The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite

He said gently:

‘If you bring this man of yours happiness in these last months, you will indeed have done a very beautiful thing.’

Her eyes opened wide – surprised.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘You don’t think I’d let him die, do you? After all these years – when he’s come to me. I’ve known lots of people whom doctors have given up and who are alive today. Die? Of course he’s not going to die!’

He looked at her – her strength, her beauty, her vitality – her indomitable courage and will. He, too, had known doctors to be mistaken … The personal factor – you never knew how much and how little it counted.

She said again, with scorn and amusement in her voice:

‘You don’t think I’d let him die, do you?’

‘No,’ said Mr Satterthwaite at last very gently. ‘Somehow, my dear, I don’t think you will …’

Then at last he walked down the cypress path to the bench overlooking the sea and found there the person he was expecting to see. Mr Quin rose and greeted him – the same as ever, dark, saturnine, smiling and sad.

‘You expected me?’ he asked.

And Mr Satterthwaite answered: ‘Yes, I expected you.’

They sat together on the bench.

‘I have an idea that you have been playing Providence once more, to judge by your expression,’ said Mr Quin presently.

Mr Satterthwaite looked at him reproachfully.

‘As if you didn’t know all about it.’

‘You always accuse me of omniscience,’ said Mr Quin, smiling.

‘If you know nothing, why were you here the night before last – waiting?’ countered Mr Satterthwaite.

‘Oh, that –?’

‘Yes, that.’

‘I had a – commission to perform.’

‘For whom?’

‘You have sometimes fancifully named me an advocate for the dead.’

‘The dead?’ said Mr Satterthwaite, a little puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

Mr Quin pointed a long, lean finger down at the blue depths below.

‘A man was drowned down there twenty-two years ago.’

‘I know – but I don’t see –’

‘Supposing that, after all, that man loved his young wife. Love can make devils of men as well as angels. She had a girlish adoration for him, but he could never touch the womanhood in her – and that drove him mad. He tortured her because he loved her. Such things happen. You know that as well as I do.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Mr Satterthwaite, ‘I have seen such things – but rarely – very rarely …’

‘And you have also seen, more commonly, that there is such a thing as remorse – the desire to make amends – at all costs to make amends.’

‘Yes, but death came too soon …’

‘Death!’ There was contempt in Mr Quin’s voice. ‘You believe in a life after death, do you not? And who are you to say that the same wishes, the same desires, may not operate in that other life? If the desire is strong enough – a messenger may be found.’

His voice tailed away.

Mr Satterthwaite got up, trembling a little.

‘I must get back to the hotel,’ he said. ‘If you are going that way.’

But Mr Quin shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I shall go back the way I came.’

When Mr Satterthwaite looked back over his shoulder, he saw his friend walking towards the edge of the cliff.

7 The Voice in the Dark (#ulink_afe1266d-27dc-52ed-b36d-b074e2676ede)

‘The Voice in the Dark’ was first published in the USA in Flynn’s Weekly, 4 December 1926, and then as ‘The Magic of Mr Quin No. 4’ in Storyteller magazine, March 1927.

‘I am a little worried about Margery,’ said Lady Stranleigh.

‘My girl, you know,’ she added.

She sighed pensively.

‘It makes one feel terribly old to have a grown-up daughter.’

Mr Satterthwaite, who was the recipient of these confidences, rose to the occasion gallantly.

‘No one could believe it possible,’ he declared with a little bow.

‘Flatterer,’ said Lady Stranleigh, but she said it vaguely and it was clear that her mind was elsewhere.

Mr Satterthwaite looked at the slender white-clad figure in some admiration. The Cannes sunshine was searching, but Lady Stranleigh came through the test very well. At a distance the youthful effect was really extraordinary. One almost wondered if she were grown-up or not. Mr Satterthwaite, who knew everything, knew that it was perfectly possible for Lady Stranleigh to have grown-up grandchildren. She represented the extreme triumph of art over nature. Her figure was marvellous, her complexion was marvellous. She had enriched many beauty parlours and certainly the results were astounding.

Lady Stranleigh lit a cigarette, crossed her beautiful legs encased in the finest of nude silk stockings and murmured: ‘Yes, I really am rather worried about Margery.’

‘Dear me,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘what is the trouble?’

Lady Stranleigh turned her beautiful blue eyes upon him