The Witness for the Prosecution: And Other Stories. Агата Кристи

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      By a perfectly natural association of ideas the Canon looked across to the seat opposite him, half-expecting to receive a glance of recognition there also, but the fourth occupant of the carriage proved to be a total stranger—a foreigner, the Canon fancied. He was a slight dark man, rather insignificant in appearance. Huddled in a big overcoat, he appeared to be fast asleep.

      ‘Canon Parfitt of Bradchester?’ inquired Dr Campbell Clark in a pleasant voice.

      The Canon looked flattered. Those ‘scientific sermons’ of his had really made a great hit—especially since the Press had taken them up. Well, that was what the Church needed—good modern up-to-date stuff.

      ‘I have read your book with great interest, Dr Campbell Clark,’ he said. ‘Though it’s a bit technical here and there for me to follow.’

      Durand broke in.

      ‘Are you for talking or sleeping, Canon?’ he asked. ‘I’ll confess at once that I suffer from insomnia and that therefore I’m in favour of the former.’

      ‘Oh! certainly. By all means,’ said the Canon. ‘I seldom sleep on these night journeys, and the book I have with me is a very dull one.’

      ‘We are at any rate a representative gathering,’ remarked the doctor with a smile. ‘The Church, the Law, the Medical Profession.’

      ‘Not much we couldn’t give an opinion on between us, eh?’ laughed Durand. ‘The Church for the spiritual view, myself for the purely worldly and legal view, and you, Doctor, with the widest field of all, ranging from the purely pathological to the—super-psychological! Between us three we should cover any ground pretty completely, I fancy.’

      ‘Not so completely as you imagine, I think,’ said Dr Clark. ‘There’s another point of view, you know, that you left out, and that’s rather an important one.’

      ‘Meaning?’ queried the lawyer.

      ‘The point of view of the Man in the Street.’

      ‘Is that so important? Isn’t the Man in the Street usually wrong?’

      ‘Oh! almost always. But he has the thing that all expert opinion must lack—the personal point of view. In the end, you know, you can’t get away from personal relationships. I’ve found that in my profession. For every patient who comes to me genuinely ill, at least five come who have nothing whatever the matter with them except an inability to live happily with the inmates of the same house. They call it everything—from housemaid’s knee to writer’s cramp, but it’s all the same thing, the raw surface produced by mind rubbing against mind.’

      ‘You have a lot of patients with “nerves”, I suppose,’ the Canon remarked disparagingly. His own nerves were excellent.

      ‘Ah! and what do you mean by that?’ The other swung round on him, quick as a flash. ‘Nerves! People use that word and laugh after it, just as you did. “Nothing the matter with so and so,” they say. “Just nerves.” But, good God, man, you’ve got the crux of everything there! You can get at a mere bodily ailment and heal it. But at this day we know very little more about the obscure causes of the hundred and one forms of nervous disease than we did in—well, the reign of Queen Elizabeth!’

      ‘Dear me,’ said Canon Parfitt, a little bewildered by this onslaught. ‘Is that so?’

      ‘Mind you, it’s a sign of grace,’ Dr Campbell Clark went on. ‘In the old days we considered man a simple animal, body and soul—with stress laid on the former.’

      ‘Body, soul and spirit,’ corrected the clergyman mildly.

      ‘Spirit?’ The doctor smiled oddly. ‘What do you parsons mean exactly by spirit? You’ve never been very clear about it, you know. All down the ages you’ve funked an exact definition.’

      The Canon cleared his throat in preparation for speech, but to his chagrin he was given no opportunity. The doctor went on.

      ‘Are we even sure the word is spirit—might it not be spirits?’

      ‘Spirits?’ Sir George Durand questioned, his eyebrows raised quizzically.

      ‘Yes.’ Campbell Clark’s gaze transferred itself to him. He leaned forward and tapped the other man lightly on the breast. ‘Are you so sure,’ he said gravely, ‘that there is only one occupant of this structure—for that is all it is, you know—this desirable residence to be let furnished—for seven, twenty-one, forty-one, seventy-one—whatever it may be!—years? And in the end the tenant moves his things out—little by little—and then goes out of the house altogether—and down comes the house, a mass of ruin and decay. You’re the master of the house—we’ll admit that, but aren’t you ever conscious of the presence of others—soft-footed servants, hardly noticed, except for the work they do—work that you’re not conscious of having done? Or friends—moods that take hold of you and make you, for the time being, a “different man” as the saying goes? You’re the king of the castle, right enough, but be very sure the “dirty rascal” is there too.’

      ‘My dear Clark,’ drawled the lawyer. ‘You make me positively uncomfortable. Is my mind really a battleground of conflicting personalities? Is that Science’s latest?’

      It was the doctor’s turn to shrug his shoulders.

      ‘Your body is,’ he said drily. ‘If the body, why not the mind?’

      ‘Very interesting,’ said Canon Parfitt. ‘Ah! Wonderful science—wonderful science.’

      And inwardly he thought to himself: ‘I can get a most arresting sermon out of that idea.’

      But Dr Campbell Clark had leant back in his seat, his momentary excitement spent.

      ‘As a matter of fact,’ he remarked in a dry professional manner, ‘it is a case of dual personality that takes me to Newcastle tonight. Very interesting case. Neurotic subject, of course. But quite genuine.’

      ‘Dual personality,’ said Sir George Durand thoughtfully. ‘It’s not so very rare, I believe. There’s loss of memory as well, isn’t there? I know the matter cropped up in a case in the Probate Court the other day.’

      Dr Clark nodded.

      ‘The classic case, of course,’ he said, ‘was that of Felicie Bault. You may remember hearing of it?’

      ‘Of course,’ said Canon Parfitt. ‘I remember reading about it in the papers—but quite a long time ago—seven years at least.’

      Dr Campbell Clark nodded.

      ‘That girl became one of the most famous figures in France. Scientists from all over the world came to see her. She had no less than four distinct personalities. They were known as Felicie 1, Felicie 2, Felicie 3, etc.’

      ‘Wasn’t there some suggestion of deliberate trickery?’ asked Sir George alertly.

      ‘The personalities of Felicie 3 and Felicie 4 were a little open to doubt,’ admitted the doctor. ‘But the main facts remain. Felicie Bault was a Brittany peasant girl. She was the СКАЧАТЬ