The mysterious Mr. Quin
"Good evening, Mary," said Mr. Quin. "A stormy night."
She nodded. "I hate these stormy nights," she muttered.
"You are afraid of thunder, perhaps?" said Mr. Satterthwaite kindly.
"Afraid of thunder? Not me! There's little that I'm afraid of. No, but
the storm sets them off. Talking, talking, the same thing over and over
again, like a lot of parrots. Father begins it: 'It reminds me, this
does, of the night poor Captain Harwell--' And so on, and so on." She
turned on Mr. Quin. "You've heard how he goes on. What's the sense of
it? Can't anyone let past things be?"
"A thing is only past when it is done with," said Mr. Quin.
"Isn't this done with? Suppose he wanted to disappear? These fine
gentlemen do sometimes."
"You think he disappeared of his own free will?"
"Why not? It would make better sense than to suppose a kindhearted
creature like Stephen Grant murdered him. What should he murder him
for, I should like to know? Stephen had had a drop too much one day
and spoke to him saucy like, and got the sack for it. But what of it?
He got another place just as good. Is that a reason to murder a man in
cold blood?"
"But surely," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "the police were quite satisfied
of his innocence."
"The police! What do the police matter? When Stephen comes into the bar
of an evening, every man looks at him queer like. They don't really
believe he murdered Harwell, but they're not sure, and so they look at
him sideways and edge away. Nice life for a man, to see people shrink
away from you, as though you were something different from the rest of
the folks. Why won't Father hear of our getting married, Stephen and
I? 'You can take your pigs to a better market, my girl. I've nothing
against Stephen, but--well, we don't know, do we?'"
She stopped, her breast heaving with the violence of her resentment.
"It's cruel, cruel, that's what it is," she burst out. "Stephen, that
wouldn't hurt a fly! And all through life there'll be people who'll
think he did it. It's turning him queer and bitter like. I don't
wonder, I'm sure. And the more he's like that, the more people think
there must have been something in it."
Again she stopped. Her eyes were fixed on Mr. Quin's face, as though
something in it was drawing this outburst from her.
"Can nothing be done?" said Mr. Satterthwaite.
He was genuinely distressed. The thing was, he saw, inevitable. The
very vagueness and unsatisfactoriness of the evidence against Stephen
Grant made it the more difficult for him to disprove the accusation.
The girl whirled round on him. "Nothing but the truth can help him,"
she cried. "If Captain Harwell were to be found, if he was to come
back. If the true rights of it were only known--"
She broke off with something very like a sob, and hurried quickly from
the room.
"A fine-looking girl," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "A sad case altogether.
I wish--I very much wish that something could be done about it."
His kind heart was troubled.
"We are doing what we can," said Mr. Quin. "There is still nearly half
an hour before your car can be ready."
Mr. Satterthwaite stared at him. "You think we can come at the truth
just by--talking it over like this?"
"You have seen much of life," said Mr. Quin gravely. "More than most
people."
"Life has passed me by," said Mr. Satterthwaite bitterly.
"But in so doing has sharpened your vision. Where others are blind you
can see."
"It is true," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "I am a great observer."
He plumed himself complacently. The moment of bitterness was past. "I
look at it like this," he said after a minute or two. "To get at the
cause for a thing, we must study the effect."
"Very good," said Mr. Quin approvingly.
"The effect in this case is that Miss Le Couteau--Mrs. Harwell, I
mean--is a wife and yet not a wife. She is not free--she cannot marry
again. And look at it as we will, we see Richard Harwell as a sinister
figure, a man from nowhere with a mysterious past."
"I agree," said Mr. Quin. "You see what all are bound to see, what
cannot be missed, Captain Harwell in the limelight, a suspicious
figure."
Mr. Satterthwaite looked at him doubtfully. The words seemed somehow to
suggest a faintly different picture to his mind. "We have studied the
effect," he said. "Or call it the _result_. We can now pass--"
Mr. Quin interrupted him. "You have not touched on the result on the
strictly material side."
"You are right," said Mr. Satterthwaite, after a moment or two for
consideration. "One should do the thing thoroughly. Let us say then
that the result of the tragedy is that Mrs. Harwell is a wife and not
a wife, unable to marry again, that Mr. Cyrus Bradburn has been able
to buy Ashley Grange and its contents for--sixty thousand pounds, was
it?--and that somebody in Essex has been able to secure John Mathias
as a gardener! For all that, we do not suspect 'somebody in Essex' or
Mr. Cyrus Bradburn of having engineered the disappearance of Captain
Harwell."
"You are sarcastic," said Mr. Quin.
Mr. Satterthwaite looked sharply at him. "But surely you agree--"
"Oh! I agree," said Mr. Quin. "The idea is absurd. What next?"
"Let us imagine ourselves back on the fatal day. The disappearance has
taken place, let us say, this very morning."
"No, no," said Mr. Quin, smiling. "Since, in our imagination at least,
we have power over time, let us turn it the other way. Let us say the
disappearance of Captain Harwell took place a hundred years ago. That
we, in the twenty-first century, are looking back."
"You are a strange man," said Mr. Satterthwaite slowly. "You believe in
the past, not the present. Why?"
"You used, not long ago, the word atmosphere. There is no atmosphere in
the present."
"That is true, perhaps," said Mr. Satterthwaite thoughtfully. "Yes, it
is true. The present is apt to be--parochial."
"A good word," said Mr. Quin.
Mr. Satterthwaite gave a funny little bow. "You are too kind," he said.
"Let us take--not this present year, that would be too difficult, but
say--last year," continued the other. "Sum it up for me, you, who have
the gift of the neat phrase."
Mr. Satterthwaite thought for a minute. He was jealous of his
reputation.
"A hundred years ago we have the age of powder and patches," he
said. "Shall we say that it was the age of crossword puzzles and cat
burglars?"
"Very good," approved Mr. Quin. "You mean that nationally, not
internationally, I presume?"
"As to crossword puzzles, I must confess that I do not know," said
Mr. Satterthwaite. "But the cat burglar had a great inning on the
Continent. You remember that series of famous thefts from French
châteaux? It is surmised that one man alone could not have done it. The
most miraculous feats were performed to gain admission. There was a
theory that a troupe of acrobats were concerned--the Clondinis. I once
saw their performance--truly masterly. A mother, son, and daughter.
They vanished from the stage in a rather mysterious fashion. But we are
wandering from our subject."
"Not very far," said Mr. Quin. "Only across the Channel."
"Where the French ladies will not wet their toes, according to our
worthy host," said Mr. Satterthwaite, laughing.
There was a pause. It seemed somehow significant.
"Why did he disappear?" cried Mr. Satterthwaite. "Why? Why? It is
incredible, a kind of conjuring trick."
"Yes," said Mr. Quin. "A conjuring trick. That describes it exactly.
Atmosphere again, you see. And wherein does the essence of a conjuring
trick lie?"
"'The quickness of the hand deceives the eye,'" quoted Mr.
Satterthwaite glibly.
"That is everything, is it not? To deceive the eye? Sometimes by the
quickness of the hand, sometimes--by other means. There are many
devices, the pistol shot, the waving of a red handkerchief, something
that seems important, but in reality is not. The eye is diverted from
the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means
nothing--nothing at all."
Mr. Satterthwaite leaned forward, his eyes shining. "There is something
in that. It is an idea."
He went on softly. "The pistol shot. What was the pistol shot in the
conjuring trick we are discussing? What is the spectacular moment that
holds the imagination?"
He drew in his breath sharply. "The disappearance," breathed Mr.
Satterthwaite. "Take that away, and it leaves nothing."
"Nothing? Suppose things took the same course without that dramatic
gesture."
"You mean--supposing Miss Le Couteau were still to sell Ashley Grange
to Mr. Bradburn and leave--for no reason?"
"Well."
"Well, why not? It would have aroused talk, I suppose; there would have
been a lot of interest displayed in the value of the contents, in--Ah!
wait!"
He was silent a minute, then burst out. "You are right, there is too
much limelight, the limelight on Captain Harwell. And because of that,
_she_ has been in shadow. _Miss Le Couteau!_ Everyone asking 'Who
was Captain Harwell? Where did he come from?' But because she is the
injured party, no one makes inquiries about her. Was she really a
French Canadian? Were those wonderful heirlooms really handed down to
her? You were right when you said just now that we had not wandered far
from our subject--_only across the Channel_. Those so-called heirlooms
were stolen from the French châteaux, most of them valuable _objets
d'art_, and in consequence difficult to dispose of. She buys the
house--for a mere song, probably--settles down there and pays a good
sum to an irreproachable Englishwoman to chaperon her. Then _he_ comes.
The plot is laid beforehand. The marriage, the disappearance, and the
nine days' wonder! What more natural than that a brokenhearted woman
should want to sell everything that reminds her of past happiness? The
American is a connoisseur, the things are genuine and beautiful, some
of them beyond price. He makes an offer, she accepts it. She leaves the
neighborhood, a sad and tragic figure. The great _coup_ has come off.
The eye of the public has been deceived by the quickness of the hand
and the spectacular nature of the trick."
Mr. Satterthwaite paused, flushed with triumph.
"But for you, I should never have seen it," he said with sudden
humility. "You have a most curious effect upon me. One says things so
often without even seeing what they really mean. You have the knack
of showing one. But it is still not quite clear to me. It must have
been most difficult for Harwell to disappear as he did. After all, the
police all over England were looking for him."
"They were probably looking," said Mr. Quin, "all over England."
"It would have been simplest to remain hidden at the Grange," mused Mr.
Satterthwaite. "If it could be managed."
"He was, I think, very near the Grange," said Mr. Quin.
His look of significance was not lost on Mr. Satterthwaite. "Mathias's
cottage?" he exclaimed. "But the police must have searched it?"
"Repeatedly, I should imagine," said Mr. Quin.
"Mathias," said Mr. Satterthwaite, frowning.
"And Mrs. Mathias," said Mr. Quin.
Mr. Satterthwaite stared hard at him. "If that gang was really the
Clondinis," he said dreamily, "there are three of them in it. The two
young ones were Harwell and Eleanor Le Couteau. The mother now, was she
Mrs. Mathias? But in that case--"
"Mathias suffered from rheumatism, did he not?" said Mr. Quin
innocently.
"Oh!" cried Mr. Satterthwaite. "I have it. But could it be done? I
believe it could. Listen. Mathias was there a month. During that time,
Harwell and Eleanor were away for a fortnight on a honeymoon. For the
fortnight before the wedding, they were supposedly in town. A clever
man could have doubled the parts of Harwell and Mathias. When Harwell
was at Kirtlington Mallet, Mathias was conveniently laid up with