to the shutter. And afterwards?
‘I shall know in the morning,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, and proceeded to change methodically for his evening meal.
It was somewhere round ten o’clock that Mr Satterthwaite set foot once more in the garden of La Paz. Manuel bade him a smiling ‘Good morning,’ and handed him a single rosebud which Mr Satterthwaite put carefully into his buttonhole. Then he went on to the house. He stood there for some minutes looking up at the peaceful white walls, the trailing orange creeper, and the faded green shutters. So silent, so peaceful. Had the whole thing been a dream?
But at that moment one of the windows opened and the lady who occupied Mr Satterthwaite’s thoughts came out. She came straight to him with a buoyant swaying walk, like someone carried on a great wave of exultation. Her eyes were shining, her colour high. She looked like a figure of joy on a frieze. There was no hesitation about her, no doubts or tremors. Straight to Mr Satterthwaite she came, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him – not once but many times. Large, dark, red roses, very velvety – that is how he thought of it afterwards. Sunshine, summer, birds singing – that was the atmosphere into which he felt himself caught up. Warmth, joy and tremendous vigour.
‘I’m so happy,’ she said. ‘You darling! How did you know? How could you know? You’re like the good magician in the fairy tales.’
She paused, a sort of breathlessness of happiness upon her.
‘We’re going over today – to the Consul – to get married. When John comes, his father will be there. We’ll tell him there was some misunderstanding in the past. Oh! he won’t ask questions. Oh! I’m so happy – so happy – so happy.’
Happiness did indeed surge from her like a tide. It lapped round Mr Satterthwaite in a warm exhilarating flood.
‘It’s so wonderful to Anthony to find he has a son. I never dreamt he’d mind or care.’ She looked confidently into Mr Satterthwaite’s eyes. ‘Isn’t it strange how things come right and end all beautifully?’
He had his clearest vision of her yet. A child – still a child – with her love of make believe – her fairy tales that ended beautifully with two people ‘living happily ever afterwards’.
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.
‘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.’
