Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  Jimmy still stared uncomprehendingly. Poirot went on.

  “Your friend Donovan did not go near the window—it was by resting his hand on this table that he got it covered in blood! But I asked myself at once—why did he rest it there? What was he doing groping about this room in darkness? For remember, my friend, the electric light switch is always in the same place—by the door. Why, when he came to this room, did he not at once feel for the light and turn it on? That was the natural, the normal thing to do. According to him, he tried to turn on the light in the kitchen, but failed. Yet when I tried the switch it was in perfect working order. Did he, then, not wish the light to go on just then? If it had gone on you would both have seen at once that you were in the wrong flat. There would have been no reason to come into this room.”

  “What are you driving at, M. Poirot? I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  “I mean—this.”

  Poirot held up a Yale door key.

  “The key of this flat?”

  “No, mon ami, the key of the flat above. Mademoiselle Patricia’s key, which M. Donovan Bailey abstracted from her bag some time during the evening.”

  “But why—why?”

  “Parbleu! So that he could do what he wanted to do—gain admission to this flat in a perfectly unsuspicious manner. He made sure that the lift door was unbolted earlier in the evening.”

  “Where did you get the key?”

  Poirot’s smile broadened. “I found it just now—where I looked for it—in M. Donovan’s pocket. See you, that little bottle I pretended to find was a ruse. M. Donovan is taken in. He does what I knew he would do—unstoppers it and sniffs. And in that little bottle is ethyl chloride, a very powerful instant anaesthetic. It gives me just the moment or two of unconsciousness I need. I take from his pocket the two things that I knew would be there. This key was one of them—the other—”

  He stopped and then went on.

  “I questioned at the time the reason the inspector gave for the body being concealed behind the curtain. To gain time? No, there was more than that. And so I thought of just one thing—the post, my friend. The evening post that comes at half past nine or thereabouts. Say the murderer does not find something he expects to find, but that something may be delivered by post later. Clearly, then, he must come back. But the crime must not be discovered by the maid when she comes in, or the police would take possession of the flat, so he hides the body behind the curtain. And the maid suspects nothing and lays the letters on the table as usual.”

  “The letters?”

  “Yes, the letters.” Poirot drew something from his pocket. “This is the second article I took from M. Donovan when he was unconscious.” He showed the superscription—a typewritten envelope addressed to Mrs. Ernestine Grant. “But I will ask you one thing first, M. Faulkener, before we look at the contents of this letter. Are you or are you not in love with Mademoiselle Patricia?”

  “I care for Pat damnably—but I’ve never thought I had a chance.”

  “You thought that she cared for M. Donovan? It may be that she had begun to care for him—but it was only a beginning, my friend. It is for you to make her forget—to stand by her in her trouble.”

  “Trouble?” said Jimmy sharply.

  “Yes, trouble. We will do all we can to keep her name out of it, but it will be impossible to do so entirely. She was, you see, the motive.”

  He ripped open the envelope that he held. An enclosure fell out. The covering letter was brief, and was from a firm of solicitors.

  Dear Madam,

  The document you enclose is quite in order, and the fact of the marriage having taken place in a foreign country does not invalidate it in any way.

  Yours truly, etc.

  Poirot spread out the enclosure. It was a certificate of marriage between Donovan Bailey and Ernestine Grant, dated eight years ago.

  “Oh, my God!” said Jimmy. “Pat said she’d had a letter from the woman asking to see her, but she never dreamed it was anything important.”

  Poirot nodded. “Donovan knew—he went to see his wife this evening before going to the flat above—a strange irony, by the way, that led the unfortunate woman to come to this building where her rival lived—he murdered her in cold blood, and then went on to his evening’s amusement. His wife must have told him that she had sent the marriage certificate to her solicitors and was expecting to hear from them. Doubtless he himself had tried to make her believe that there was a flaw in the marriage.”

  “He seemed in quite good spirits, too, all the evening. M. Poirot, you haven’t let him escape?” Jimmy shuddered.

  “There is no escape for him,” said Poirot gravely. “You need not fear.”

  “It’s Pat I’m thinking about mostly,” said Jimmy. “You don’t think—she really cared.”

  “Mon ami, that is your part,” said Poirot gently. “To make her turn to you and forget. I do not think you will find it very difficult!”

  Thirty

  THE MYSTERY OF THE BAGHDAD CHEST

  “The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest” was first published in The Strand, January 1932.

  The words made a catchy headline, and I said as much to my friend, Hercule Poirot. I knew none of the parties. My interest was merely the dispassionate one of the man in the street. Poirot agreed.

  “Yes, it has a flavour of the Oriental, of the mysterious. The chest may very well have been a sham Jacobean one from the Tottenham Court Road; none the less the reporter who thought of naming it the Baghdad Chest was happily inspired. The word ‘mystery’ is also thoughtfully placed in juxtaposition, though I understand there is very little mystery about the case.”

  “Exactly. It is all rather horrible and macabre, but it is not mysterious.”

  “Horrible and macabre,” repeated Poirot thoughtfully.

  “The whole idea is revolting,” I said, rising to my feet and pacing up and down the room. “The murderer kills this man—his friend—shoves him into the chest, and half an hour later is dancing in that same room with the wife of his victim. Think! If she had imagined for one moment—”

  “True,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “That much-vaunted possession, a woman’s intuition—it does not seem to have been working.”

  “The party seems to have gone off very merrily,” I said with a slight shiver. “And all that time, as they danced and played poker, there was a dead man in the room with them. One could write a play about such an idea.”

  “It has been done,” said Poirot. “But console yourself, Hastings,” he added kindly. “Because a theme has been used once, there is no reason why it should not be used again. Compose your drama.”

  I had picked up the paper and was studying the rather blurred reproduction of a photograph.

  “She must be a beautiful woman,” I said slowly. “Even from this, one gets an idea.”

  Below the picture ran the inscription:

  A recent portrait of Mrs. Clayton,

  the wife of the murdered man

  Poirot took the paper from me.

  “Yes,” he said. “She is beautiful. Doubtless she is of those born to trouble the souls of men.”

  He handed the paper back to me with a sigh.

  “Dieu merci, I am not of an ardent temperament. It has saved me from many embarrassments. I am duly thankful.”

  I do not remember that we discussed the case further. Poirot displayed no special interest in it at the time. The facts were so clear, and there was so little ambiguity about them, that discussion seemed merely futile.

  Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and Major Rich were friends of fairly longstanding. On the day in question, the tenth of March, the Claytons had accepted an invitation to spend the evening with Major Rich. At about seven thirty, however, Clayton explained to another friend, a Major Curtiss, with whom he was having a drink, that he had been unexpectedly called to Scotland and was leaving by the eight o’clock train.

  “I’ll just have time to drop in and explain to old Jack,” went on
Clayton. “Marguerita is going, of course. I’m sorry about it, but Jack will understand how it is.”

  Mr. Clayton was as good as his word. He arrived at Major Rich’s rooms about twenty to eight. The major was out at the time, but his manservant, who knew Mr. Clayton well, suggested that he come in and wait. Mr. Clayton said that he had no time, but that he would come in and write a note. He added that he was on his way to catch a train.

  The valet accordingly showed him into the sitting room.

  About five minutes later Major Rich, who must have let himself in without the valet hearing him, opened the door of the sitting room, called his man and told him to go out and get some cigarettes. On his return the man brought them to his master, who was then alone in the sitting room. The man naturally concluded that Mr. Clayton had left.

  The guests arrived shortly afterwards. They comprised Mrs. Clayton, Major Curtiss and a Mr. and Mrs. Spence. The evening was spent dancing to the phonograph and playing poker. The guests left shortly after midnight.

  The following morning, on coming to do the sitting room, the valet was startled to find a deep stain discolouring the carpet below and in front of a piece of furniture which Major Rich had brought from the East and which was called the Baghdad Chest.

  Instinctively the valet lifted the lid of the chest and was horrified to find inside the doubled-up body of a man who had been stabbed to the heart.

  Terrified, the man ran out of the flat and fetched the nearest policeman. The dead man proved to be Mr. Clayton. The arrest of Major Rich followed very shortly afterward. The major’s defence, it was understood, consisted of a sturdy denial of everything. He had not seen Mr. Clayton the preceding evening and the first he had heard of his going to Scotland had been from Mrs. Clayton.

  Such were the bald facts of the case. Innuendoes and suggestions naturally abounded. The close friendship and intimacy of Major Rich and Mrs. Clayton were so stressed that only a fool could fail to read between the lines. The motive for the crime was plainly indicated.

  Long experience has taught me to make allowance for baseless calumny. The motive suggested might, for all the evidence, be entirely nonexistent. Some quite other reason might have precipitated the issue. But one thing did stand out clearly—that Rich was the murderer.

  As I say, the matter might have rested there, had it not happened that Poirot and I were due at a party given by Lady Chatterton that night.

  Poirot, whilst bemoaning social engagements and declaring a passion for solitude, really enjoyed these affairs enormously. To be made a fuss of and treated as a lion suited him down to the ground.

  On occasions he positively purred! I have seen him blandly receiving the most outrageous compliments as no more than his due, and uttering the most blatantly conceited remarks, such as I can hardly bear to set down.

  Sometimes he would argue with me on the subject.

  “But, my friend, I am not an Anglo-Saxon. Why should I play the hypocrite? Si, si, that is what you do, all of you. The airman who has made a difficult flight, the tennis champion—they look down their noses, they mutter inaudibly that ‘it is nothing.’ But do they really think that themselves? Not for a moment. They would admire the exploit in someone else. So, being reasonable men, they admire it in themselves. But their training prevents them from saying so. Me, I am not like that. The talents that I possess—I would salute them in another. As it happens, in my own particular line, there is no one to touch me. C’est dommage! As it is, I admit freely and without hypocrisy that I am a great man. I have the order, the method and the psychology in an unusual degree. I am, in fact, Hercule Poirot! Why should I turn red and stammer and mutter into my chin that really I am very stupid? It would not be true.”

  “There is certainly only one Hercule Poirot,” I agreed—not without a spice of malice of which, fortunately, Poirot remained quite oblivious.

  Lady Chatterton was one of Poirot’s most ardent admirers. Starting from the mysterious conduct of a Pekingese, he had unravelled a chain which led to a noted burglar and housebreaker. Lady Chatterton had been loud in his praises ever since.

  To see Poirot at a party was a great sight. His faultless evening clothes, the exquisite set of his white tie, the exact symmetry of his hair parting, the sheen of pomade on his hair, and the tortured splendour of his famous moustaches—all combined to paint the perfect picture of an inveterate dandy. It was hard, at these moments, to take the little man seriously.

  It was about half past eleven when Lady Chatterton, bearing down upon us, whisked Poirot neatly out of an admiring group, and carried him off—I need hardly say, with myself in tow.

  “I want you to go into my little room upstairs,” said Lady Chatterton rather breathlessly as soon as she was out of earshot of her other guests. “You know where it is, M. Poirot. You’ll find someone there who needs your help very badly—and you will help her, I know. She’s one of my dearest friends—so don’t say no.”

  Energetically leading the way as she talked, Lady Chatterton flung open a door, exclaiming as she did so, “I’ve got him, Marguerita darling. And he’ll do anything you want. You will help Mrs. Clayton, won’t you, M. Poirot?”

  And taking the answer for granted, she withdrew with the same energy that characterized all her movements.

  Mrs. Clayton had been sitting in a chair by the window. She rose now and came toward us. Dressed in deep mourning, the dull black showed up her fair colouring. She was a singularly lovely woman, and there was about her a simple childlike candour which made her charm quite irresistible.

  “Alice Chatterton is so kind,” she said. “She arranged this. She said you would help me, M. Poirot. Of course I don’t know whether you will or not—but I hope you will.”

  She had held out her hand and Poirot had taken it. He held it now for a moment or two while he stood scrutinizing her closely. There was nothing ill-bred in his manner of doing it. It was more the kind but searching look that a famous consultant gives a new patient as the latter is ushered into his presence.

  “Are you sure, madame,” he said at last, “that I can help you?”

  “Alice says so.”

  “Yes, but I am asking you, madame.”

  A little flush rose to her cheeks.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What is it, madame, that you want me to do?”

  “You—you—know who I am?” she asked.

  “Assuredly.”

  “Then you can guess what it is I am asking you to do, M. Poirot—Captain Hastings”—I was gratified that she realized my identity—“Major Rich did not kill my husband.”

  “Why not?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Poirot smiled at her slight discomfiture.

  “I said, ‘Why not?’ ” he repeated.

  “I’m not sure that I understand.”

  “Yet it is very simple. The police—the lawyers—they will all ask the same question: Why did Major Rich kill M. Clayton? I ask the opposite. I ask you, madame, why did Major Rich not kill Mr. Clayton.”

  “You mean—why I’m so sure? Well, but I know. I know Major Rich so well.”

  “You know Major Rich so well,” repeated Poirot tonelessly.

  The colour flamed into her cheeks.

  “Yes, that’s what they’ll say—what they’ll think! Oh, I know!”

  “C’est vrai. That is what they will ask you about—how well you knew Major Rich. Perhaps you will speak the truth, perhaps you will lie. It is very necessary for a woman to lie, it is a good weapon. But there are three people, madame, to whom a woman should speak the truth. To her Father Confessor, to her hairdresser and to her private detective—if she trusts him. Do you trust me, madame?”

  Marguerita Clayton drew a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “I do. I must,” she added rather childishly.

  “Then, how well do you know Major Rich?”

  She looked at him for a moment in silence, then she raised her chin defiantly.

  “I will answ
er your question. I loved Jack from the first moment I saw him—two years ago. Lately I think—I believe—he has come to love me. But he has never said so.”

  “Épatant!” said Poirot. “You have saved me a good quarter of an hour by coming to the point without beating the bush. You have the good sense. Now your husband—did he suspect your feelings?”

  “I don’t know,” said Marguerita slowly. “I thought—lately—that he might. His manner has been different . . . But that may have been merely my fancy.”

  “Nobody else knew?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “And—pardon me, madame—you did not love your husband?”

  There were, I think, very few women who would have answered that question as simply as this woman did. They would have tried to explain their feelings.

  Marguerita Clayton said quite simply: “No.”

  “Bien. Now we know where we are. According to you, madame, Major Rich did not kill your husband, but you realize that all the evidence points to his having done so. Are you aware, privately, of any flaw in that evidence?”

  “No. I know nothing.”

  “When did your husband first inform you of his visit to Scotland?”

  “Just after lunch. He said it was a bore, but he’d have to go. Something to do with land values, he said it was.”

  “And after that?”

  “He went out—to his club, I think. I—I didn’t see him again.”

  “Now as to Major Rich—what was his manner that evening? Just as usual?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “You are not sure?”

  Marguerita wrinkled her brows.

  “He was—a little constrained. With me—not with the others. But I thought I knew why that was. You understand? I am sure the constraint or—or—absentmindedness perhaps describes it better—had nothing to do with Edward. He was surprised to hear that Edward had gone to Scotland, but not unduly so.”

  “And nothing else unusual occurs to you in connection with that evening?”

  Marguerita thought.

  “No, nothing whatever.”

  “You—noticed the chest?”