Collins Chillers. Агата Кристи

for these old friends—’

      But she interrupted him, speaking excitedly.

      ‘No, no, never again. There is danger. I tell you. I can feel it, great danger.’

      She clasped her hands on her forehead a minute, then walked across to the window.

      ‘Promise me never again,’ she said in a quieter voice over her shoulder.

      Raoul followed her and put his arms round her shoulders.

      ‘My dear one,’ he said tenderly, ‘I promise you after today you shall never sit again.’

      He felt the sudden start she gave.

      ‘Today,’ she murmured. ‘Ah, yes—I had forgotten Madame Exe.’

      Raoul looked at his watch.

      ‘She is due any minute now; but perhaps, Simone, if you do not feel well—’

      Simone hardly seemed to be listening to him; she was following out her own train of thought.

      ‘She is—a strange woman, Raoul, a very strange woman. Do you know I—I have almost a horror of her.’

      ‘Simone!’

      There was reproach in his voice, and she was quick to feel it.

      ‘Yes, yes, I know, you are like all Frenchmen, Raoul. To you a mother is sacred and it is unkind of me to feel like that about her when she grieves so for her lost child. But—I cannot explain it, she is so big and black, and her hands—have you ever noticed her hands, Raoul? Great big strong hands, as strong as a man’s. Ah!’

      She gave a little shiver and closed her eyes. Raoul withdrew his arm and spoke almost coldly.

      ‘I really cannot understand you, Simone. Surely you, a woman, should have nothing but sympathy for another woman, a mother bereft of her only child.’

      Simone made a gesture of impatience.

      ‘Ah, it is you who do not understand, my friend! One cannot help these things. The first moment I saw her I felt—’

      She flung her hands out.

      ‘Fear! You remember, it was a long time before I would consent to sit for her? I felt sure in some way she would bring me misfortune.’

      Raoul shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘Whereas, in actual fact, she brought you the exact opposite,’ he said drily. ‘All the sittings have been attended with marked success. The spirit of the little Amelie was able to control you at once, and the materializations have really been striking. Professor Roche ought really to have been present at the last one.’

      ‘Materializations,’ said Simone in a low voice. ‘Tell me, Raoul (you know that I know nothing of what takes place while I am in the trance), are the materializations really so wonderful?’

      He nodded enthusiastically.

      ‘At the first few sittings the figure of the child was visible in a kind of nebulous haze,’ he explained, ‘but at the last séance—’

      ‘Yes?’

      He spoke very softly.

      ‘Simone, the child that stood there was an actual living child of flesh and blood. I even touched her—but seeing that the touch was acutely painful to you, I would not permit Madame Exe to do the same. I was afraid that her self-control might break down, and that some harm to you might result.’

      Simone turned away again towards the window.

      ‘I was terribly exhausted when I woke,’ she murmured. ‘Raoul, are you sure—are you really sure that all this is right? You know what dear old Elise thinks, that I am trafficking with the devil?’

      She laughed rather uncertainly.

      ‘You know what I believe,’ said Raoul gravely. ‘In the handling of the unknown there must always be danger, but the cause is a noble one, for it is the cause of Science. All over the world there have been martyrs to Science, pioneers who have paid the price so that others may follow safely in their footsteps. For ten years now you have worked for Science at the cost of a terrific nervous strain. Now your part is done, from today onward you are free to be happy.’

      She smiled at him affectionately, her calm restored. Then she glanced quickly up at the clock.

      ‘Madame Exe is late,’ she murmured. ‘She may not come.’

      ‘I think she will,’ said Raoul. ‘Your clock is a little fast, Simone.’

      Simone moved about the room, rearranging an ornament here and there.

      ‘I wonder who she is, this Madame Exe?’ she observed. ‘Where she comes from, who her people are? It is strange that we know nothing about her.’

      Raoul shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘Most people remain incognito if possible when they come to a medium,’ he observed. ‘It is an elementary precaution.’

      ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Simone listlessly.

      A little china vase she was holding slipped from her fingers and broke to pieces on the tiles of the fireplace. She turned sharply on Raoul.

      ‘You see,’ she murmured, ‘I am not myself. Raoul, would you think me very—very cowardly if I told Madame Exe I could not sit today?’

      His look of pained astonishment made her redden.

      ‘You promised, Simone—’ he began gently.

      She backed against the wall.

      ‘I won’t do it, Raoul. I won’t do it.’

      And again that glance of his, tenderly reproachful, made her wince.

      ‘It is not of the money I am thinking, Simone, though you must realize that the money this woman has offered you for the last sitting is enormous—simply enormous.’

      She interrupted him defiantly.

      ‘There are things that matter more than money.’

      ‘Certainly there are,’ he agreed warmly. ‘That is just what I am saying. Consider—this woman is a mother, a mother who has lost her only child. If you are not really ill, if it is only a whim on your part—you can deny a rich woman a caprice, can you deny a mother one last sight of her child?’

      The medium flung her hands out despairingly in front of her.

      ‘Oh, you torture me,’ she murmured. ‘All the same you are right. I will do as you wish, but I know now what I am afraid of—it is the word “mother”.’

      ‘Simone!’

      ‘There are certain primitive elementary forces, Raoul. Most of them have been destroyed by civilization, but motherhood stands where it stood at the beginning. Animals—human beings, they are all the same. A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.’

      She stopped, panting a little, then turned to him with a quick, disarming smile.

      ‘I am foolish today, Raoul. I know it.’

      He took her hand in his.

      ‘Lie down for a minute or two,’ he urged. ‘Rest till she comes.’

      ‘Very well.’ She smiled at him and left the room.

      Raoul remained for a minute or two lost in thought, then he strode to the door, opened it, and crossed the little hall. He went into a room the other side of it, a sitting room very much like the one he had left, but at one end was an alcove with a big armchair set in it. Heavy black velvet curtains were arranged so as to pull across the alcove. Elise was busy arranging the room. Close to the alcove she had set two chairs and a small round table. On the table was a tambourine,