The Coming of Mr. Quin Read Free Page B

it as Capel’s, and a dog he was particularly fond of, and the constable came up with it. He’d just arrived a minute before the shot was fired. It saved us some trouble.’
    â€˜Gad, that was a snowstorm,’ said Conway reminiscently. ‘About this time of year, wasn’t it? Early January.’
    â€˜February, I think. Let me see, we went abroad soon afterwards.’
    â€˜I’m pretty sure it was January. My hunter Ned – you remember Ned? – lamed himself the end of January. That was just after this business.’
    â€˜It must have been quite the end of January then. Funny how difficult it is to recall dates after a lapse of years.’
    â€˜One of the most difficult things in the world,’ said Mr Quin, conversationally. ‘Unless you can find a landmark in some big public event – an assassination of a crowned head, or a big murder trial.’
    â€˜Why, of course,’ cried Conway, ‘it was just before the Appleton case.’
    â€˜Just after, wasn’t it?’
    â€˜No, no, don’t you remember – Capel knew the Appletons – he’d stayed with the old man the previous Spring – just a week before he died. He was talking of him one night – what an old curmudgeon he was, and how awful it must have been for a young and beautiful woman like Mrs Appleton to be tied to him. There was no suspicion then that she had done away with him.’
    â€˜By jove, you’re right. I remember reading the paragraph in the paper saying an exhumation order had been granted. It would have been that same day – I remember only seeing it with half my mind, you know, the other half wondering about poor old Derek lying dead upstairs.’
    â€˜A common, but very curious phenomenon, that,’ observed Mr Quin. ‘In moments of great stress, the mind focuses itself upon some quite unimportant matter which is remembered long afterwards with the utmost fidelity, driven in, as it were, by the mental stress of the moment. It may be some quite irrelevant detail, like the pattern of a wallpaper, but it will never be forgotten.’
    â€˜Rather extraordinary, your saying that, Mr Quin,’ said Conway. ‘Just as you were speaking, I suddenly felt myself back in Derek Capel’s room – with Derek lying dead on the floor – I saw as plainly as possible the big tree outside the window, and the shadow it threw upon the snow outside. Yes, the moonlight, the snow, and the shadow of the tree – I can see them again this minute. By Gad, I believe I could draw them, and yet I never realized I was looking at them at the time.’
    â€˜His room was the big one over the porch, was it not?’ asked Mr Quin.
    â€˜Yes, and the tree was the big beech, just at the angle of the drive.’
    Mr Quin nodded, as though satisfied. Mr Satterthwaite was curiously thrilled. He was convinced that every word, every inflection of Mr Quin’s voice, was pregnant with purpose. He was driving at something – exactly what Mr Satterthwaite did not know, but he was quite convinced as to whose was the master hand.
    There was a momentary pause, and then Evesham reverted to the preceding topic.
    â€˜That Appleton case, I remember it very well now. What a sensation it made. She got off, didn’t she? Pretty woman, very fair – remarkably fair.’
    Almost against his will, Mr Satterthwaite’s eyes sought the kneeling figure up above. Was it his fancy, or did he see it shrink a little as though at a blow. Did he see a hand slide upwards to the table cloth – and then pause.
    There was a crash of falling glass. Alex Portal, helping himself to whisky, had let the decanter slip.
    â€˜I say – sir, damn’ sorry. Can’t think what came over me.’
    Evesham cut short his apologies.
    â€˜Quite all right. Quite all right, my dear fellow. Curious – That smash reminded me. That’s what she did, didn’t she?