Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  There wasn't time to go out and look for it. I locked the door and put the key in his pocket. Then I swung the chair round, smashed the mirror, and, after scrawling 'Sorry' on a piece of paper, I went out through the window and shut it the way M. Poirot showed you. I stepped in the flower-bed, but I smoothed out the footprints with a little rake I had put there ready. Then I went round to the drawingroom. I had left the window open. I didn't know Ruth had gone out through it. She must have come round the front of the house while I went round the back. I had to put the rake away, you see, in a shed. I waited in the drawing-room till I heard someone coming downstairs and Snell going to the gong, and then - ' She looked at Poirot. 'You don't know what I did then?'

  'Oh yes, I do. I found the bag in the wastepaper basket. It was very clever, that idea of yours. You did what children love to do. You blew up the bag and then hit it. It made a satisfactory big bang. You threw the bag into the wastepaper basket and rushed out into the hall. You had established the time of the suicide - and an alibi for yourself. But there was still one thing that worried you. You had not had time to pick up the bullet. It must be somewhere near the gong. It was essential that the bullet should be found in the study somewhere near the mirror. I didn't know when you had the idea of taking Colonel Bury's pencil - '

  'It was just then,' said Miss Lingard. 'When we all came in from the hall. I was surprised to see Ruth in the room. I realized she must have come from the garden through the window. Then I noticed Colonel Bury's pencil lying on the bridge table. I slipped it into my bag. If, later, anyone saw me pick up the bullet, I could pretend it was the pencil. As a matter of fact, I didn't think anyone saw me pick up the bullet. I dropped it by the mirror while you were looking at the body. When you tackled me on the subject, I was very glad I had thought of the pencil.'

  'Yes, that was clever. It confused me completely.'

  'I was afraid someone must hear the real shot, but I knew everyone was dressing for dinner, and would be shut away in their rooms. The servants were in their quarters. Miss Cardwell was the only one at all likely to hear it, and she would probably think it was a backfire. What she did hear was the gong. I thought - I thought everything had gone without a hitch...' Mr Forbes said slowly in his precise tones: 'This is a most extraordinary story. There seems no motive - ' Miss Lingard said clearly: 'There was a motive...' She added fiercely: 'Go on, ring up the police! What are you waiting for?' Poirot said gently: 'Will you all please leave the room? Mr Forbes, ring up Major Riddle.

  I will stay here till he comes.' Slowly, one by one, the family filed out of the room. Puzzled, uncomprehending, shocked, they cast abashed glances at the trim, upright figure with its neatly-parted grey hair. Ruth was the last to go. She stood, hesitating in the doorway. 'I don't understand.' She spoke angrily, defiantly, accusing Poirot. 'Just now, you thought I had done it.'

  'No, no,' Poirot shook his head. 'No, I never thought that.' Ruth went out slowly. Poirot was left with the little middle-aged prim woman who had just confessed to a cleverly-planned and cold-blooded murder. 'No,' said Miss Lingard. 'You didn't think she had done it. You accused her to make me speak. That's right, isn't it?' Poirot bowed his head. 'While we're waiting,' said Miss Lingard in a conversational tone, 'you might tell me what made you suspect me.'

  'Several things. To begin with, your account of Sir Gervase. A proud man like Sir Gervase would never speak disparagingly of his nephew to an outsider, especially someone in your position. You wanted to strengthen the theory of suicide. You also went out of your way to suggest that the cause of the suicide was some dishonourable trouble connected with Hugo Trent. That, again, was a thing Sir Gervase would never have admitted to a stranger. Then there was the object you picked up in the hall, and the very significant fact that you did not mention that Ruth, when she entered the drawing-room, did so from the garden. And then I found the paper bag - a most unlikely object to find in the wastepaper basket in the drawing-room of a house like Hamborough Close! You were the only person who had been in the drawing-room when the "shot" was heard. The paper bag trick was one that would suggest itself to a woman - an ingenious homemade device. So everything fitted in. The endeavour to throw suspicion on Hugo, and to keep it away from Ruth. The mechanism of crime - and its motive.' The little grey-haired woman stirred. 'You know the motive?'

  'I think so. Ruth's happiness - that was the motive! I fancy that you had seen her with John Lake - you knew how it was with them. And then with your easy access to Sir Gervase's papers, you came across the draft of his new will - Ruth disinherited unless she married Hugo Trent. That decided you to take the law into your own hands, using the fact that Sir Gervase had previously written to me. You probably saw a copy of that letter. What muddled feeling of suspicion and fear had caused him to write originally, I do not know. He must have suspected either Burrows or Lake of systematically robbing him. His uncertainty regarding Ruth's feelings made him seek a private investigation. You used that fact and deliberately set the stage for suicide, backing it up by your account of his being very distressed over something connected with Hugo Trent. You sent a telegram to me and reported Sir Gervase as having said I should arrive "too late."' Miss Lingard said fiercely: 'Gervase Chevenix-Gore was a bully, a snob and a windbag! I wasn't going to have him ruin Ruth's happiness.' Poirot said gently: 'Ruth is your daughter?'

  'Yes - she is my daughter - I've often - thought about her. When I heard Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore wanted someone to help him with a family history, I jumped at the chance. I was curious to see my - my girl. I knew Lady Chevenix-Gore wouldn't recognize me. It was years ago - I was young and pretty then, and I changed my name after that time. Besides Lady Chevenix-Gore is too vague to know anything definitely. I liked her, but I hated the Chevenix-Gore family. They treated me like dirt. And here was Gervase going to ruin Ruth's life with pride and snobbery. But I determined that she should be happy.

  And she will be happy - if she never knows about me!' It was a plea not a question. Poirot bent his head gently. 'No one shall know from me.' Miss Lingard said quietly: 'Thank you.' III Later, when the police had come and gone, Poirot found Ruth Lake with her husband in the garden. She said challengingly: 'Did you really think that I had done it, M. Poirot?'

  'I knew, madame, that you could not have done it - because of the michaelmas daisies.'

  'The michaelmas daisies? I don't understand.'

  'Madame, there were four footprints and four foot printsonly in the border. But if you had been picking flowers there would have been many more. That meant that between your first visit and your second, someone had smoothed all those footsteps away. That could only have been done by the guilty person, and since your footprints had not been removed, you were not the guilty person. You were automatically cleared.' Ruth's face lightened. 'Oh, I see. You know - I suppose it's dreadful, but I feel rather sorry for that poor woman. After all, she did confess rather than let me be arrested - or at any rate, that is what she thought. That was - rather noble in a way. I hate to think of her going through a trial for murder.' Poirot said gently: 'Do not distress yourself . It will not come to that. The doctor, he tells me that she has serious heart trouble. She will not live many weeks.'

  'I'm glad of that.' Ruth picked an autumn crocus and pressed it idly against her cheek. 'Poor woman. I wonder why she did it...'

  Triangle at Rhodes

  Chapter 1

  Hercule Poirot sat on the white sand and looked out across the sparkling blue water. He was carefully dressed in a dandified fashion in white flannels and a large panama hat protected his head. He belonged to the old-fashioned generation which believed in covering itself carefully from the sun. Miss Pamela Lyall, who sat beside him and talked ceaselessly, represented the modern school of thought in that she was wearing the barest minimum of clothing on her sunbrowned person. Occasionally her flow of conversation stopped whilst she reanointed herself from a bottle of oily fluid which stood beside her. On the farther side of Miss Pamela Lyall her great friend, Mi
ss Sarah

  Blake, lay face downwards on a gaudily-striped towel. Miss Blake's tanning was as perfect as possible and her friend cast dissatisfied glances at her more than once. 'I'm so patchy still,' she murmured regretfully. 'M. Poirot – would you mind? Just below the right shoulder-blade - I can't reach to rub it in properly.' M. Poirot obliged and then wiped his oily hand carefully on his handkerchief. Miss Lyall, whose principal interests in life were the observation of people round her and the sound of her own voice, continued to talk. 'I was right about that woman - the one in the Chanel model – it is Valentine Dacres - Chantry, I mean. I thought it was. I recognized her at once. She's really rather marvellous, isn't she? I mean I can understand how people go quite crazy about her. She just obviously expects them to! That's half the battle. Those other people who came last night are called Gold. He's terribly good-looking.'

  'Honeymooners?' murmured Sarah in a stifled voice. Miss Lyall shook her head in an experienced manner. 'Oh, no - her clothes aren't new enough. You can always tell brides!

  Don't you think it's the most fascinating thing in the world to watch people, M. Poirot, and see what you can find out about them by just looking?'

  'Not just looking, darling,' said Sarah sweetly. 'You ask a lot of questions, too.'

  'I haven't even spoken to the Golds yet,' said Miss Lyall with dignity. 'And anyway I don't see why one shouldn't be interested in one's fellow-creatures? Human nature is simply fascinating. Don't you think so, M. Poirot?' This time she paused long enough to allow her companion to reply.

  Without taking his eyes off the blue water, M. Poirot replied: 'Ça depend.' Pamela was shocked. 'Oh, M. Poirot! I don't think anything's so interesting – so incalculable as a human being!'

  'Incalculable? That, no.'

  'Oh, but they are. Just as you think you've got them beautifully taped - they do something completely unexpected.' Hercule Poirot shook his head. 'No, no, that is not true. It is most rare that anyone does an action that is not dans son caractère. It is in the end monotonous.'

  'I don't agree with you at all!' said Miss Pamela Lyall. She was silent for quite a minute and a half before returning to the attack. 'As soon as I see people I begin wondering about them - what they're like - what relations they are to each other - what they're thinking and feeling. It's - oh, it's quite thrilling.'

  'Hardly that,' said Hercule Poirot. 'Nature repeats herself more than one would imagine. The sea,' he added thoughtfully, 'has infinitely more variety.' Sarah turned her head sideways and asked: 'You think that human beings tend to reproduce certain patterns?

  Stereotyped patterns?'

  'Précisément,' said Poirot, and traced a design in the sand with his finger. 'What's that you're drawing?' asked Pamela curiously. 'A triangle,' said Poirot. But Pamela's attention had been diverted elsewhere. 'Here are the Chantrys,' she said. A woman was coming down the beach - a tall woman, very conscious of herself and her body. She gave a half-nod and smile and sat down a little distance away on the beach. The scarlet and gold silk wrap slipped down from her shoulders. She was wearing a white bathing-dress. Pamela sighed. 'Hasn't she got a lovely figure?' But Poirot was looking at her face - the face of a woman of thirtynine who had been famous since sixteen for her beauty. He knew, as everyone knew, all about Valentine Chantry. She had been famous for many things - for her caprices, for her wealth, for her enormous sapphire-blue eyes, for her matrimonial ventures and adventures. She had had five husbands and innumerable lovers. She had in turn been the wife of an Italian count, of an American steel magnate, of a tennis professional, of a racing motorist. Of these four the American had died, but the others had been shed negligently in the divorce court. Six months ago she had married a fifth time - a commander in the navy. He it was who came striding down the beach behind her. Silent, dark - with a pugnacious jaw and a sullen manner. A touch of the primeval ape about him. She said: 'Tony darling - my cigarette case...' He had it ready for her - lighted her cigarette - helped her to slip the straps of the white bathing-dress from her shoulders. She lay, arms outstretched in the sun. He sat by her like some wild beast that guards its prey. Pamela said, her voice just lowered sufficiently: 'You know they interest me frightfully... He's such a brute! So silent and - sort of glowering. I suppose a woman of her kind likes that. It must be like controlling a tiger! I wonder how long it will last. She gets tired of them very soon, I believe - especially nowadays. All the same, if she tried to get rid of him, I think he might be dangerous.' Another couple came down the beach - rather shyly. They were the newcomers of the night before. Mr and Mrs Douglas Gold as Miss Lyall knew from her inspection of the hotel visitors' book. She knew, too, for such were the Italian regulations - their Christian names and their ages as set down from their passports. Mr Douglas Cameron Gold was thirty-one and Mrs Marjorie Emma Gold was thirty-five. Miss Lyall's hobby in life, as has been said, was the study of human beings. Unlike most English people, she was capable of speaking to strangers on sight instead of allowing four days to a week to elapse before making the first cautious advance as is the customary British habit. She, therefore, noting the slight hesitancy and shyness of Mrs Gold's advance, called out: 'Good morning, isn't it a lovely day?' Mrs Gold was a small woman - rather like a mouse. She was not badlooking, indeed her features were regular and her complexion good, but she had a certain air of diffidence and dowdiness that made her liable to be overlooked. Her husband, on the other hand, was extremely good-looking, in an almost theatrical manner. Very fair, crisply curling hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders, narrow hips. He looked more like a young man on the stage than a young man in real life, but the moment he opened his mouth that impression faded. He was quite natural and unaffected, even, perhaps, a little stupid. Mrs Gold looked gratefully at Pamela and sat down near her. 'What a lovely shade of brown you are. I feel terribly underdone!'

  'One has to take a frightful lot of trouble to brown evenly,' sighed Miss Lyall. She paused a minute and then went on: 'You've only just arrived, haven't you?'

  'Yes. Last night. We came on the Vapo d'Italia boat.'

  'Have you ever been to Rhodes before?'

  'No. It is lovely, isn't it?' Her husband said: 'Pity it's such a long way to come .'

  'Yes, if it were only nearer England - ' In a muffled voice Sarah said: 'Yes, but then it would be awful. Rows and rows of people laid out like fish on a slab. Bodies everywhere!'

  'That's true, of course,' said Douglas Gold. 'It's a nuisance the Italian exchange is so absolutely ruinous at present.'

  'It does make a difference, doesn't it?' The conversation was running on strictly stereotyped lines. It could hardly have been called brilliant. A little way along the beach, Valentine Chantry stirred and sat up.

  With one hand she held her bathing-dress in position across her breast. She yawned, a wide yet delicate cat-like yawn. She glanced casually down the beach. Her eyes slanted past Marjorie Gold - and stayed thoughtfully on the crisp, golden head of Douglas Gold. She moved her shoulders sinuously. She spoke and her voice was raised a little higher than it need have been. 'Tony darling - isn't it divine - this sun? I simply must have been a sun worshipper once - don't you think so?' Her husband grunted something in reply that failed to reach the others. Valentine Chantry went on in that high, drawling voice. 'Just pull that towel a little flatter, will you, darling?' She took infinite pains in the resettling of her beautiful body.

  Douglas Gold was looking now. His eyes were frankly interested. Mrs Gold chirped happily in a subdued key to Miss Lyall. 'What a beautiful woman!' Pamela, as delighted to give as to receive information, replied in a lower voice: 'That's Valentine Chantry - you know, who used to be Valentine Dacres – she is rather marvellous, isn't she? He's simply crazy about her - won't let her out of his sight!' Mrs Gold looked once more along the beach. Then she said: 'The sea really is lovely - so blue. I think we ought to go in now, don't you, Douglas?' He was still watching Valentine Chantry and took a minute or two to answer. Then he said, rather absent
ly: 'Go in? Oh, yes, rather, in a minute.' Marjorie Gold got up and strolled down to the water's edge. Valentine Chantry rolled over a little on one side. Her eyes looked along at Douglas Gold. Her scarlet mouth curved faintly into a smile. The neck of Mr Douglas Gold became slightly red. Valentine Chantry said: 'Tony darling - would you mind? I want a little pot of face-cream - it's up on the dressing-table. I meant to bring it down. Do get it for me there's an angel.' The commander rose obediently. He stalked off into the hotel.

  Marjorie Gold plunged into the sea, calling out: 'It's lovely, Douglas - so warm. Do come.' Pamela Lyall said to him: 'Aren't you going in?' He answered vaguely: 'Oh! I like to get well hotted up first.' Valentine Chantry stirred. Her head was lifted for a moment as though to recall her husband - but he was just passing inside the wall of the hotel garden. 'I like my dip the last thing,' explained Mr Gold. Mrs Chantry sat up again. She picked up a flask of sunbathing oil.

  She had some difficulty with it - the screw top seemed to resist her efforts. She spoke loudly and petulantly. 'Oh, dear – I can't get this thing undone!' She looked towards the other 'I wonder - ' Always gallant, Poirot rose to his feet, but Douglas Gold had the advantage of youth and suppleness. He was by her side in a moment. 'Can I do it for you?'

  'Oh, thank you - ' It was the sweet, empty drawl again. 'You are kind. I'm such a fool at undoing things - I always seem to screw them the wrong way. Oh! you've done it! Thank you ever so much - ' Hercule Poirot smiled to himself. He got up and wandered along the beach in the opposite direction.

  He did not go very far but his progress was leisurely. As he was on his way back, Mrs Gold came out of the sea and joined him. She had been swimming. Her face, under a singularly unbecoming bathing cap, was radiant. She said breathlessly, 'I do love the sea. And it's so warm and lovely here.' She was, he perceived, an enthusiastic bather. She said, 'Douglas and I are simply mad on bathing. He can stay in for hours.' And at that Hercule Poirot's eyes slid over her shoulder to the spot on the beach where that enthusiastic bather, Mr Douglas Gold, was sitting talking to Valentine Chantry. His wife said: 'I can't think why he doesn't come...' Her voice held a kind of childish bewilderment. Poirot's eyes rested thoughtfully on Valentine Chantry. He thought that other women in their time had made that same remark. Beside him, he heard Mrs Gold draw in her breath sharply. She said - and her voice was cold: 'She's supposed to be very attractive, I believe. But Douglas doesn't like that type of woman.' Hercule Poirot did not reply. Mrs Gold plunged into the sea again. She swam away from the shore with slow, steady strokes. You could see that she loved the water. Poirot retraced his steps to the group on the beach. It had been augmented by the arrival of old General Barnes, a veteran who was usually in the company of the young. He was sitting now between Pamela and Sarah, and he and Pamela were engaged in dishing up various scandals with appropriate embellishments.