salt bottle and substituted for the real one—well, the poor lady was in the habit of using her smelling-salts. Indeed you said they were found by her hand. Then, of course, while Mr Pritchard went to telephone to the doctor, the nurse would change it for the real bottle, and she’d just turn on the gas a little bit to mask any smell of almonds and in case anyone felt queer, and I always have heard that cyanide leaves no trace if you wait long enough. But, of course I may be wrong, and it may have been something entirely different in the bottle; but that doesn’t really matter, does it?’

  Miss Marple paused, a little out of breath.

  Jane Helier leant forward and said, ‘But the blue geranium, and the other flowers?’

  ‘Nurses always have litmus paper, don’t they?’ said Miss Marple, ‘for—well, for testing. Not a very pleasant subject. We won’t dwell on it. I have done a little nursing myself.’ She grew delicately pink. ‘Blue turns red with acids, and red turns blue with alkalis. So easy to paste some red litmus over a red flower—near the bed, of course. And then, when the poor lady used her smelling-salts, the strong ammonia fumes would turn it blue. Really most ingenious. Of course, the geranium wasn’t blue when they first broke into the room—nobody noticed it till afterwards. When nurse changed the bottles, she held the Sal Ammoniac against the wallpaper for a minute, I expect.’

  ‘You might have been there, Miss Marple,’ said Sir Henry.

  ‘What worries me,’ said Miss Marple, ‘is poor Mr Pritchard and that nice girl, Miss Instow. Probably both suspecting each other and keeping apart—and life so very short.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You needn’t worry,’ said Sir Henry. ‘As a matter of fact I have something up my sleeve. A nurse has been arrested on a charge of murdering an elderly patient who had left her a legacy. It was done with cyanide of potassium substituted for smelling-salts. Nurse Copling trying the same trick again. Miss Instow and Mr Pritchard need have no doubts as to the truth.’

  ‘Now isn’t that nice?’ cried Miss Marple. ‘I don’t mean about the new murder, of course. That’s very sad, and shows how much wickedness there is in the world, and that if once you give way—which reminds me I must finish my little conversation with Dr Lloyd about the village nurse.’

  The Call of Wings

  Silas Hamer heard it first on a wintry night in February. He and Dick Borrow had walked from a dinner given by Bernard Seldon, the nerve specialist. Borrow had been unusually silent, and Silas Hamer asked him with some curiosity what he was thinking about. Borrow’s answer was unexpected.

  ‘I was thinking, that of all these men tonight, only two amongst them could lay claim to happiness. And that these two, strangely enough, were you and I!’

  The word ‘strangely’ was apposite, for no two men could be more dissimilar than Richard Borrow, the hard working East-end parson, and Silas Hamer, the sleek complacent man whose millions were a matter of household knowledge.

  ‘It’s odd, you know,’ mused Borrow, ‘I believe you’re the only contented millionaire I’ve ever met.’

  Hamer was silent a moment. When he spoke his tone had altered.

  ‘I used to be a wretched shivering little newspaper boy. I wanted then—what I’ve got now!—the comfort and the luxury of money, not its power. I wanted money, not to wield as a force, but to spend lavishly—on myself! I’m frank about it, you see. Money can’t buy everything, they say. Very true. But it can buy everything I want—therefore I’m satisfied. I’m a materialist, Borrow, out and out a materialist!’

  The broad glare of the lighted thoroughfare confirmed this confession of faith. The sleek lines of Silas Hamer’s body were amplified by the heavy fur-lined coat, and the white light emphasized the thick rolls of flesh beneath his chin. In contrast to him walked Dick Borrow, with the thin ascetic face and the star-gazing fanatical eyes.

  ‘It’s you,’ said Hamer with emphasis, ‘that I can’t understand.’

  Borrow smiled.

  ‘I live in the midst of misery, want, starvation—all the ills of the flesh! And a predominant Vision upholds me. It’s not easy to understand unless you believe in Visions, which I gather you don’t.’

  ‘I don’t believe,’ said Silas Hamer stolidly, ‘in anything I can’t see and hear and touch.’

  ‘Quite so. That’s the difference between us. Well, goodbye, the earth now swallows me up!’

  They had reached the doorway of a lighted tube station, which was Borrow’s route home.

  Hamer proceeded alone. He was glad he had sent away the car tonight and elected to walk home. The air was keen and frosty, his senses were delightfully conscious of the enveloping warmth of the fur-lined coat.

  He paused for an instant on the kerbstone before crossing the road. A great motor bus was heavily ploughing its way towards him. Hamer, with the feeling of infinite leisure, waited for it to pass. If he were to cross in front of it he would have to hurry—and hurry was distasteful to him.

  By his side a battered derelict of the human race rolled drunkenly off the pavement. Hamer was aware of a shout, an ineffectual swerve of the motor bus, and then—he was looking stupidly, with a gradually awakening horror, at a limp inert heap of rags in the middle of the road.

  A crowd gathered magically, with a couple of policemen and the bus driver as its nucleus. But Hamer’s eyes were riveted in horrified fascination on that lifeless bundle that had once been a man—a man like himself! He shud
dered as at some menace.

  ‘Dahn’t yer blime yerself, guv’nor,’ remarked a rough-looking man at his side. ‘Yer couldn’t ’a done nothin’. ’E was done for anyways.’

  Hamer stared at him. The idea that it was possible in any way to save the man had quite honestly never occurred to him. He scouted the notion now as an absurdity. Why if he had been so foolish, he might at this moment . . . His thoughts broke off abruptly, and he walked away from the crowd. He felt himself shaking with a nameless unquenchable dread. He was forced to admit to himself that he was afraid—horribly afraid—of Death . . . Death that came with dreadful swiftness and remorseless certainty to rich and poor alike . . .

  He walked faster, but the new fear was still with him, enveloping him in its cold and chilling grasp.

  He wondered at himself, for he knew that by nature he was no coward. Five years ago, he reflected, this fear would not have attacked him. For then Life had not been so sweet . . . Yes, that was it; love of Life was the key to the mystery. The zest of living was at its height for him; it knew but one menace, Death, the destroyer!

  He turned out of the lighted thoroughfare. A narrow passageway, between high walls, offered a short-cut to the Square where his house, famous for its art treasures, was situated.

  The noise of the street behind him lessened and faded, the soft thud of his own footsteps was the only sound to be heard.

  And then out of the gloom in front of him came another sound. Sitting against the wall was a man playing the flute. One of the enormous tribe of street musicians, of course, but why had he chosen such a peculiar spot? Surely at this time of night the police—Hamer’s reflections were interrupted suddenly as he realized with a shock that the man had no legs. A pair of crutches rested against the wall beside him. Hamer saw now that it was not a flute he was playing but a strange instrument whose notes were much higher and clearer than those of a flute.

  The man played on. He took no notice of Hamer’s approach. His head was flung far back on his shoulders, as though uplifted in the joy of his own music, and the notes poured out clearly and joyously, rising higher and higher . . .

  It was a strange tune—strictly speaking, it was not a tune at all, but a single phrase, not unlike the slow turn given out by the violins of Rienzi, repeated again and again, passing from key to key, from harmony to harmony, but always rising and attaining each time to a greater and more boundless freedom.

  It was unlike anything Hamer had ever heard. There was something strange about it, something inspiring—and uplifting . . . it . . . He caught frantically with both hands to a projection in the wall beside him. He was conscious of one thing only—that he must keep down—at all costs he must keep down . . .

  He suddenly realized that the music had stopped. The legless man was reaching out for his crutches. And here was he, Silas Hamer, clutching like a lunatic at a stone buttress, for the simple reason that he had had the utterly preposterous notion—absurd on the face of it!—that he was rising from the ground—that the music was carrying him upwards . . .

  He laughed. What a wholly mad idea! Of course his feet had never left the earth for a moment, but what a strange hallucination! The quick tap-tapping of wood on the pavement told him that the cripple was moving away. He looked after him until the man’s figure was swallowed up in the gloom. An odd fellow!

  He proceeded on his way more slowly; he could not efface from his mind the memory of that strange impossible sensation when the ground had failed beneath his feet . . .

  And then on an impulse he turned and followed hurriedly in the direction the other had taken. The man could not have gone far—he would soon overtake him.

  He shouted as soon as he caught sight of the maimed figure swinging itself slowly along.

  ‘Hi! One minute.’

  The man stopped and stood motionless until Hamer came abreast of him. A lamp burned just over his head and revealed every feature. Silas Hamer caught his breath in involuntary surprise. The man possessed the most singularly beautiful head he had ever seen. He might have been any age; assuredly he was not a boy, yet youth was the most predominant characteristic—youth and vigour in passionate intensity!

  Hamer found an odd difficulty in beginning his conversation.

  ‘Look here,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I want to know—what was that thing you were playing just now?’

  The man smiled . . . With his smile the world seemed suddenly to leap into joyousness . . .

  ‘It was an old tune—a very old tune . . . Years old—centuries old.’

  He spoke with an odd purity and distinctness of enunciation, giving equal value to each syllable. He was clearly not an Englishman, yet Hamer was puzzled as to his nationality.

  ‘You’re not English? Where do you come from?’

  Again the broad joyful smile.

  ‘From over the sea, sir. I came—a long time ago—a very long time ago.’

  ‘You must have had a bad accident. Was it lately?’

  ‘Some time now, sir.’

  ‘Rough luck to lose both legs.’

  ‘It was well,’ said the man very calmly. He turned his eyes with a strange solemnity on his interlocutor. ‘They were evil.’

  Hamer dropped a shilling in his hand and turned away. He was puzzled and vaguely disquieted. ‘They were evil!’ What a strange thing to say! Evidently an operation for some form of disease, but—how odd it had sounded.

  Hamer went home thoughtful. He tried in vain to dismiss the incident from his mind. Lying in bed, with the first incipient sensation of drowsiness stealing over him, he heard a neighbouring clock strike one. One clear stroke and then silence—silence that was broken by a faint familiar sound . . . Recognition came leaping. Hamer felt his heart beating quickly. It was the man in the passageway playing, somewhere not far distant . . .

  The notes came gladly, the slow turn with its joyful call, the same haunting little phrase . . . ‘It’s uncanny,’ murmured Hamer, ‘it’s uncanny. It’s got wings to it . . .’

  Clearer and clearer, higher and higher—each wave rising above the last, and catching him up with it. This time he did not struggle, he let himself go . . . Up—up . . . The waves of sound were carrying him higher and higher . . . Triumphant and free, they swept on.

  Higher and higher . . . They had passed the limits of human sound now, but they still continued—rising, ever rising . . . Would they reach the final goal, the full perfection of height?

  Rising . . .

  Something was pulling—pulling him downwards. Something big and heavy and insistent. It pulled remorselessly—pulled him back, and down . . . down . . .

  He lay in bed gazing at the window opposite. Then, breathing heavily and painfully, he stretched an arm out of bed. The movement seemed curiously cumbrous to him. The softness of the bed was oppressive, oppressive too were the heavy curtains over the window that blocked out the light and air. The ceiling seemed to press down upon him. He felt stifled and choked. He moved slightly under the bed clothes, and the weight of his body seemed to him the most oppressive of all . . .

  ‘I want your advice, Seldon.’

  Seldon pushed back his chair an inch or so from the table. He had been wondering what was the object of this tête-à-tête dinner. He had seen little of Hamer since the winter, and he was aware tonight of some indefinable change in his friend.

  ‘It’s just this,’ said the millionaire. ‘I’m worried about myself.’

  Seldon smiled as he looked across the table.

  ‘You’re looking in the pink of condition.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Hamer paused a minute, then added quietly. ‘I’m afraid I’m going mad.’

  The nerve specialist glanced up with a sudden keen interest. He poured himself out a glass of port with a rather slow movement, and then said quietly, but with a sharp glance at the other man: ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Something that’s happened to me. Something inexplicable, unbelievable. It can’t be true, so I must be going mad
.’

  ‘Take your time,’ said Seldon, ‘and tell me about it.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the supernatural,’ began Hamer. ‘I never have. But this thing . . . Well, I’d better tell you the whole story from the beginning. It began last winter one evening after I had dined with you.’

  Then briefly and concisely he narrated the events of his walk home and the strange sequel.

  ‘That was the beginning of it all. I can’t explain it to you properly—the feeling, I mean—but it was wonderful! Unlike anything I’ve ever felt or dreamed. Well, it’s gone on ever since. Not every night, just now and then. The music, the feeling of being uplifted, the soaring flight . . . and then the terrible drag, the pull back to earth, and afterwards the pain, the actual physical pain of the awakening. It’s like coming down from a high mountain—you know the pains in the ears one gets? Well, this is the same thing, but intensified—and with it goes the awful sense of weight—of being hemmed in, stifled . . .’

  He broke off and there was a pause.

  ‘Already the servants think I’m mad. I couldn’t bear the roof and the walls—I’ve had a place arranged up at the top of the house, open to the sky, with no furniture or carpets, or any stifling things . . . But even then the houses all round are nearly as bad. It’s open country I want, somewhere where one can breathe . . .’ He looked across at Seldon. ‘Well, what do you say? Can you explain it?’

  ‘H’m,’ said Seldon. ‘Plenty of explanations. You’ve been hypnotized, or you’ve hypnotized yourself. Your nerves have gone wrong. Or it may be merely a dream.’

  Hamer shook his head. ‘None of those explanations will do.’

  ‘And there are others,’ said Seldon slowly, ‘but they’re not generally admitted.’

  ‘You are prepared to admit them?’

  ‘On the whole, yes! There’s a great deal we can’t understand which can’t possibly be explained normally. We’ve any amount to find out still, and I for one believe in keeping an open mind.’

  ‘What do you advise me to do?’ asked Hamer after a silence.