Wireless
By Agatha Christie
"Above all, avoid worry and excitement," said Dr
Meynell, in the comfortable fashion affected by doctors.
Mrs Harter, as is often the case with people hearing these soothing but
meaningless words, seemed more doubtful than relieved.
"There is a certain cardiac weakness," continued the doctor fluently,
"but nothing to be alarmed about. I can assure you of that. All the
same," he added, "it might be as well to have an lift installed. Eh?
What about it?"
Mrs Harter looked worried.
Dr Meynell, on the contrary, looked pleased with himself. The reason he liked
attending rich patients rather than poor ones was that he could exercise his
active imagination in prescribing for their ailments.
"Yes, an lift," said Dr Meynell, trying to think of something else
even more dashing - and failing. "Then we shall avoid all undue exertion.
Daily exercise on the level on a fine day, but avoid walking up hills. And,
above all, plenty of distraction for the mind. Don't dwell on your health."
To the old lady's nephew, Charles Ridgeway, the doctor was slightly more
explicit.
"Do not misunderstand me," he said. "Your aunt may live for
years, probably will. At the same time, shock or overexertion might carry her
off like that!" He snapped his fingers. "She must lead a very quiet
life. No exertion. No fatigue. But, of course, she must not be allowed to
brood. She must be kept cheerful and the mind well distracted."
"Distracted," said Charles Ridgeway thoughtfully.
Charles was a thoughtful young man. He was also a young man who believed in
furthering his own inclinations whenever possible.
That evening he suggested the installation of a radio set.
Mrs Harter, already seriously upset at the thought of the lift, was disturbed
and unwilling. Charles was persuasive.
"I do not know that I care for these new-fangled things," said Mrs
Harter piteously. "The waves, you know - the electric waves. They might
affect me."
Charles, in a superior and kindly fashion, pointed out the futility of this
idea.
Mrs Harter, whose knowledge of the subject was of the vaguest but who was
tenacious of her own opinion, remained unconvinced.
"All that electricity," she murmured timorously. "You may say
what you like, Charles, but some people are affected by electricity. I always
have a terrible headache before a thunderstorm. I know that."
She nodded her head triumphantly.
Charles was a patient young man. He was also persistent.
"My dear Aunt Mary," he said, "let me make the thing clear to
you."
He was something of an authority on the subject. He delivered quite a lecture
on the theme; warming to his task, he spoke of bright-emitter tubes, of
dull-emitter tubes, of high frequency and low frequency, of amplification and
of condensers.
Mrs Harter, submerged in a sea of words that she did not understand,
surrendered.
"Of course, Charles," she murmured, "if you really think -
"
"My dear Aunt Mary," said Charles enthusiastically, "it is the
very thing for you, to keep you from moping and all that."
The lift prescribed by Dr Meynell was installed shortly afterwards and was very
nearly the death of Mrs Harter since, like many other old ladies, she had a
rooted objection to strange men in the house. She suspected them one and all of
having designs on her old silver.
After the lift the radio set arrived. Mrs Harter was left to contemplate the,
to her, repellent object - a large, ungainly-looking box, studded with knobs.
It took all Charles's enthusiasm to reconcile her to it.
Charles was in his element, turning knobs and discoursing eloquently.
Mrs Harter sat in her high-backed chair, patient and polite, with a rooted
conviction in her own mind that these new-fangled notions were neither more nor
less than unmitigated nuisances.
"Listen, Aunt Mary, we are on to Berlin! Isn't that splendid? Can you hear
the fellow?"
"I can't hear anything except a good deal of buzzing and clicking,"
said Mrs Harter.
Charles continued to twirl knobs. "Brussels," he announced with
enthusiasm.
"It is really?" said Mrs Harter with no more than a trace of interest
Charles again turned knobs and an unearthly howl echoed forth into the room.
"Now we seem to be on to the Dogs' Home," said Mrs Harter, who was an
old lady with a certain amount of spirit.
"Ha, ha!" said Charles, "you will have your joke, won't you,
Aunt Mary? Very good that!"
Mrs Harter could not help smiling at him. She was very fond of Charles. For
some years a niece, Miriam Harter, had lived with her. She had intended to make
the girl her heiress, but Miriam had not been a success. She was impatient and
obviously bored by her aunt's society. She was always out, "gadding
about" as Mrs Harter called it. In the end she had entangled herself with
a young man of whom her aunt thoroughly disapproved. Miriam had been returned
to her mother with a curt note much as if she had been goods on approval. She
had married the young man in question and Mrs Harter usually sent her a
handkerchief case or a table centre at Christmas.
Having found nieces disappointing, Mrs Harter turned her attention to nephews.
Charles, from the first, had been an unqualified success. He was always
pleasantly deferential to his aunt and listened with an appearance of intense
interest to the reminiscences of her youth. In this he was a great contrast to
Miriam who had been frankly bored and showed it. Charles was never bored; he
was always good-tempered, always gay. He told his aunt many times a day that
she was a perfectly marvellous old lady.
Highly satisfied with her new acquisition, Mrs Harter had written to her lawyer
with instructions as to the making of a new will. This was sent to her, duly
approved by her, and signed.
And now even in the matter of the radio, Charles was soon proved to have won
fresh laurels.
Mrs Harter, at first antagonistic, became tolerant and finally fascinated. She
enjoyed it very much better when Charles was out. The trouble with Charles was
that he could not leave the thing alone. Mrs Harter would be seated in her
chair comfortably listening to a symphony concert or a lecture on Lucrezia Borgia
or Pond Life, quite happy and at peace with the world. Not so Charles. The
harmony would be shattered by discordant shrieks while he enthusiastically
attempted to get foreign stations. But on those evenings when Charles was
dining out with friends, Mrs Harter enjoyed the radio very much indeed. She
would turn on two switches, sit in her high-backed chair, and enjoy the program
of the evening.
It was about three months after the radio had been installed that the first
eerie happening occurred. Charles was absent at a bridge party.
The program for that evening was a ballad concert. A well-known soprano was
singing Annie Laurie, and in the middle of Annie Laurie a strange thing
happened. There was a sudden break, the music ceased for a moment, the buzzing,
clicking noise continued, and then that too died away. There was silence, and
then very faintly a low buzzing sound was heard.
Mrs Harter got the impression, why she did not know, that the machine was tuned
into somewhere very far away, and then, clearly and distinctly, a voice spoke,
a man's voice with a faint Irish accent.
"Mary - can you hear me, Mary? It is Patrick speaking ... I am coming for
you soon. You will be ready, won't you, Mary?"
Then, almost immediately, the strains of Annie Laurie once more filled the
room. Mrs Harter sat rigid in her chair, her hands clenched on each arm of it.
Had she been dreaming? Patrick! Patrick's voice! Patrick's voice in this very
room, speaking to her. No, it must be a dream, a hallucination perhaps. She must
just have dropped off to sleep for a minute or two. A curious thing to have
dreamed - that her dead husband's voice should speak to her over the ether. It
frightened her just a little. What were the words he had said?
"I am coming for you soon. You will be ready, won't you, Mary?"
Was it, could it be a premonition? Cardiac weakness. Her heart. After all, she
was getting on in years.
"It's a warning - that's what it is," said Mrs Harter, rising slowly
and painfully from her chair, and added characteristically:
"All that money wasted on putting in an lift!"
She said nothing of her experience to anyone, but for the next day or two she
was thoughtful and a little preoccupied.
And then came the second occasion. Again she was alone in the room. The radio,
which had been playing an orchestral selection, died away with the same
suddenness as before. Again there was silence, the sense of distance, and
finally Patrick's voice, not as it had been in life - but a voice rarefied,
far-away, with a strange unearthly quality. "Patrick speaking to you,
Mary. I will be coming for you very soon now ... "
Then click, buzz, and the orchestral selection was in full swing again.
Mrs Harter glanced at the clock. No, she had not been asleep this time. Awake
and in full possession of her faculties, she had heard Patrick's voice
speaking. It was no hallucination, she was sure of that. In a confused way she
tried to think over all that Charles had explained to her of the theory of
ether waves.
Could it be that Patrick had really spoken to her? That his actual voice had
been wafted through space? There were missing wave lengths or something of that
kind. She remembered Charles speaking of "gaps in the scale." Perhaps
the missing waves explained all the so-called psychological phenomena? No,
there was nothing inherently impossible in the idea. Patrick had spoken to her.
He had availed himself of modern science to prepare her for what must soon be
coming.
Mrs Harter rang the bell for her maid, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was a tall, gaunt woman of sixty. Beneath an unbending exterior she
concealed a wealth of affection and tenderness for her mistress.
"Elizabeth," said Mrs Harter when her faithful retainer had appeared,
"you remember what I told you? The top left-hand drawer of my bureau. It
is locked - the long key with the white label. Everything there is ready."
"Ready, ma'am?"
"For my burial," snorted Mrs Harter. "You know perfectly well
what I mean, Elizabeth. You helped me to put the things there yourself."
Elizabeth's face began to work strangely.
"Oh, ma'am," she wailed. "don't dwell on such things. I thought
you was a sight better."
"We have all got to go sometime or another," said Mrs Harter
practically. "I am over my three score years and ten, Elizabeth. There,
there, don't make a fool of yourself. If you must cry, go and cry somewhere
else."
Elizabeth retired, still sniffing.
Mrs Harter looked after her with a good deal of affection.
"Silly old fool, but faithful," she said, "very faithful. Let me
see, was it a hundred pounds, or only fifty I left her? It ought to be a
hundred. She has been with me a long time."
The point worried the old lady and the next day she sat down and wrote to her
lawyer asking if he would send her her will so that she might look it over. It
was that same day that Charles startled her by something he said at lunch.
"By the way, Aunt Mary," he said, "who is that funny old josser
up in the spare room? The picture over the mantelpiece, I mean. The old johnny
with the beaver and side whiskers?"
Mrs Harter looked at him austerely.
"That is your Uncle Patrick as a young man," she said.
"Oh, I say, Aunt Mary, I am awfully sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."
Mrs Harter accepted the apology with a dignified bend of the head.
Charles went on rather uncertainly:
"I just wondered. You see - "
He stopped undecidedly and Mrs Harter said sharply:
"Well? What were you going to say?"
"Nothing," said Charles hastily. "Nothing that makes sense, I
mean."
For the moment the old lady said nothing more, but later that day, when they
were alone together, she returned to the subject.
"I wish you would tell me, Charles, what it was that made you ask me about
the picture of your uncle."
Charles looked embarrassed.
"I told you, Aunt Mary. It was nothing but a silly fancy of mine - quite
absurd."
"Charles," said Mrs Harter in her most autocratic voice, "I
insist upon knowing."
"Well, my dear aunt, if you will have it, I fancied I saw him - the man in
the picture, I mean - looking out of the end window when I was coming up the
drive last night. Some effect of the light, I suppose. I wondered who on earth
he could be, the face so - early Victorian, if you know what I mean. And then
Elizabeth said there was no one, no visitor or stranger in the house, and later
in the evening I happened to drift into the spare room, and there was the
picture over the mantelpiece. My man to the life! It is quite easily explained,
really, I expect. Subconscious and all that. Must have noticed the picture
before without realizing that I had noticed it, and then just fancied the face
at the window."
"The end window?" said Mrs Harter sharply.
"Yes, why?"
"Nothing," said Mrs Harter.
But she was startled all the same. That room had been her husband's dressing
room.
That same evening, Charles again being absent, Mrs Harter sat listening to the
wireless with feverish impatience. If for the third time she heard the
mysterious voice, it would prove to her finally and without a shadow of doubt
that she was really in communication with some other world.
Although her heart beat faster, she was not surprised when the same break
occurred, and after the usual interval of deathly silence the faint far-away
Irish voice spoke once more.
"Mary - you are prepared now... On Friday I shall come for you ... Friday
at half-past nine ... Do not be afraid - there will be no pain ... Be
ready..."
Then, almost cutting short the last word, the music of the orchestra broke out
again, clamorous and discordant.
Mrs Harter sat very still for a minute or two. Her face had gone white and she
looked blue and pinched round the lips.
Presently she got up and sat down at her writing-desk. In a somewhat shaky hand
she wrote the following lines:
Tonight, at 9.15, I have distinctly heard the voice of my dead husband. He told
me that he would come for me on Friday night at 9.30. If I should die on that
day and at that hour I should like the facts made known so as to prove beyond
question the possibility of communicating with the spirit world. -
MARY HARTER
Mrs Harter read over what she had written, enclosed it in an envelope, and
addressed the envelope. Then she rang the bell, which was promptly answered by
Elizabeth. Mrs Harter got up from her desk and gave the note she had just
written to the old woman.
"Elizabeth," she said, "if I should die on Friday night I should
like that note given to Dr Meynell. No - " as Elizabeth appeared about to
protest - "do not argue with me. You have often told me you believe in
premonitions. I have a premonition now. There is one thing more. I have left
you in my will £50. I should like you to have £100. If I am not able to go to
the bank myself before I die, Mr Charles will see to it."
As before, Mrs Harter cut short Elizabeth's tearful protests. In pursuance of
her determination the old lady spoke to her nephew on the subject the following
morning.
"Remember, Charles, that if anything should happen to me, Elizabeth is to
have an extra £50."
"You are very gloomy these days, Aunt Mary," said Charles cheerfully.
"What is going to happen to you? According to Dr Meynell, we shall be
celebrating your hundredth birthday in twenty years or so!"
Mrs Harter smiled affectionately at him but did not answer. After a minute or
two she said:
"What are you doing on Friday evening, Charles?"
Charles looked a trifle surprised.
"As a matter of fact, the Ewings asked me to go in and play bridge, but if
you would rather I stayed at home - "
"No," said Mrs Harter with determination. "Certainly not. I mean
it, Charles. On that night of all nights I should much rather be alone."
Charles looked at her curiously, but Mrs Harter vouchsafed no further
information. She was an old lady of courage and determination. She felt that
she must go through with her strange experience singlehanded.
Friday evening found the house very silent. Mrs Harter sat as usual in her
straight-backed chair drawn up to the fireplace. All her preparations were
made. That morning she had been to the bank, had drawn out £50 in notes, and
had handed them over to Elizabeth despite the latter's tearful protests. She
had sorted and arranged all her personal belongings and had labelled one or two
pieces of jewellery with the names of friends or relations. She had also
written out a list of instructions for Charles. The Worcester tea service was
to go to Cousin Emma, the Sévres jars to young William, and so on.
Now she looked at the long envelope she held in her hand and drew from it a
folded document. This was her will sent to her by Mr Hopkinson in accordance
with her instructions. She had already read it carefully, but now she looked
over it once more to refresh her memory. It was a short, concise document. A
bequest of £50 to Elizabeth Marshall in consideration of faithful service; two
bequests of £500 to a sister and a first cousin; and the remainder to her
beloved nephew Charles Ridgeway.
Mrs Harter nodded her head several times. Charles would be a very rich man when
she was dead. Well, he had been a dear good boy to her. Always kind, always
affectionate, and with a merry tongue which never failed to please her.
She looked at the clock. Three minutes to the half-hour. Well, she was ready.
And she was calm - quite calm. Although she repeated these last words to
herself several times, her heart beat strangely and unevenly. She hardly
realized it herself, but she was strung up to a fine point of over-wrought
nerves.
Half-past nine. The wireless was switched on. What would she hear? A familiar
voice announcing the weather forecast or that far-away voice belonging to a man
who had died twenty-five years before?
But she heard neither. Instead there came a familiar sound, a sound she knew
well but which tonight made her feel as though an icy hand were laid on her
heart. A fumbling at the front door ...
It came again. And then a cold blast seemed to sweep through the room. Mrs
Harter had now no doubt what her sensations were. She was afraid ... She was
more than afraid - she was terrified ...
And suddenly there came to her the thought: Twenty-five years is a long time.
Patrick is a stranger to me now.
Terror! That was what was invading her.
A soft step outside the door - a soft halting foot-step. Then the door swung
silently open ...
Mrs Harter staggered to her feet, swaying slightly from side to side, her eyes
fixed on the open doorway. Something slipped from her fingers into the grate.
She gave a strangled cry which died in her throat. In the dim light of the
doorway stood a familiar figure with chestnut beard and whiskers and an
old-fashioned Victorian coat.
Patrick had come for her!
Her heart gave one terrified leap and stood still. She slipped to the ground in
a crumpled heap.
There Elizabeth found her, an hour later.
Dr Meynell was called at once and Charles Ridgeway was hastily summoned from
his bridge party. But nothing could be done. Mrs Harter was beyond human aid.
It was not until two days later that Elizabeth remembered the note given to her
by her mistress. Dr Meynell read it with great interest and showed it to
Charles Ridgeway.
"A very curious coincidence," he said. "It seems clear that your
aunt had been having hallucinations about her dead husband's voice. She must
have strung herself up to such a point that the excitement was fatal, and when
the time actually came she died of the shock."
"Auto-suggestion?" asked Charles.
"Something of the sort. I will let you know the result of the autopsy as
soon as possible, though I have no doubt of it myself. In the circumstances an
autopsy is desirable, though purely as a matter of form."
Charles nodded comprehendingly.
On the preceding night, when the household was in bed, he had removed a certain
wire which ran from the back of the radio cabinet to his bedroom on the floor
above. Also, since the evening had been a chilly one, he had asked Elizabeth to
light a fire in his room, and in that fire he had burned a chestnut beard and
whiskers. Some Victorian clothing belonging to his late uncle he replaced in
the camphor-scented chest in the attic.
As far as he could see, he was perfectly safe. His plan, the shadowy outline of
which had first formed in his brain when Doctor Meynell had told him that his
aunt might with due care live for many years, had succeeded admirably. A sudden
shock, Dr Meynell had said. Charles, that affectionate young man, beloved of
old ladies, smiled to himself.
When the doctor had departed, Charles went about his duties mechanically.
Certain funeral arrangements had to be finally settled. Relatives coming from a
distance had to have trains looked out for them. In one or two cases they would
have to stay the night. Charles went about it all efficiently and methodically,
to the accompaniment of an undercurrent of his own thoughts.
A very good stroke of business! That was the burden of them. Nobody, least of
all his dead aunt, had known in what perilous straits Charles stood. His
activities, carefully concealed from the world, had landed him where the shadow
of a prison loomed ahead.
Exposure and ruin had stared him in the face unless he could in a few short
months raise a considerable sum of money. Well - that was all right now.
Charles smiled to himself. Thanks to - yes, call it a practical joke - nothing
criminal about that - he was saved. He was now a very rich man. He had no
anxieties on the subject, for Mrs Harter had never made any secret of her
intentions.
Chiming in very appositely with these thoughts, Elizabeth put her head round
the door and informed him that Mr Hopkinson was here and would like to see him.
About time, too, Charles thought. Repressing a tendency to whistle, he composed
his face to one of suitable gravity and went to the library. There he greeted
the precise old gentleman who had been for over a quarter of a century the late
Mrs Harter's legal adviser.
The lawyer seated himself at Charles's invitation and with a dry little cough
entered upon business matters.
"I did not quite understand your letter to me, Mr Ridgeway. You seemed to
be under the impression that the late Mrs Harter's will was in our
keeping?"
Charles stared at him.
"But surely - I've heard my aunt say as much."
"Oh! quite so, quite so. It was in our keeping."
"Was?"
"That is what I said. Mrs Harter wrote to us, asking that it might be
forwarded to her on Tuesday last."
An uneasy feeling crept over Charles. He felt a far-off premonition of
unpleasantness.
"Doubtless it will come to light among her papers," continued the
lawyer smoothly.
Charles said nothing. He was afraid to trust his tongue. He had already been
through Mrs Harter's papers pretty thoroughly, well enough to be quite certain
that no will was among them. In a minute or two, when he had regained control
of himself, he said so. His voice sounded unreal to himself, and he had a
sensation as of cold water trickling down his back.
"Has anyone been through her personal effects?" asked the lawyer.
Charles replied that the maid, Elizabeth, had done so. At Mr Hopkinson's
suggestion Elizabeth was sent for. She came promptly, grim and upright, and
answered the questions put to her.
She had been through all her mistress's clothes and personal belongings. She
was quite sure that there had been no legal document such as a will among them.
She knew what the will looked like - her poor mistress had had it in her hand
only the morning of her death.
"You are sure of that?" asked the lawyer sharply.
"Yes, sir. She told me so. And she made me take fifty pounds in notes. The
will was in a long blue envelope."
"Quite right," said Mr Hopkinson.
"Now I come to think of it." continued Elizabeth, "that same
blue envelope was lying on this table the morning after - but empty. I laid it
on the desk."
"I remember seeing it there," said Charles.
He got up and went over to the desk. In a minute or two he turned round with an
envelope in his hand which he handed to Mr Hopkinson. The latter examined it
and nodded his head.
"That is the envelope in which I dispatched the will on Tuesday
last."
Both men looked hard at Elizabeth.
"Is there anything more, sir?" she inquired respectfully.
"Not at present, thank you."
Elizabeth went towards the door.
"One minute," said the lawyer. "Was there a fire in the grate
that evening?"
"Yes, sir, there was always a fire."
"Thank you, that will do."
Elizabeth went out. Charles leaned forward, resting a shaking hand on the
table.
"What do you think? What are you driving at?"
Mr Hopkinson shook his head.
"We must still hope the will may turn up. If it does not - "
"Well, if it does not?"
"I am afraid there is only one conclusion possible. Your aunt sent for
that will in order to destroy it. Not wishing Elizabeth to lose by that, she
gave her the amount of her legacy in cash."
"But why?" cried Charles wildly. "Why?"
Mr Hopkinson coughed. A dry cough.
"You have had no - er - disagreement with your aunt, Mr Ridgeway?" he
murmured.
Charles gasped.
"No, indeed," he cried warmly. "We were on the kindliest, most
affectionate terms, right up to the end."
"Ah!" said Mr Hopkinson, not looking at him.
It came to Charles with a shock that the lawyer did not believe him. Who knew
what this dry old stick might not have heard? Rumours of Charles's doings might
have come round to him. What more natural than that he should suppose that
these same rumours had come to Mrs Harter, and that aunt and nephew should have
had an altercation on the subject?
But it wasn't so! Charles knew one of the bitterest moments of his career. His
lies had been believed. Now that he spoke the truth, belief was withheld. The
irony of it!
Of course his aunt had never burned the will! Of course -
His thoughts came to a sudden check. What was that picture rising before his
eyes? An old lady with one hand clasped to her heart ... something slipping ...
a paper ... falling on the red-hot embers...
Charles's face grew livid. He heard a hoarse voice - his own - asking:
"If that will's never found - ?"
"There is a former will of Mrs Harter's still extant. Dated September
1920. By it Mrs Harter leaves everything to her niece, Miriam Harter, now
Miriam Robinson."
What was the old fool saying? Miriam? Miriam with her nondescript husband, and
her four whining brats. All his cleverness - for Miriam!
The telephone rang sharply at his elbow. He took up the receiver. It was the
doctor's voice, hearty and kindly.
"That you, Ridgeway? Thought you'd like to know. The autopsy's just
concluded. Cause of death as I surmised. But as a matter of fact the cardiac
trouble was much more serious than I suspected when she was alive. With the
utmost care she couldn't have lived longer than two months at the outside.
Thought you'd like to know. Might console you more or less."
"Excuse me," said Charles, "would you mind saying that
again?"
"She couldn't have lived longer than two months," said the doctor in
a slightly louder tone. "All things work out for the best, you know, my
dear fellow - "
But Charles had slammed back the receiver on its hook. He was conscious of the
lawyer's voice speaking from a long way off.
"Dear me, Mr Ridgeway, are you ill?"
Damn them all! The smug-faced lawyer. That poisonous old ass Meynell. No hope
in front of him - only the shadow of the prison wall ...
He felt that Somebody had been playing with him - playing with him like a cat
with a mouse. Somebody must be laughing ...