whole property is practically hers and her son's--whom
you have told me she adores. And Arthur was going to be
married?
"But what are we going to do, Carstairs?"
"There's nothing to be done," I said. "We'll do our best, though, to stand between Lady Carmichael and vengeance."
Lady Carmichael improved slowly. Her injuries healed themselves as well as could be expected--the scars of that
terrible assault she would probably bear to the end of her
life.
I had never felt more helpless. The power that defeated us was still at large, undefeated, and though quiescent for
the minute we could hardly regard as doing otherwise than
biding its time. I was determined upon one thing. As soon
180 Agatha Christie
as Lady Carmichael was well enough to be moved, she must
be taken away from Wolden. There was just a chance that
the terrible manifestation might be unable to follow her. So the days went on.
I had fixed September 18 as the date of Lady Carmichacl's
removal. It was on the morning of the 14th when
the unexpected crisis arose.
I was in the library discussing details of Lady Carmichael's
case with Settle when an agitated housemaid rushed
into the room.
"Oh, sir!" she cried. "Be quick! Mr. Arthur--he's fallen
into the pond. He stepped on the punt and it pushed off
with him, and he overbalanced and fell in! I saw it from
the window."
I waited for no more, but run straight out of the room
followed by Settle. Phyllis was just outside and had heard
the maid's story. She ran with us.
"But you needn't be afraid," she cried. "Arthur is a
magnificent swimmer."
I felt forebodings, however, and redoubled my pace. The
surface of the pond was unruffled. The empty punt floated
lazily about--but of Arthur there was no sign.
Settle pulled off his coat and his boots. "I'm going in,"
he said. "You take the boat hook and fish about from the
other punt. It's not very deep."
Very long the time seemed as we searched vainly. Minute
followed minute. And then, just as we were despairing, we
found him, and bore the apparently lifeless body of Arthur
Carmichacl to shore.
As long as I live I shall never forget the hopeless agony
of Phyllis's face.
"Not--not--" Her lips refused to frame the dreadful
word.
"No, no, my dear," I cried. "We'll bring him round,
never fear."
But inwardly I had little hope. He had been under water
for half an hour. I sent off Settle to the house for hot blankets
and other necessaries, and began myself to apply artificial
respiration.
We worked vigorously with him for over an hour, but
THE STRAI CAE OF SIR ARTHUR CARMICHAEL 181
there was no sign of life. I motioned to Sttle to take my
place again, and I approacbed Phyllis.
"I'm afraid," I said gently, "that it is no good. Arthur is
beyond our help."
She stayed quite still for a moment and then suddenly
flung herself down on the lifeless body.
"Arthur!" she cried desperately. "Arthur! Come back to
me! Arthur--come back--come back!"
Her voice echoed away into silence. Suddenly I touched
Settle's arm. "Look!" I said.
A faint tinge of colour had crept into the drowned man's
face. I felt his heart.
"Go on with the respiration," I cried. "He's coming
The moments seemed to fly now. In a marvellously short
time his eyes opened.
Then suddenly I realized a difference. These were intelligent
eyes, human eyes ....
"Hallo! Phil," he said weakly. "Is it you? I thought you
weren't coming until tomorrow."
She could not yet trust herself to speak, but she smiled
at him. He looked around with increasing bewilderment.
"But, I say, where am I? And--how rotten I feel! What's
the matter with me? Hallo, Dr. Settle!"
"You've been nearly drowned--that's what's the matter,''
returned Settle grimly.
Sir Arthur made a grimace.
"I've always heard it was beastly coming back afterwards!
But how did it happen? Was I walking in my sleep?"
Settle shook his head.
"We must get him to the house,' I said, stepping forward.
He stared at me, and Phyllis introduced me. "Dr. Car-stairs,
who is staying here."
We supported him between us and started for the house.
He looked up suddenly as though struck by an idea.
"I say, doctor, this won't knock me up for the twelfth,
will it7"
"The twelfthT' I said slowly, "you mean the twelfth of
August?"
182
Agatha Christie
"Yes--next Friday."
"Today is the fourteenth of September," said Settle abruptly.
His bewilderment was evident.
"But--but I thought it was the eighth of August? I must have been ill then7"
Phyllis interposed rather quickly in her gentle voice. "Yes," she said, "you've been very ill."
He frowned. "I can't understand it. I was perfectly all right when I went to bed last night--at least of course it
wasn't really last night. I had dreams, though. I remember,
dreams .... "His brow furrowed itself still more as he strove
to remember. "Something--what was it?---something
dreadful--someone had done it .to me--and I was angry--desperate
.... And then I dreamed I was a cat--yes, a cat!
Funny, wasn't it? But it wasn't a funny dream. It was
more--horrible! But I can't remember. It all goes when I
think."
I laid my hand on his shoulder. "Don't try to think, Sir Arthur," I said gravely. "Be content--to forget."
He looked at me in a puzzled way and nodded. I heard Phyllis draw a breath of relief. We had reached the house.
"By the way," said Sir Arthur suddenly, "where's the mater?"
"She has been--ill," said Phyllis after a momentary pause.
"Oh! Poor old mater!" His voice rang with genuine concern. "Where is she? In her room?"
"Yes," I said, "but you had better not disturb---"
The words froze on my lips. The door of the drawing room opened and Lady Carmichael, wrapped in a dressing
gown, came out into the hall.
Her eyes were fixed on Arthur, and if ever I have seen a look of absolute guilt-stricken terror, I saw it then. Her
face was hardly human in its frenzied terror. Her hand went
to her throat.
Arthur advanced towards her with boyish affection.
"Hallo, mater! So you've been ill too? I say, I'm awfully sorry."
She shrank back before him, her eyes dilating. Then suddenly, with the shriek of a doomed soul, she fell backwards
through the open door.
THE STRANGE CASE OF SIR ARTHUR CARMICAEL 183
I rushed and bent over her, then beckoned to Settle.
"Hush," I said. "Take him upstairs quietly and then come
down again. Lady Carmichael is dead."
He returned in a few minute.
"What was itT" he asked. "What caused itT'
"Shock," I said grimly. "The shock of seeing Arthur Carmichael, the real Arthur Carmichael, restored to life!
Or you may call it, as I prefer
to, the judgment of God!" "You mean---" He hesitated.
I looked at him in the eyes so that he understood. "A life for a life," I said significantly.
"But--"
"Oh! I know that a strange and unforeseen accident permitted the spirit of Arthur Carmichael to return to his body.
But, nevertheless, Arthur Carmichael was murdered."
He looked at me half fearfully. "With prussic acid?" he asked in a low tone.
"Yes," I answered. "With prussic acid."
Settle and I have never spoken of our belief. It is not one likely to be credited. According to the orthodox point
of view Arthur Carmichael merely suffered from loss of
memory, Lady Carmichael lacerated her own throat in a
temporary fit of mania, and the apparition of the Grey Cat
was mere imagination.
But there are two facts that to my mind are unmistakable. One is the ripped chair in the corridor. The other is even
more significant. A catalogue of the library was found, and
after exhaustive search it was proved that the missing volume
was an ancient and curious work on the possibilities
of the metamorphosis of human beings into animals!
One thing more. I am thankful to say that Arthur knows nothing. Phyllis has locked the secret of those weeks in her
own heart, and she will never, I am sure, reveal them to
the husband she loves so dearly, and who came back across
the barrier of the grave at the call of her voice.
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
among 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 hardworking
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 I "
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
184
THE CALL OF WINGS
185
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 any thing 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 curbstone 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 shuddered
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
186 Agatha Christie
crowd. He felt himself shaking with a nameless unquenchable dread. He was forced to admit to himself that he was
afraidmhorribly afraid--of DeathDeath 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 streets 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 unlik 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
THE CALL OF WINGS 187
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!