The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie Page A

Partridge sniffed. She certainly managed to convey without saying a word of any kind, that she didn’t think much of that Miss Megan.
    I went back to the veranda.
    â€œIs it quite all right?” asked Megan anxiously.
    â€œQuite all right,” I said. “Irish stew.”
    â€œOh well, that’s rather like dogs’ dinner anyway, isn’t it? I mean it’s mostly potato and flavour.”
    â€œQuite,” I said.
    I took out my cigarette case and offered it to Megan. She flushed.
    â€œHow nice of you.”
    â€œWon’t you have one?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think I will, but it was very nice of you to offer it to me—just as though I was a real person.”
    â€œAren’t you a real person?” I said amused.
    Megan shook her head, then, changing the subject, she stretched out a long dusty leg for my inspection.
    â€œI’ve darned my stockings,” she announced proudly.
    I am not an authority on darning, but it did occur to me thatthe strange puckered blot of violently contrasting wool was perhaps not quite a success.
    â€œIt’s much more uncomfortable than the hole,” said Megan.
    â€œIt looks as though it might be,” I agreed.
    â€œDoes your sister darn well?”
    I tried to think if I had ever observed any of Joanna’s handiwork in this direction.
    â€œI don’t know,” I had to confess.
    â€œWell, what does she do when she gets a hole in her stocking?”
    â€œI rather think,” I said reluctantly, “that she throws them away and buys another pair.”
    â€œVery sensible,” said Megan. “But I can’t do that. I get an allowance now—forty pounds a year. You can’t do much on that.”
    I agreed.
    â€œIf only I wore black stockings, I could ink my legs,” said Megan sadly. “That’s what I always did at school. Miss Batworthy, the mistress who looked after our mending was like her name—blind as a bat. It was awfully useful.”
    â€œIt must have been,” I said.
    We were silent while I smoked my pipe. It was quite a companionable silence.
    Megan broke it by saying suddenly and violently:
    â€œI suppose you think I’m awful, like everyone else?”
    I was so startled that my pipe fell out of my mouth. It was a meerschaum, just colouring nicely, and it broke. I said angrily to Megan:
    â€œNow, see what you’ve done.”
    That most unaccountable of children, instead of being upset, merely grinned broadly.
    â€œI do like you,” she said.
    It was a most warming remark. It is the remark that one fancies perhaps erroneously that one’s dog would say if he could talk. It occurred to me that Megan, for all she looked like a horse, had the disposition of a dog. She was certainly not quite human.
    â€œWhat did you say before the catastrophe?” I asked, carefully picking up the fragments of my cherished pipe.
    â€œI said I supposed you thought me awful,” said Megan, but not at all in the same tone she had said it before.
    â€œWhy should I?”
    Megan said gravely:
    â€œBecause I am.”
    I said sharply:
    â€œDon’t be stupid.”
    Megan shook her head.
    â€œThat’s just it. I’m not really stupid. People think I am. They don’t know that inside I know just what they’re like, and that all the time I’m hating them.”
    â€œ Hating them?”
    â€œYes,” said Megan.
    Her eyes, those melancholy, unchildlike eyes, stared straight into mine, without blinking. It was a long mournful gaze.
    â€œYou would hate people if you were like me,” she said. “If you weren’t wanted.”
    â€œDon’t you think you’re being rather morbid?” I asked.
    â€œYes,” said Megan. “That’s what people always say when you’re saying the truth. And it is true. I’m not wanted and I can quite see why. Mummie doesn’t like me a bit. I remind her, I think, of my