Miss Marple – Miss Marple and Mystery: The Complete Short Stories

Jack had the irritating feeling that she didn’t believe him.

He played a few more holes and hurried back to breakfast. As he ate it, he was conscious, not for the first time, of the close scrutiny of a man who sat at the table next to him. He was a man of middle age, with a powerful forceful face. He had a small dark beard and very piercing grey eyes, and an ease and assurance of manner which placed him among the higher ranks of the professional classes. His name, Jack knew, was Lavington, and he had heard vague rumours as to his being a well-known medical specialist, but as Jack was not a frequenter of Harley Street, the name had conveyed little or nothing to him.

But this morning he was very conscious of the quiet observation under which he was being kept, and it frightened him a little. Was his secret written plainly in his face for all to see? Did this man, by reason of his professional calling, know that there was something amiss in the hidden grey matter?

Jack shivered at the thought. Was it true? Was he really going mad? Was the whole thing a hallucination, or was it a gigantic hoax?

And suddenly a very simple way of testing the solution occurred to him. He had hitherto been alone on his round. Supposing someone else was with him? Then one out of three things might happen. The voice might be silent. They might both hear it. Or – he only might hear it.

That evening he proceeded to carry his plan into effect. Lavington was the man he wanted with him. They fell into conversation easily enough – the older man might have been waiting for such an opening. It was clear that for some reason or other Jack interested him. The latter was able to come quite easily and naturally to the suggestion that they might play a few holes together before breakfast. The arrangement was made for the following morning.

They started out a little before seven. It was a perfect day, still and cloudless, but not too warm. The doctor was playing well, Jack wretchedly. His whole mind was intent on the forthcoming crisis. He kept glancing surreptitiously at his watch. They reached the seventh tee, between which and the hole the cottage was situated, about twenty past seven.

The girl, as usual, was in the garden as they passed. She did not look up.

Two balls lay on the green, Jack’s near the hole, the doctor’s some little distance away.

‘I’ve got this for it,’ said Lavington. ‘I must go for it, I suppose.’

He bent down, judging the line he should take. Jack stood rigid, his eyes glued to his watch. It was exactly twenty-five minutes past seven.

The ball ran swiftly along the grass, stopped on the edge of the hole, hesitated and dropped in.

‘Good putt,’ said Jack. His voice sounded hoarse and unlike himself … He shoved his wrist watch farther up his arm with a sigh of overwhelming relief. Nothing had happened. The spell was broken.

‘If you don’t mind waiting a minute,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have a pipe.’

They paused a while on the eighth tee. Jack filled and lit the pipe with fingers that trembled a little in spite of himself. An enormous weight seemed to have lifted from his mind.

‘Lord, what a good day it is,’ he remarked, staring at the prospect ahead of him with great contentment. ‘Go on, Lavington, your swipe.’

And then it came. Just at the very instant the doctor was hitting. A woman’s voice, high and agonized.

‘Murder – Help! Murder!’

The pipe fell from Jack’s nerveless hand, as he spun round in the direction of the sound, and then, remembering, gazed breathlessly at his companion.

Lavington was looking down the course, shading his eyes.

‘A bit short – just cleared the bunker, though, I think.’

He had heard nothing.

The world seemed to spin round with Jack. He took a step or two, lurching heavily. When he recovered himself, he was lying on the short turf, and Lavington was bending over him.

‘There, take it easy now, take it easy.’

‘What did I do?’

‘You fainted, young man – or gave a very good try at it.’

‘My God!’ said Jack, and groaned.

‘What’s the trouble? Something on your mind?’

‘I’ll tell you in one minute, but I’d like to ask you something first.’

The doctor lit his own pipe and settled himself on the bank.

‘Ask anything you like,’ he said comfortably.

‘You’ve been watching me for the last day or two. Why?’

Lavington’s eyes twinkled a little.

‘That’s rather an awkward question. A cat can look at a king, you know.’

‘Don’t put me off. I’m earnest. Why was it? I’ve a vital reason for asking.’

Lavington’s face grew serious.

‘I’ll answer you quite honestly. I recognized in you all the signs of a man labouring under a sense of acute strain, and it intrigued me what that strain could be.’

‘I can tell you that easily enough,’ said Jack bitterly. ‘I’m going mad.’

He stopped dramatically, but his statement not seeming to arouse the interest and consternation he expected, he repeated it.

‘I tell you I’m going mad.’

‘Very curious,’ murmured Lavington. ‘Very curious indeed.’

Jack felt indignant.

‘I suppose that’s all it does seem to you. Doctors are so damned callous.’

‘Come, come my young friend, you’re talking at random. To begin with, although I have taken my degree, I do not practise medicine. Strictly speaking, I am not a doctor – not a doctor of the body, that is.’

Jack looked at him keenly.

‘Or the mind?’

‘Yes, in a sense, but more truly I call myself a doctor of the soul.’

‘Oh!’

‘I perceive the disparagement in your tone, and yet we must use some word to denote the active principle which can be separated and exist independently of its fleshy home, the body. You’ve got to come to terms with the soul, you know, young man, it isn’t just a religious term invented by clergymen. But we’ll call it the mind, or the subconscious self, or any term that suits you better. You took offence at my tone just now, but I can assure you that it really did strike me as very curious that such a well-balanced and perfectly normal young man as yourself should suffer from the delusion that he was going out of his mind.’

‘I’m out of my mind all right. Absolutely balmy.’