Cards on the Table hp-15

by Agatha Christie

  Almost immediately the door opened and a competent-looking young woman appeared. "You rang, Doctor?"

  "This is Miss Burgess, Superintendent Battle from Scotland Yard."

  Miss Burgess turned a cool gaze on Battle. It seemed to say, "Dear me, what sort of an animal is this?"

  "I should be glad, Miss Burgess, if you will answer any questions Superintendent Battle may put to you, and give him any help he may need."

  "Certainly if you say so, Doctor."

  "Well," said Roberts, rising. "I'll be off. Did you put the morphia in my case? I shall need it for the Lockhaert case -"

  He bustled out still talking and Miss Burgess followed him. She returned a minute or two later to say, "Will you press that button when you want me, Superintendent Battle?"

  Superintendent Battle thanked her and said he would do so. Then he set to work.

  His search was careful and methodical, though he had no great hopes of finding anything of importance. Roberts's ready acquiescence dispelled the chance of that. Roberts was no fool. He would realize that a search would be bound to come and he would make provisions accordingly. There was, however, a faint chance that Battle might come across a hint of the information he was really after, since Roberts would not know the real object of his search. Superintendent Battle opened and shut drawers, rifled pigeonholes, glanced through a checkbook, estimated the unpaid bills – noted what those same bills were for, scrutinized Roberts's passbook, ran through his case notes, and generally left no written document unturned. The result was meager in the extreme. He next took a look through the poison cupboard, noted the wholesale firms with which the doctor dealt, and the system of checking, re-locked the cupboard, and passed on to the bureau. The contents of the latter were of a more personal nature, but Battle found nothing germane to his search. He shook his head, sat down in the doctor's chair, and pressed the desk button.

  Miss Burgess appeared with promptitude.

  Superintendent Battle asked her politely to be seated and then sat studying her for a moment, before he decided which way to tackle her. He had sensed immediately her hostility, and he was uncertain whether to provoke her into unguarded speech by increasing that hostility or whether to try a softer method of approach.

  "I suppose you know what all this is about, Miss Burgess," he said at last.

  "Doctor Roberts told me," said Miss Burgess shortly.

  "The whole thing's rather delicate," said Superintendent Battle.

  "Is it?" said Miss Burgess.

  "Well, it's rather a nasty business. Four people are under suspicion and one of them must have done it. What I want to know is whether you've ever seen this Mr. Shaitana?"

  "Never."

  "Ever heard Doctor Roberts speak of him?"

  "Never – No, I am wrong. About a week ago Doctor Roberts told me to enter a dinner appointment in his engagement book. Mr. Shaitana, eight-fifteen on the eighteenth."

  "And that is the first you ever heard of this Mr. Shaitana?"

  "Yes."

  "Never seen his name in the papers? He was often in the fashionable news."

  "I've got better things to do than reading the fashionable news."

  "I expect you have. Oh, I expect you have," said the superintendent mildly.

  "Well," he went on. "There it is. All four of these people will only admit to knowing Mr. Shaitana slightly. But one of them knew him well enough to kill him. It's my job to find out which of them it was."

  There was an unhelpful pause. Miss Burgess seemed quite uninterested in the performance of Superintendent Battle's job. It was her job to obey her employer's orders and sit here listening to what Superintendent Battle chose to say and answer any direct questions he might choose to put to her.

  "You know, Miss Burgess," the superintendent found it uphill work but he persevered, "I doubt if you appreciate half the difficulties of our job. People say things, for instance. Well, we mayn't believe a word of it but we've got to take notice of it all the same. It's particularly noticeable in a case of this kind. I don't want to say anything against your sex but there's no doubt that a woman when she's rattled, is apt to lash out with her tongue a bit. She makes unfounded accusations, hints this, that and the other, and rakes up all sorts of old scandals that have probably nothing whatever to do with the case."

  "Do you mean," demanded Miss Burgess, "that one of these other people has been saying things against the doctor?"

  "Not exactly said anything," said Battle cautiously. "But all the same, I'm bound to take notice. Suspicious circumstances about the death of a patient. Probably all a lot of nonsense. I'm ashamed to bother the doctor with it."

  "I suppose someone's got hold of that story about Mrs. Graves," said Miss Burgess wrathfully. "The way people talk about things they know nothing whatever about is disgraceful. Lots of old ladies get like that; they think everybody is poisoning them – their relations and their servants and even their doctors. Mrs. Graves had had three doctors before she came to Doctor Roberts, and then, when she got the same fancies about him, he was quite willing for her to have Doctor Lee instead. It's the only thing to do in these cases, he said. And after Doctor Lee she had Doctor Steele and then Doctor Farmer – until she died, poor old thing."

  "You'd be surprised the way the smallest thing starts a story," said Battle. "Whenever a doctor benefits by the death of a patient somebody has something ill-natured to say. And yet why shouldn't a grateful patient leave a little something or even a big something to her medical attendant?"

  "It's the relations," said Miss Burgess. "I always think there's nothing like death for bringing out the meanness of human nature. Squabbling over who's to have what before the body's cold. Luckily Doctor Roberts has never had any trouble of that kind. He always says he hopes his patients won't leave him anything. I believe he once had a legacy of fifty pounds and he's had two walking sticks and a gold watch but nothing else."

  "It's a difficult life, that of a professional man," said Battle with a sigh. "He's always open to blackmail. The most innocent occurrences lend themselves sometimes to a scandalous appearance. A doctor's got to avoid even the appearance of evil; that means he's got to have his wits about him good and sharp."

  "A lot of what you say is true," said Miss Burgess. "Doctors have a difficult time with hysterical women."

  "Hysterical women. That's right. I thought, in my own mind that that was all it amounted to."

  "I suppose you mean that dreadful Mrs. Craddock?"

  Battle pretended to think,

  "Let me see, was it three years ago? No, more."

  "Four or five, I think. She was a most unbalanced woman! I was glad when she went abroad and so was Doctor Roberts. She told her husband the most frightful lies; they always do, of course. Poor man, he wasn't quite himself; he'd begun to be ill. He died of anthrax, you know, an infected shaving brush."

  "I'd forgotten that," said Battle untruthfully.

  "And then she went abroad and died not long afterward. But I always thought she was a nasty type of woman – man mad, you know."

  "I know the kind," said Battle. "Very dangerous, they are. A doctor's got to give them a wide berth. Whereabouts did she die abroad – I seem to remember -"

  " Egypt, I think it was. She got blood poisoning – some native infection."

  "Another thing that must be difficult for a doctor," said Battle, making a conversational leap, “is when he suspects that one of his patients is being poisoned by one of his or her relatives. What's he to do? He's got to be sure – or else hold his tongue. And if he's done the latter, then it's awkward for him if there's talk of foul play afterward. I wonder if any case of that kind has ever come Doctor Roberts's way?"

  "I really don't think it has," said Miss Burgess, considering. "I've never heard of anything like that."

  "From the statistical point of view, it would be interesting to know how many deaths occur among a doctor's practice per year. For instance now, you've been with Doctor Roberts some years -"
>
  "Seven."

  "Seven. Well, how many deaths have there been in that time offhand?"

  "Really, it's difficult to say." Miss Burgess gave herself up to calculation. She was by now quite thawed and unsuspicious. "Seven, eight – of course I can't remember exactly – I shouldn't say more than thirty in the time."

  "Then I fancy Doctor Roberts must be a better doctor than most," said Battle genially. "I suppose, too, most of his patients are upper class. They can afford to take care of themselves."

  "He's a very popular doctor. He's so good at diagnosis."

  Battle sighed and rose to his feet. "I'm afraid I've been wandering from my duty, which is to find out a connection between the doctor and this Mr. Shaitana. You're quite sure he wasn't a patient of the doctor's."

  "Quite sure."

  "Under another name, perhaps?" Battle handed her a photograph. "Recognize him at all?"

  "What a very theatrical-looking person! No, I've never seen him here at any time."

  "Well, that's that." Battle sighed. "I'm much obliged to the doctor, I'm sure, for being so pleasant about everything. Tell him so from me, will you? Tell him I'm passing on to number two. Good-by, Miss Burgess, and thank you for your help."

  He shook hands and departed. Walking along the street he took a small notebook from his pocket and made several entries in it under the letter R.

  Mrs. Graves? Unlikely.

  Mrs. Craddock?

  No legacies.

  No wife. (Pity.)

  Investigate deaths of patients. Difficult.

  He closed the book and turned into the Lancaster Gate branch of the London amp; Wessex bank.

  The display of his official card brought him to a private interview with the manager.

  "Good morning, sir. One of your clients is a Doctor Geoffrey Roberts, I understand."

  "Quite correct, Superintendent."

  "I shall want some information about that gentleman's account going back over a period of years."

  "I will see what I can do for you."

  A complicated half-hour followed. Finally Battle, with a sigh, tucked away a sheet of penciled figures.

  "Got what you want?" inquired the bank manager curiously.

  "No, I haven't. Not one suggestive lead. Thank you all the same."

  At that same moment, Doctor Roberts, washing his hands in his consulting room, said over his shoulder to Miss Burgess, "What about our stolid sleuth, eh? Did he turn the place upside down and you inside out?"

  "He didn't get much out of me, I can tell you," said Miss Burgess, setting her lips tightly.

  "My dear girl, no need to be an oyster. I told you to tell him all he wanted to know. What did he want to know, by the way?"

  "Oh, he kept harping on your knowing that man Shaitana – suggested even that he might have come here as a patient under a different name. He showed me his photograph. Such a theatrical-looking man!"

  "Shaitana? Oh, yes, fond of posing as a modern Mephistopheles. It went down rather well on the whole. What else did Battle ask you?"

  "Really nothing very much. Except – oh, yes, somebody had been telling him some absolute nonsense about Mrs. Graves – you know the way she used to go on."

  " Graves? Graves? Oh, yes, old Mrs. Graves! That's rather funny!" The doctor laughed with considerable amusement. "That's really very funny indeed."

  And in high good humor he went in to lunch.

  Chapter 10

  DOCTOR ROBERTS (CONTINUED)

  Superintendent Battle was lunching with Hercule Poirot. The former looked downcast, the latter sympathetic.

  "Your morning, then, has not been entirely successful," said Poirot thoughtfully. Battle shook his head.

  "It's going to be uphill work, Monsieur Poirot."

  "What do you think of him?"

  "Of the doctor? Well, frankly, I think Shaitana was right. He's a killer. Reminds me of Westaway. And of that lawyer chap in Norfolk. Same hearty self-confident manner. Same popularity. Both of them were clever devils – so's Roberts. All the same it doesn't follow that Roberts killed Shaitana, and as a matter of fact I don't think he did. He'd know the risk too well – better than a layman would – that Shaitana might wake and cry out. No, I don't think Roberts murdered him."

  "But you think he has murdered someone?"

  "Possibly quite a lot of people. Westaway had. But it's going to be hard to get at. I've looked over his bank account – nothing suspicious there – no large sums suddenly paid in. At any rate in the last seven years he's not had any legacy from a patient. That wipes out murder for direct gain. He's never married – that's a pity – so ideally simple for a doctor to kill his own wife. He's well to do, but then he's got a thriving practice among well-to-do people."

  "In fact he appears to lead a thoroughly blameless life – and perhaps does do so."

  "Maybe. But I prefer to believe the worst."

  He went on. "There's the hint of a scandal over a woman – one of his patients – name of Craddock. That's worth looking up, I think. I'll get someone on to that straightaway. Woman actually died out in Egypt at some local disease, so I don't think there's anything in that – but it might throw a light on his general character and morals."

  "Was there a husband?"

  "Yes. Husband died of anthrax."

  "Anthrax?"

  "Yes, there were a lot of cheap shaving brushes on the market just then – some of them infected. There was a regular scandal about it."

  "Convenient," suggested Poirot.

  "That's what I thought. If her husband were threatening to kick up a row – But there, it's all conjecture. We haven't a leg to stand upon."

  "Courage, my friend. I know your patience. In the end, you will have perhaps as many legs as a centipede."

  "And fall into the ditch as a result of thinking about them," grinned Battle.

  Then he asked curiously. "What about you, Monsieur Poirot? Going to take a hand?"

  "I, too, might call on Doctor Roberts."

  "Two of us in one day, That ought to put the wind up him."

  "Oh, I shall be very discreet. I shall not inquire into his past life."

  "I'd like to know just exactly what line you'll take," said Battle, curiously, "but don't tell me unless you want to."

  "Du tout – du tout. I am most willing. I shall talk a little of bridge, that is all."

  "Bridge again. You harp on that, don't you, Monsieur Poirot?"

  "I find the subject very useful."

  "Well, every man to his taste. I don't deal much in these fancy approaches. They don't suit my style."

  "What is your style, Superintendent?"

  The superintendent met the twinkle in Poirot's eyes with an answering twinkle in his own.

  "A straightforward, honest, zealous officer doing his duty in the most laborious manner – that's my style. No frills. No fancy work, Just honest perspiration. Stolid and a bit stupid – that's my ticket."

  Poirot raised his glass. "To our respective methods – and may success crown our joint efforts."

  "I expect Colonel Race may get us something worth having about Despard," said Battle, "He's got a good many sources of information."

  "And Mrs. Oliver?"

  "Bit of a tossup there, I rather like that woman. Talks a lot of nonsense, but she's a sport. And women get to know things about other women that men can't get at. She may spot something useful."

  They separated. Battle went back to Scotland Yard to issue instructions for certain lines to be followed up. Poirot betook himself to 200 Gloucester Terrace.

  Doctor Roberts's eyebrows rose comically as he greeted his guest. "Two sleuths in one day?" he asked. "Handcuffs by this evening, I suppose."

  Poirot smiled.

  "I can assure you, Doctor Roberts, that my attentions are being equally divided between all four of you."

  "That's something to be thankful for, at all events. Smoke?"

  "If you permit, I prefer my own."

  Poirot lighted one o
f his tiny Russian cigarettes.

  "Well, what can I do for you?" asked Roberts.

  Poirot was silent for a minute or two puffing, then he said, "Are you a keen observer of human nature, Doctor?"

  "I don't know. I suppose I am. A doctor has to be."

  "That was exactly my reasoning, I said to myself, 'A doctor has always to be studying his patients – their expressions, their color, how fast they breathe, any signs of restlessness; a doctor notices these things automatically almost without noticing he notices! Doctor Roberts is the man to help me.'"

  "I'm willing enough to help. What's the trouble?"

  Poirot produced from a neat little pocket case three carefully folded bridge scores.

  "These are the first three rubbers the other evening," he explained. "Here is the first one, in Miss Meredith's handwriting. Now can you tell me, with this to refresh your memory, exactly what the bidding was and how each hand went?"

  Roberts stared at him in astonishment. "You're joking, Monsieur Poirot. How can I possibly remember?"

  "Can't you? I should be so very grateful if you could. Take this first rubber. The first game must have resulted either in a game bid in hearts or spades, or else one or other side must have gone down fifty."

  "Let me see – that was the first hand, Yes, I think they went out in spades."

  "And the next hand?"

  "I suppose one or other of us went down fifty – but I can't remember which or what it was in. Really, Monsieur Poirot, you can hardly expect me to do so."

  "Can't you remember any of the bidding or the hands?"

  "I got a grand slam – I remember that. It was doubled too. And I also remember going down a nasty smack, playing three no trumps, I think it was – went down a plenty. But that was later on."

  "Do you remember with whom you were playing?"

  "Mrs. Lorrimer. She looked a bit grim, I remember. Didn't like my overbidding, I expect."

  "And you can't remember any other of the hands or the bidding?"

  Roberts laughed.