Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  'You were returning to East Africa, I understand?'

  'Yes. I've been out there ever since the War - a great country.'

  'Exactly. Now what was the talk about at dinner on Tuesday night?'

  'Oh, I don't know. The usual odd topics. Maltravers asked after my people, and then we discussed the question of German reparations, and then Mrs Maltravers asked a lot of questions about East Africa, and I told them one or two yarns, that's about all, I think.'

  'Thank you.'

  Poirot was silent for a moment, then he said gently: 'With your permission, I should like to try a little experiment. You have told us all that your conscious self knows, I want now to question your subconscious self.'

  'Psychoanalysis, what?' said Black, with visible alarm.

  'Oh, no,' said Poirot reassuringly. 'You see, it is like this, I give you a word, you answer with another, and so on. Any word, the first one you think of. Shall we begin?'

  'All right,' said Black slowly, but he looked uneasy.

  'Note down the words, please, Hastings,' said Poirot. Then he took from his pocket his big turnip-faced watch and laid it on the table beside him. 'We will commence. Day.'

  There was a moment's pause, and then Black replied:

  'Night.'

  As Poirot proceeded, his answers came quicker.

  'Name,' said Poirot.

  'Place.'

  'Bernard.'

  'Shaw.'

  'Tuesday.'

  'Dinner'

  'Journey.'

  'Ship .'

  'Country.'

  'Uganda.'

  'Story.'

  'Lions'

  'Rook Rifle.'

  'Farm.'

  'Shot.'

  'Suicide.'

  'Elephant.'

  'Tusks.'

  'Money.'

  'Lawyers.'

  'Thank you, Captain Black. Perhaps you could spare me a few minutes in about half an hour's time?'

  'Certainly.' The young soldier looked at him curiously and wiped his brow as he got up.

  'And now, Hastings,' said Poirot, smiling at me as the door closed behind him. 'You see it all, do you not?'

  'I don't know what you mean.'

  'Does that list of words tell you nothing?'

  I scrutinized it, but was forced to shake my head.

  'I will assist you. To begin with, Black answered well within the normal time limit, with no pauses, so we can take it that he himself has no guilty knowledge to conceal. "Day" to "Night" and "Place" to "Name" are normal associations. I began work with "Bernard," which might have suggested the local doctor had he come across him at all. Evidently he had not. After our recent conversation, he gave "Dinner" to my "Tuesday", but "Journey" and "Country" were answered by "Ship" and "Uganda", showing clearly that it was his journey abroad that was important to him and not the one which brought him down here. "Story" recalls to him one of the "Lion" stories he told at dinner. I proceeded to "Rook Rifle" and he answered with the totally unexpected word "Farm". When I say "Shot", he answers at once "Suicide". The association seems clear.

  A man he knows committed suicide with a rook rifle on a farm somewhere. Remember, too, that his mind is still on the stories he told at dinner, and I think you will agree that I shall not be far from the truth if I recall Captain Black and ask him to repeat the particular suicide story which he told at the dinner-table on Tuesday evening.'

  Black was straightforward enough over the matter.

  'Yes, I did tell them that story now that I come to think of it. Chap shot himself on a farm out there. Did it with a rook rifle through the roof of his mouth, bullet lodged in the brain. Doctors were no end puzzled over it - there was nothing to show except a little blood on the lips. But what -? '

  'What has it got to do with Mr Maltravers? You did not know, I see, that he was found with a rook rifle by his side.'

  'You mean my story suggested to him - oh, but that is awful!'

  'Do not distress yourself - it would have been one way or another.

  Well, I must get on the telephone to London.'

  Poirot had a lengthy conversation over the wire, and came back thoughtful. He went off by himself in the afternoon, and it was not till seven o'clock that he announced that he could put it off no longer, but must break the news to the young widow. My sympathy had already gone out to her unreservedly. To be left penniless, and with the knowledge that her husband had killed himself to assure her future was a hard burden for any woman to bear. I cherished a secret hope, however, that young Black might prove capable of consoling her after her first grief had passed. He evidently admired her enormously.

  Our interview with the lady was painful. She refused vehemently to believe the facts that Poirot advanced, and when she was at last convinced broke down into bitter weeping. An examination of the body turned our suspicions into certainty. Poirot was very sorry for the poor lady, but, after all, he was employed by the Insurance Company, and what could he do? As he was preparing to leave he said gently to Mrs Maltravers:

  'Madame, you of all people should know that there are no dead!'

  'What do you mean?' she faltered, her eyes growing wide.

  'Have you never taken part in any spiritualistic séances? You are mediumistic, you know.'

  'I have been told so. But you do not believe in Spiritualism, surely?'

  'Madame, I have seen some strange things. You know that they say in the village that this house is haunted?'

  She nodded, and at that moment the parlourmaid announced that dinner was ready.

  'Won't you just stay and have something to eat?'

  We accepted gratefully, and I felt that our presence could not but help distract her a little from her own griefs.

  We had just finished our soup, when there was a scream outside the door, and the sound of breaking crockery. We jumped up. The parlourmaid appeared, her hand to her heart.

  'It was a man - standing in the passage.'

  Poirot rushed out, returning quickly.

  'There is no one there.'

  'Isn't there, sir?' said the parlourmaid weakly. 'Oh, it did give me a start!'

  'But why?'

  She dropped her voice to a whisper.

  'I thought - I thought it was the master - it looked like 'im.'

  I saw Mrs Maltravers give a terrified start, and my mind flew to the old superstition that a suicide cannot rest. She thought of it too, I am sure, for a minute later, she caught Poirot's arm with a scream.

  'Didn't you hear that? Those three taps on the window? That's how he always used to tap when he passed round the house.'

  'The ivy,' I cried. 'It was the ivy against the pane.'

  But a sort of terror was gaining on us all. The parlourmaid was obviously unstrung, and when the meal was over Mrs Maltravers besought Poirot not to go at once. She was clearly terrified to be left alone. We sat in the little morning room. The wind was getting up, and moaning round the house in an eerie fashion. Twice the door of the room came unlatched and the door slowly opened, and each time she clung to me with a terrified gasp.

  'Ah, but this door, it is bewitched!' cried Poirot angrily at last. He got up and shut it once more, then turned the key in the lock. 'I shall lock it, so!'

  'Don't do that,' she gasped, 'if it should come open now - '

  And even as she spoke the impossible happened. The locked door slowly swung open. I could not see into the passage from where I sat, but she and Poirot were facing it. She gave one long shriek as she turned to him.

  'You saw him - there in the passage?' she cried.

  He was staring down at her with a puzzled face, then shook his head.

  'I saw him - my husband - you must have seen him too?'

  'Madame, I saw nothing. You are so well - unstrung - '

  'I am perfectly well, I - Oh, God!'

  Suddenly, without warning, the lights quivered and went out. Out of the darkness came three loud raps. I could hear Mrs Maltravers moaning.

  And then -
I saw!

  The man I had seen on the bed upstairs stood there facing us, gleaming with a faint ghostly light. There was blood on his lips, and he held his right hand out, pointing. Suddenly a brilliant light seemed to proceed from it. It passed over Poirot and me, and fell on Mrs Maltravers. I saw her white terrified face, and something else!

  'My God, Poirot!' I cried. 'Look at her hand, her right hand. It's all red!'

  Her own eyes fell on it, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  'Blood,' she cried hysterically. 'Yes, it's blood. I killed him. I did it.

  He was showing me, and then I put my hand on the trigger and pressed. Save me from him - save me! He's come back!'

  Her voice died away in a gurgle.

  'Lights,' said Poirot briskly.

  The lights went on as if by magic.

  'That's it,' he continued. 'You heard, Hastings? And you, Everett?

  Oh, by the way, this is Mr Everett, rather a fine member of the theatrical profession. I 'phoned to him this afternoon. His make-up is good, isn't it? Quite like the dead man, and with a pocket torch and the necessary phosphorescence he made the proper impression. I shouldn't touch her right hand if I were you, Hastings.

  Red paint marks so. When the lights went out I clasped her hand, you see. By the way, we mustn't miss our train. Inspector Japp is outside the window. A bad night - but he has been able to while away the time by tapping on the window every now and then.'

  'You see,' continued Poirot, as we walked briskly through the wind and rain, 'there was a little discrepancy. The doctor seemed to think the deceased was a Christian Scientist, and who could have given him that impression but Mrs Maltravers? But to us she represented him as being in a grave state of apprehension about his own health. Again, why was she so taken aback by the reappearance of young Black? And lastly, although I know that convention decrees that a woman must make a decent pretence of mourning for her husband, I do not care for such heavily-rouged eyelids! You did not observe them, Hastings? No? As I always tell you, you see nothing!

  'Well, there it was. There were the two possibilities. Did Black's story suggest an ingenious method of committing suicide to Mr Maltravers, or did his other listener, the wife, see an equally ingenious method of committing murder? I inclined to the latter view. To shoot himself in the way indicated, he would probably have had to pull the trigger with his toe - or at least so I imagine. Now if Maltravers had been found with one boot off, we should almost certainly have heard of it from someone. An odd detail like that would have been remembered.

  'No, as I say, I inclined to the view that it was a case of murder, not suicide, but I realized that I had not a shadow of proof in support of my theory. Hence the elaborate little comedy you saw played tonight.'

  'Even now I don't quite see all the details of the crime,' I said.

  'Let us start from the beginning. Here is a shrewd and scheming woman who, knowing of her husband's financial débâcle and tired of the elderly mate she has only married for his money, induces him to insure his life for a large sum, and then seeks for the means to accomplish her purpose. An accident gives her that - the young soldier's strange story. The next afternoon when monsieur le capitaine , as she thinks, is on the high seas, she and her husband are strolling round the grounds. "What a curious story that was last night!" she observes. "Could a man shoot himself in such a way? Do show me if it is possible!" The poor fool - he shows her. He places the end of the rifle in his mouth. She stoops down, and puts her finger on the trigger, laughing up at him. "And now, sir," she says saucily, "supposing I pull the trigger?"

  'And then - and then, Hastings - she pulls it!'

  The Adventure of the Cheap Flat

  II

  The whole thing was rather amusing, and I propounded the thing as a mock problem to Poirot on the following morning. He seemed interested, and questioned me rather narrowly as to the rents of flats in various localities.

  'A curious story,' he said thoughtfully. 'Excuse me, Hastings, I must take a short stroll.'

  When he returned, about an hour later, his eyes were gleaming with a peculiar excitement. He laid his stick on the table, and brushed the nap of his hat with his usual tender care before he spoke.

  'It is as well, mon ami, that we have no affairs of moment on hand.

  We can devote ourselves wholly to the present investigation.'

  'What investigation are you talking about?'

  'The remarkable cheapness of your friend, Mrs Robinson's, new flat.'

  'Poirot, you are not serious!'

  'I am most serious. Figure to yourself, my friend, that the real rent of those flats is ВЈ350. I have just ascertained that from the landlord's agents. And yet this particular flat is being sublet at eighty pounds! Why?'

  'There must be something wrong with it. Perhaps it is haunted, as Mrs Robinson suggested.'

  Poirot shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.

  'Then again how curious it is that her friend tells her the flat is let, and, when she goes up, behold, it is not so at all!'

  'But surely you agree with me that the other woman must have gone to the wrong flat. That is the only possible solution.'

  'You may or may not be right on that point, Hastings. The fact still remains that numerous other applicants were sent to see it, and yet, in spite of its remarkable cheapness, it was still in the market when Mrs Robinson arrived.'

  'That shows that there must be something wrong about it.'

  'Mrs Robinson did not seem to notice anything amiss. Very curious, is it not? Did she impress you as being a truthful woman, Hastings?'

  'She was a delightful creature!'

  'Evidemment! since she renders you incapable of replying to my question. Describe her to me, then.'

  'Well, she's tall and fair; her hair's really a beautiful shade of auburn - '

  'Always you have had a penchant for auburn hair!' murmured Poirot. 'But continue.'

  'Blue eyes and a very nice complexion and - well, that's all, I think,' I concluded lamely.

  'And her husband?'

  'Oh, he's quite a nice fellow - nothing startling.'

  'Dark or fair?'

  'I don't know - betwixt and between, and just an ordinary sort of face.'

  Poirot nodded.

  'Yes, there are hundreds of these average men - and, anyway, you bring more sympathy and appreciation to your description of women. Do you know anything about these people? Does Parker know them well?'

  'They are just recent acquaintances, I believe. But surely, Poirot, you don't think for an instant - '

  Poirot raised his hand.

  'Tout doucement, mon ami . Have I said that I think anything? All I say is - it is a curious story. And there is nothing to throw light upon it; except perhaps the lady's name, eh, Hastings?'

  'Her name is Stella,' I said stiffly, 'but I don't see - '

  Poirot interrupted me with a tremendous chuckle. Something seemed to be amusing him vastly.

  'And Stella means a star, does it not? Famous!'

  'What on earth -? '

  'And stars give light! Voilà! Calm yourself, Hastings. Do not put on that air of injured dignity. Come, we will go to Montagu Mansions and make a few inquiries.'

  I accompanied him, nothing loath. The Mansions were a handsome block of buildings in excellent repair. A uniformed porter was sunning himself on the threshold, and it was to him that Poirot addressed himself:

  'Pardon, but could you tell me if a Mr and Mrs Robinson reside here?'

  The porter was a man of few words and apparently of a sour or suspicious disposition. He hardly looked at us and grunted out:

  'No 4. Second floor.'

  'I thank you. Can you tell me how long they have been here?'

  'Six months.'

  I started forward in amazement, conscious as I did so of Poirot's malicious grin.

  'Impossible,' I cried. 'You must be making a mistake.'

  'Six months.'

  'Are you sure? The lady
I mean is tall and fair with reddish gold hair and - '

  'That's 'er,' said the porter. 'Come in the Michaelmas quarter, they did. Just six months ago.'

  He appeared to lose interest in us and retreated slowly up the hall. I followed Poirot outside.

  'Eh bien, Hastings?' my friend demanded slyly. 'Are you so sure now that delightful women always speak the truth?'

  I did not reply.

  Poirot had steered his way into Brompton Road before I asked him what he was going to do and where we were going.

  'To the house agents, Hastings. I have a great desire to have a flat in Montagu Mansions. If I am not mistaken, several interesting things will take place there before long.'

  We were fortunate in our quest. No 8, on the fourth floor, was to be let furnished at ten guineas a week. Poirot promptly took it for a month. Outside in the street again, he silenced my protests:

  'But I make money nowadays! Why should I not indulge a whim? By the way, Hastings, have you a revolver?'

  'Yes - somewhere,' I answered, slightly thrilled. 'Do you think - '

  'That you will need it? It is quite possible. The idea pleases you, I see. Always the spectacular and romantic appeals to you.'

  The following day saw us installed in our temporary home. The flat was pleasantly furnished. It occupied the same position in the building as that of the Robinsons, but was two floors higher.

  The day after our installation was a Sunday. In the afternoon, Poirot left the front door ajar, and summoned me hastily as a bang reverberated from somewhere below.

  'Look over the banisters. Are those your friends? Do not let them see you.'

  I craned my neck over the staircase.

  'That's them,' I declared in an ungrammatical whisper.

  'Good. Wait awhile.'

  About half an hour later, a young woman emerged in brilliant and varied clothing. With a sigh of satisfaction, Poirot tiptoed back into the flat.

  'C'est ça . After the master and mistress, the maid. The flat should now be empty.'

  'What are we going to do?' I asked uneasily.

  Poirot had trotted briskly into the scullery and was hauling at the rope of the coal-lift.

  'We are about to descend after the method of the dustbins,' he explained cheerfully. 'No one will observe us. The Sunday concert, the Sunday 'afternoon out,' and finally the Sunday nap after the Sunday dinner of England - le rosbif - all these will distract attention from the doings of Hercule Poirot. Come, my friend.'