The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie
‘An interesting face,’ said Mr Satterthwaite to himself. ‘A real face. It means something.’
The young man was leaning forward talking earnestly. The girl was listening. Neither of them belonged to Mr Satterthwaite’s world. He took them to be of the ‘Arty’ class. The girl wore a rather shapeless garment of cheap green silk. Her shoes were of soiled, white satin. The young man wore his evening clothes with an air of being uncomfortable in them.
The two men passed and re-passed several times. The fourth time they did so, the couple had been joined by a third–a fair young man with a suggestion of the clerk about him. With his coming a certain tension had set in. The newcomer was fidgetting with his tie and seemed ill at ease, the girl’s beautiful face was turned gravely up towards him, and her companion was scowling furiously.
‘The usual story,’ said Mr Quin very softly, as they passed.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Satterthwaite with a sigh. ‘It’s inevitable, I suppose. The snarling of two dogs over a bone. It always has been, it always will be. And yet, one could wish for something different. Beauty–’ he stopped. Beauty, to Mr Satterthwaite, meant something very wonderful. He found it difficult to speak of it. He looked at Mr Quin, who nodded his head gravely in understanding.
They went back to their seats for the second act.
At the close of the performance, Mr Satterthwaite turned eagerly to his friend.
‘It is a wet night. My car is here. You must allow me to drive you–er–somewhere.’
The last word was Mr Satterthwaite’s delicacy coming into play. ‘To drive you home’ would, he felt, have savoured of curiosity. Mr Quin had always been singularly reticent. It was extraordinary how little Mr Satterthwaite knew about him.
‘But perhaps,’ continued the little man, ‘you have your own car waiting?’
‘No,’ said Mr Quin, ‘I have no car waiting.’
‘Then–’
But Mr Quin shook his head.
‘You are most kind,’ he said, ‘but I prefer to go my own way. Besides,’ he said with a rather curious smile, ‘if anything should–happen, it will be for you to act. Goodnight, and thank you. Once again we have seen the drama together.’
He had gone so quickly that Mr Satterthwaite had no time to protest, but he was left with a faint uneasiness stirring in his mind. To what drama did Mr Quin refer? Pagliacci or another?’
Masters, Mr Satterthwaite’s chauffeur, was in the habit of waiting in a side street. His master disliked the long delay while the cars drew up in turn before the Opera house. Now, as on previous occasions, he walked rapidly round the corner and along the street towards where he knew he should find Masters awaiting him. Just in front of him were a girl and a man, and even as he recognized them, another man joined them.
It all broke out in a minute. A man’s voice, angrily uplifted. Another man’s voice in injured protest. And then the scuffle. Blows, angry breathing, more blows, the form of a policeman appearing majestically from nowhere–and in another minute Mr Satterthwaite was beside the girl where she shrank back against the wall.
‘Allow me,’ he said. ‘You must not stay here.’
He took her by the arm and marshalled her swiftly down the street. Once she looked back.
‘Oughtn’t I–?’ she began uncertainly.
Mr Satterthwaite shook his head.
‘It would be very unpleasant for you to be mixed up in it. You would probably be asked to go along to the police station with them. I am sure neither of your–friends would wish that.’
He stopped.
‘This is my car. If you will allow me to do so, I shall have much pleasure in driving you home.’
The girl looked at him searchingly. The staid respectability of Mr Satterthwaite impressed her favourably. She bent her head.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and got into the car, the door of which Masters was holding open.
In reply to a question from Mr Satterthwaite, she gave an address in Chelsea, and he got in beside her.
The girl was upset and not in the mood for talking, and Mr Satterthwaite was too tactful to intrude upon her thoughts. Presently, however, she turned to him and spoke of her own accord.
‘I wish,’ she said pettishly, ‘people wouldn’t be so silly.’
‘It is a nuisance,’ agreed Mr Satterthwaite.
His matter-of-fact manner put her at her ease, and she went on as though feeling the need of confiding in someone.
‘It wasn’t as though–I mean, well, it was like this. Mr Eastney and I have been friends for a long time–ever since I came to London. He’s taken no end of trouble about my voice, and got me some very good introductions, and he’s been more kind to me than I can say. He’s absolutely music mad. It was very good of him to take me tonight. I’m sure he can’t really afford it. And then Mr Burns came up and spoke to us–quite nicely, I’m sure, and Phil (Mr Eastney) got sulky about it. I don’t know why he should. It’s a free country, I’m sure. And Mr Burns is always pleasant, and good-tempered. Then just as we were walking to the Tube, he came up and joined us, and he hadn’t so much as said two words before Philip flew out at him like a madman. And–Oh! I don’t like it.’
‘Don’t you?’ asked Mr Satterthwaite very softly.
She blushed, but very little. There was none of the conscious siren about her. A certain measure of pleasurable excitement in being fought for there must be–that was only nature, but Mr Satterthwaite decided that a worried perplexity lay uppermost, and he had the clue to it in another moment when she observed inconsequently:
‘I do hope he hasn’t hurt him.’
‘Now which is “him”?’ thought Mr Satterthwaite, smiling to himself in the darkness.
He backed his own judgment and said:
‘You hope Mr–er–Eastney hasn’t hurt Mr Burns?’
She nodded.
‘Yes, that’s what I said. It seems so dreadful. I wish I knew.’
The car was drawing up.
‘Are you on the telephone?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘If you like, I will find out exactly what has happened, and then telephone to you.’
The girl’s face brightened.
‘Oh, that would be very kind of you. Are you sure it’s not too much bother?’
‘Not in the least.’
She thanked him again and gave him her telephone number, adding with a touch of shyness: ‘My name is Gillian West.’
As he was driven through the night, bound on his errand, a curious smile came to Mr Satterthwaite’s lips.
He thought: ‘So that is all it is…“The shape of a face, the curve of a jaw!”’
But he fulfilled his promise.
II
The following Sunday afternoon Mr Satterthwaite went to Kew Gardens to admire the rhododendrons. Very long ago (incredibly long ago, it seemed to Mr Satterthwaite) he had driven down to Kew Gardens with a certain young lady to see the bluebells. Mr Satterthwaite had arranged very carefully beforehand in his own mind exactly what he was going to say, and the precise words he would use in asking the young lady for her hand in marriage. He was just conning them over in his mind, and responding to her raptures about the bluebells a little absent-mindedly, when the shock came. The young lady stopped exclaiming at the bluebells and suddenly confided in Mr Satterthwaite (as a true friend) her love for another. Mr Satterthwaite put away the little set speech he had prepared, and hastily rummaged for sympathy and friendship in the bottom drawer of his mind.
Such was Mr Satterthwaite’s romance–a rather tepid early Victorian one, but it had left him with a romantic attachment to Kew Gardens, and he would often go there to see the bluebells, or, if he had been abroad later than usual, the rhododendrons, and would sigh to himself, and feel rather sentimental, and really enjoy himself very much indeed in an old-fashioned, romantic way.
This particular afternoon he was strolling back past the tea houses when he recognized a couple sitting at one of the small tables on the grass. T
‘I can’t tell you, sir,’ said Mr Burns, ‘how grateful I am to you for looking after Gillian the other night. She told me all about it.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the girl. ‘It was ever so kind of you.’
Mr Satterthwaite felt pleased and interested in the pair. Their naïveté and sincerity touched him. Also, it was to him a peep into a world with which he was not well acquainted. These people were of a class unknown to him.
In his little dried-up way, Mr Satterthwaite could be very sympathetic. Very soon he was hearing all about his new friends. He noted that Mr Burns had become Charlie, and he was not unprepared for the statement that the two were engaged.
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Mr Burns with refreshing candour, ‘it just happened this afternoon, didn’t it, Gil?’
Burns was a clerk in a shipping firm. He was making a fair salary, had a little money of his own, and the two proposed to be married quite soon.
Mr Satterthwaite listened, and nodded, and congratulated.
‘An ordinary young man,’ he thought to himself, ‘a very ordinary young man. Nice, straightforward young chap, plenty to say for himself, good opinion of himself without being conceited, nice-looking without being unduly handsome. Nothing remarkable about him and will never set the Thames on fire. And the girl loves him…’
Aloud he said: ‘And Mr Eastney–’
He purposely broke off, but he had said enough to produce an effect for which he was not unprepared. Charlie Burns’s face darkened, and Gillian looked troubled. More than troubled, he thought. She looked afraid.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said in a low voice. Her words were addressed to Mr Satterthwaite, as though she knew by instinct that he would understand a feeling incomprehensible to her lover. ‘You see–he’s done a lot for me. He’s encouraged me to take up singing, and–and helped me with it. But I’ve known all the time that my voice wasn’t really good–not first-class. Of course, I’ve had engagements–’
She stopped.
‘You’ve had a bit of trouble too,’ said Burns. ‘A girl wants someone to look after her. Gillian’s had a lot of unpleasantness, Mr Satterthwaite. Altogether she’s had a lot of unpleasantness. She’s a good-looker, as you can see, and–well, that often leads to trouble for a girl.’
Between them, Mr Satterthwaite became enlightened as to various happenings which were vaguely classed by Burns under the heading of ‘unpleasantness’. A young man who had shot himself, the extraordinary conduct of a Bank Manager (who was a married man!), a violent stranger (who must have been balmy!), the wild behaviour of an elderly artist. A trail of violence and tragedy that Gillian West had left in her wake, recited in the commonplace tones of Charles Burns. ‘And it’s my opinion,’ he ended, ‘that this fellow Eastney is a bit cracked. Gillian would have had trouble with him if I hadn’t turned up to look after her.’
His laugh sounded a little fatuous to Mr Satterthwaite, and no responsive smile came to the girl’s face. She was looking earnestly at Mr Satterthwaite.
‘Phil’s all right,’ she said slowly. ‘He cares for me, I know, and I care for him like a friend–but–but not anything more. I don’t know how he’ll take the news about Charlie, I’m sure. He–I’m so afraid he’ll be–’
She stopped, inarticulate in face of the dangers she vaguely sensed.
‘If I can help you in any way,’ said Mr Satterthwaite warmly, ‘pray command me.’
He fancied Charlie Burns looked vaguely resentful, but Gillian said at once: ‘Thank you.’
Mr Satterthwaite left his new friends after having promised to take tea with Gillian on the following Thursday.
When Thursday came, Mr Satterthwaite felt a little thrill of pleasurable anticipation. He thought: ‘I’m an old man–but not too old to be thrilled by a face. A face…’ Then he shook his head with a sense of foreboding.
Gillian was alone. Charlie Burns was to come in later. She looked much happier, Mr Satterthwaite thought, as though a load had been lifted from her mind. Indeed, she frankly admitted as much.
‘I dreaded telling Phil about Charles. It was silly of me. I ought to have known Phil better. He was upset, of course, but no one could have been sweeter. Really sweet he was. Look what he sent me this morning–a wedding present. Isn’t it magnificent?’
It was indeed rather magnificient for a young man in Philip Eastney’s circumstances. A four-valve wireless set, of the latest type.
‘We both love music so much, you see,’ explained the girl. ‘Phil said that when I was listening to a concert on this, I should always think of him a little. And I’m sure I shall. Because we have been such friends.’
‘You must be proud of your friend,’ said Mr Satterthwaite gently. ‘He seems to have taken the blow like a true sportsman.’
Gillian nodded. He saw the quick tears come into her eyes.
‘He asked me to do one thing for him. Tonight is the anniversary of the day we first met. He asked me if I would stay at home quietly this evening and listen to the wireless programme–not to go out with Charlie anywhere. I said, of course I would, and that I was very touched, and that I would think of him with a lot of gratitude and affection.’
Mr Satterthwaite nodded, but he was puzzled. He was seldom at fault in his delineation of character, and he would have judged Philip Eastney quite incapable of such a sentimental request. The young man must be of a more banal order than he supposed. Gillian evidently thought the idea quite in keeping with her rejected lover’s character. Mr Satterthwaite was a little–just a little–disappointed. He was sentimental himself, and knew it, but he expected better things of the rest of the world. Besides sentiment belonged to his age. It had no part to play in the modern world.
He asked Gillian to sing and she complied. He told her her voice was charming, but he knew quite well in his own mind that it was distinctly second-class. Any success that could have come to her in the profession she had adopted would have been won by her face, not her voice.
He was not particularly anxious to see young Burns again, so presently he rose to go. It was at that moment that his attention was attracted by an ornament on the mantelpiece which stood out among the other rather gimcrack objects like a jewel on a dust heap.
It was a curving beaker of thin green glass, long-stemmed and graceful, and poised on the edge of it was what looked like a gigantic soap-bubble, a ball of iridescent glass. Gillian noticed his absorption.
‘That’s an extra wedding present from Phil. It’s rather pretty, I think. He works in a sort of glass factory.’
‘It is a beautiful thing,’ said Mr Satterthwaite reverently. ‘The glass blowers of Murano might have been proud of that.’
He went away with his interest in Philip Eastney strangely stimulated. An extraordinarily interesting young man. And yet the girl with the wonderful face preferred Charlie Burns. What a strange and inscrutable universe!
It had just occurred to Mr Satterthwaite that, owing to the remarkable beauty of Gillian West, his evening with Mr Quin had somehow missed fire. As a rule, every meeting with that mysterious individual had resulted in some strange and unforeseen happening. It was with the hope of perhaps running against the man of mystery that Mr Satterthwaite bent his steps towards the Arlecchino Restaurant where once, in the days gone by, he had met Mr Quin, and which Mr Quin had said he often frequented.
Mr Satterthwaite went from room to room at the Arlecchino, looking hopefully about him, but there was no sign of Mr Quin’s dark, smiling face. There was, however, somebody else. Sitting at a small table alone was Philip Eastney.
The place was crowded and Mr Satterthwaite took his seat opposite the young man. He felt a sudden strange sense of exultation, as though
He sat down opposite Philip Eastney with the sense of accomplishing the inevitable. It was easy enough to get into conversation. Eastney seemed anxious to talk. Mr Satterthwaite was, as always, an encouraging and sympathetic listener. They talked of the war, of explosives, of poison gases. Eastney had a lot to say about these last, for during the greater part of the war he had been engaged in their manufacture. Mr Satterthwaite found him really interesting.
There was one gas, Eastney said, that had never been tried. The Armistice had come too soon. Great things had been hoped for it. One whiff of it was deadly. He warmed to animation as he spoke.
Having broken the ice, Mr Satterthwaite gently turned the conversation to music. Eastney’s thin face lit up. He spoke with the passion and abandon of the real music lover. They discussed Yoaschbim, and the young man was enthusiastic. Both he and Mr Satterthwaite agreed that nothing on earth could surpass a really fine tenor voice. Eastney as a boy had heard Caruso and he had never forgotten it.
‘Do you know that he could sing to a wine-glass and shatter it?’ he demanded.
‘I always thought that was a fable,’ said Mr Satterthwaite smiling.
‘No, it’s gospel truth, I believe. The thing’s quite possible. It’s a question of resonance.’
He went off into technical details. His face was flushed and his eyes shone. The subject seemed to fascinate him, and Mr Satterthwaite noted that he seemed to have a thorough grasp of what he was talking about. The elder man realized that he was talking to an exceptional brain, a brain that might almost be described as that of a genius. Brilliant, erratic, undecided as yet as to the true channel to give it outlet, but undoubtedly genius.
And he thought of Charlie Burns and wondered at Gillian West.