Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  The arrival of a diamond expert is announced. Lady Yardly, as I felt sure she would, immediately arranges a robbery -and does it very well too! But Hercule Poirot, he sees nothing but facts. What happens in actuality? The lady switches off the light, bangs the door, throws the necklace down the passage, and screams. She had already wrenched out the diamond with pliers upstairs"

  "But we saw the necklace round her neck!" I objected.

  "I demand pardon, my friend. Her hand concealed the part of it where the gap would have shown. To place a piece of silk in the door beforehand is child's play! Of course, as soon as Rolf read of the robbery, he arranged his own little comedy. And very well he played it!"

  "What did you say to him?" I asked with lively curiosity. "I said to him that Lady Yardly had told her husband all, that I was empowered to recover the jewel, and that if it were not immediately handed over proceedings would be taken. Also a few more little lies which occurred to me. He was as wax in my hands!" I pondered the matter. "It seems a little unfair on Mary Marvell. She has lost her diamond through no fault of her own."

  "Bah!" said Poirot brutally. "She has a magnificent advertisement. That is all she cares for, that one!

  Now the other, she is different. Bonne mère, très femme!"

  "Yes," I said doubtfully, hardly sharing Poirot's views on femininity. "I suppose it was Rolf who sent her the duplicate letters."

  "Pas du tout," said Poirot briskly. "She came by the advice of Mary Cavendish to seek my aid in her dilemma. Then she heard that Mary Marvell, whom she knew to be her enemy, had been here, and she changed her mind, jumping at a pretext that you, my friend, offered her. A very few questions sufficed to show me that you told her of the letters, not she you! She jumped at the chance your words offered."

  "I don't believe it," I cried, stung.

  "Si, si, mon ami, it is a pity that you study not the psychology. She told you that the letters were destroyed? Oh, la la, never does a woman destroy a letter if she can avoid it! Not even if it would be more prudent to do so!"

  "It's all very well," I said, my anger rising, "but you've made a perfect fool of me! From beginning to end! No, it's all very well to try to explain it away afterwards. There really is a limit!"

  "But you were so enjoying yourself, my friend. I had not the heart to shatter your illusions."

  "It's no good. You've gone a bit too far this time." "Mon Dieu! but how you enrage yourself for nothing, mon ami!"

  "I'm fed up!" I went out, banging the door. Poirot had made an absolute laughing-stock of me. I decided he needed a sharp lesson. I would let some time elapse before I forgave him. He had encouraged me to make a perfect fool of myself!

  The Mystery Of The

  Plymouth Express

  BY

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  The Mystery Of The Plymouth Express

  Alex Simpson, RN, stepped from the platform at Newton Abbot into a first-class compartment of the Plymouth Express. A porter followed him with a heavy suitcase. He was about to swing it up to the rack, but the young sailor stopped him.

  “No - leave it on the seat. I'll put it up later. Here you are.” “Thank you, sir.” The porter, generously tipped, withdrew. Doors banged; a stentorian voice shouted: 'Plymouth only. Change for Torquay. Plymouth next stop.' Then a whistle blew, and the train drew slowly out of the station. Lieutenant Simpson had the carriage to himself. The December air was chilly, and he pulled up the window. Then he sniffed vaguely, and frowned. What a smell there was! Reminded him of that time in hospital, and the operation on his leg. Yes, chloroform; that was it! He let the window down again, changing his seat to one with its back to the engine. He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and lit it. For a little time he sat inactive, looking out into the night and smoking. At last he roused himself, and opening the suitcase, took out some papers and magazines, then closed the suitcase again and endeavoured to shove it under the opposite seat - without success.

  Some hidden obstacle resisted it. He shoved harder with rising impatience, but it still stuck out half-way into the carriage. 'Why the devil won't it go in?' he muttered, and hauling it out completely, he stooped down and peered under the seat. A moment later a cry rang out into the night, and the great train came to an unwilling halt in obedience to the imperative jerking of the communication cord.

  “Mon ami” said Poirot, “you have, I know, been deeply interested in this mystery of the Plymouth Express. Read this.”

  I picked up the note he flicked across the table to me. It was brief and to the point.

  Dear Sir,

  I shall be obliged if you will call upon me at your earliest convenience.

  Yours faithfully,

  EBENEZER HALLIDAY

  The connection was not clear to my mind, and I looked inquiringly at Poirot. For answer he took up the newspaper and read aloud: '"A sensational discovery was made last night. A young naval officer returning to Plymouth found under the seat of his compartment the body of a woman, stabbed through the heart. The officer at once pulled the communication cord, and the train was brought to a Standstill. The woman, who was about thirty years of age, and richly dressed, has not yet been identified." 'And later we have this: "The woman found dead in the Plymouth Express has been identified as the Honourable Mrs Rupert Carrington." You see now, my friend? Or if you do not, I will add this - Mrs Rupert Carrington was, before her marriage, Flossie Halliday, daughter of old man Halliday, the steel king of America.”

  “And he has sent for you? Splendid!”

  “I did him a little service in the past - an affair of bearer bonds. And once, when I was in Paris for a royal visit, I had Mademoiselle Flossie pointed out to me. La jolie petite pensionnaire! She had the joli dot too! It caused trouble. She nearly made a bad affair.' 'How was that?”

  “A certain Count de la Rochefour. Un bien t’nau vais suiet! A bad hat, as you would say. An adventurer pure and simple, who knew how to appeal to a romantic young girl. Luckily her father got wind of it in time. He took her back to America in haste. I heard of her marriage some years later, but I know nothing of her husband.”

  “H'm” I said. “The Honourable Rupert Carrington is no beauty, by all accounts. He'd pretty well run through his own money on the turf, and I should imagine old man Halliday's dollars came along in the nick of time. I should say that for a good-looking, well-mannered, utterly unscrupulous young scoundrel, it would be hard to find his match?”

  “Ah, the poor little lady! Elle n'est pas bien tomb de!”

  “I fancy he made it pretty obvious at once that it was her money, and not she, that had attracted him. I believe they drifted apart almost at once. I have heard turnouts lately that there was to be a definite legal separation.”

  “Old man Halliday is no fool. He would tie up her money pretty tight.”

  “I dare say. Anyway, I know as a fact that the Honourable Rupert is said to be extremely hard-up.”

  “Aha! I wonder”

  “You wonder what?”

  “My good friend, do not jump down my throat like that. You are interested, I see. Supposing you accompany me to see Mr Halliday. There is a taxi-stand at the corner.”

  A few minutes sufficed to whirl us to the superb house in Park Lane rented by the American magnate. We were shown into the library, and almost immediately we were joined by a large, stout man, with piercing eyes and an aggressive chin.

  “M. Poirot?” said Mr Halliday. “I guess I don't need to tell you what I want you for. You've read the papers, and I'm never one to let the grass grow under my feet. I happened to hear you were in London, and I remembered the good work you did over those bonds. Never forget a name. I've got the pick of Scotland Yard, but I'll have my own man as well. Money no object. All the dollars were made for my little girl - and now she's gone, I'll spend my last cent to catch the damned scoundrel that did it! See? So it's up to you to deliver the goods.” Poirot bowed. “'I accept, monsieur, all the more willingly that I saw your daughter in Paris several times. And now
I will ask you to tell me the circumstances of her journey to Plymouth and any other detail that seem to you to bear upon the case.”

  “Well, to begin with” responded Halliday, “she wasn't going to Plymouth. She was going to join a house-party at Avonmead Court, the Duchess of Swansea's place. She left London by the twelve-fourteen from Paddington, arriving at Bristol (where she had to change) at two-fifty. The principal Plymouth expresses, of course, run via Westbury, and do not go near Bristol at all. The twelve-fourteen does a non-stop run to Bristol, afterwards stopping at Weston, Taunton, Exeter and Newton Abbot. My daughter travelled alone in her carriage, which was reserved as far as Bristol, her maid being in a third-class carriage in the next coach.” Poirot nodded, and Mr Halliday went on: “The party at Avon-mead Court was to be a very gay one, with several balls, and in consequence my daughter had with her nearly all her jewels amounting in value, perhaps, to about a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Un moment” interrupted Poirot. “Who had charge of the jewels? Your daughter, or the maid?”

  “My daughter always took charge of them herself, carrying them in a small blue morocco case.”

  “Continue, monsieur.”

  “At Bristol the maid, Jane Mason, collected her mistress's dressing-bag and wraps, which were with her, and came to the door of Flossie's compartment. To her intense surprise, my daughter told her that she was not getting out at Bristol, but was going on farther. She directed Mason to get out the luggage and put it in the cloakroom. She could have tea in the refreshment-room, but she was to wait at the station for her mistress, who would return to Bristol by an up-train in the course of the afternoon. The maid, although very much astonished, did as she was told. She put the luggage in the cloakroom and had some tea. But up-train after up-train came in, and her mistress did not appear. After the arrival of the last train, she left the luggage where it was, and went to a hotel near the station for the night. This morning she read of the tragedy, and returned to town by the first available train.”

  “Is there nothing to account for your daughter's sudden change of plan?”

  “Well, there is this: According to Jane Mason, at Bristol, Flosie was no longer alone in her carriage. There was a man in it who stood looking out of the farther window so that she could not see his face.”

  “The train was a corridor one, of course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which side was the corridor?”

  “On the platform side. My daughter was standing in the corridor as she talked to Mason.”

  “And there is no doubt in your mind - excuse me! He got up, and carefully straightened the inkstand which was a little askew. vous demande pardon” he continued, re-seating himself.

  “It affects my nerves to see anything crooked. Strange, is it not? I was saying, monsieur, that there is no doubt in your mind as to this probably unexpected meeting being the cause of your daughter's sudden change of plan?”

  “It seems the only reasonable supposition.”

  “You have no idea as to who the gentleman in question might be?” The millionaire hesitated for a moment, and then replied: “'No - I do not know at all.”

  “Now - as to the discovery of the body?”

  “It was discovered by a young naval officer who at once gave the alarm. There was a doctor on the train. He examined the body. She had been first chloroformed, and then stabbed. He gave it as his opinion that she had been dead about four hours, so it must have been done not long after leaving Bristol - probably between there and Weston, possibly between Weston and Taunton.”

  “And the jewel-case?”

  “The jewel-case, M. Poirot, was missing.”

  “One thing more, monsieur. Your daughter's fortune - to whom does it pass at her death?”

  “Flossie made a will soon after her marriage, leaving everything to her husband.” He hesitated for a minute, and then went on: “I may as well tell you, Monsieur Poirot, that I regard my son-in-law as an unprincipled scoundrel, and that, by my advice, my daughter was on the eve of freeing herself from him by legal means - no difficult matter. I settled her money upon her in such a way that he could not touch it during her lifetime, but although they have lived entirely apart for some years, she had frequently acceded to his demands for money, rather than face an open scandal. However, I was determined to put an end to this. At last Flossie agreed, and my lawyers were instructed to take proceedings.”

  “And where is Monsieur Carrington?”

  “In town. I believe he was away in the country yesterday, but he returned last night.” Poirot considered a little while. Then he said: “I think that is all, monsieur.”

  “You would like to see the maid, Jane Mason?”

  “If you please.”

  Halliday rang the bell, and gave a short order to the footman. A few minutes later Jane Mason entered the room, a respectable, hard-featured woman, as emotionless in the face of tragedy as only a good servant can be.

  “You will permit me to put a few questions? Your mistress, she was quite as usual before starting yesterday morning? Not excited or flurried?”

  “Oh no, sir”

  “But at Bristol she was quite different?”

  “Yes, sir, regular upset - so nervous she didn't seem to know what she was saying.”

  “What did she say exactly?”

  “Well, sir, as near as I can remember, she said: "Mason, I've got to alter my plans. Something has happened - I mean, I'm not getting out here after all. I must go on. Get out the luggage and put it in the cloakroom; then have some tea, and wait for me in the station.”

  "Wait for you here, ma'am?" I asked.

  “Yes, yes. Don't leave the station. I shall return by a later train. I don't know when. It mayn't be until quite late.”

  “Very well, ma'am” I says. It wasn't my place to ask questions, but I thought it very strange.”

  “It was unlike your mistress, eh?”

  “Very unlike her, sir.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Well, sir, I thought it was to do with the gentleman in the carriage. She didn't speak to him, but she turned round once or twice as though to ask him if she was doing right.”

  “But you didn't see the gentleman's face?”

  “No, sir; he stood with his back to me all the time.”

  “Can you describe him at all?”

  “He had on a light fawn overcoat, and a travelling-cap. He was tall and slender, like, and the back of his head was dark.”

  “You didn't know him?”

  “'Oh no, I don't think so, sir.”

  “It was not your master, Mr Carrington, by any chance?” Mason looked rather startled.

  “Oh, I don't think so, sir!”

  “But you are not sure?”

  “It was about the master's build, sir - but I never thought of it being him. We so seldom saw him… I couldn't say it wasn’t him!”

  Poirot picked up a pin from the carpet, and frowned at it severely; then he continued: 'Would it be possible for the man to have entered the train at Bristol before you reached the carriage?' Mason considered. “Yes, sir, I think it would. My compartment was very crowded, and it was some minutes before I could get out - and then there was a very large crowd on the platform, and that delayed me too. But he'd only have had a minute or two to speak to the mistress, that way. I took it for granted that he'd come along the corridor.”

  “That is more probable, certainly?” He paused, still frowning. “You know how the mistress was dressed, sir?”

  “The papers give a few details, but I would like you to confirm them.”

  “She was wearing a white fox fur toque, sir, with a white spotted veil, and a blue frieze coat and skirt - the shade of blue they call electric.”

  “'H'm, rather striking.”

  “'Yes” remarked Mr Halliday.

  “Inspector Japp is in hopes that that may help us to fix the spot where the crime took place. Anyone who saw her would remember her.”

  �
��Precisement! - Thank you, mademoiselle.” The maid left the room.

  “Well” Poirot got up briskly. “That is all I can do here - except, monsieur, that I would ask you to tell me everything - but everything!”

  “I have done so.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then there is nothing more to be aid. I must decline the case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have not been frank with me.”

  “I assure you –“

  “No, you are keeping something back.” There was a moment's pause, and then Halliday drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to my friend. “I guess that's what you're after, Monsieur Poirot - though how you know about it fairly gets my goat!”

  Poirot smiled, and unfolded the paper. It was a letter written in thin sloping handwriting. Poirot read it aloud. “Chore Madame, It is with infinite pleasure that I look forward to the felicity of meeting you again. After your so amiable reply to my letter, I can hardly restrain my impatience. I have never forgotten those days in Paris. It is most cruel that you should be leaving London tomorrow. However, before very long, and perhaps sooner than you think, I shall have the joy of beholding once more the lady whose image has ever reigned supreme in my heart. Believe, chore madame, all the assurance of my most devoted and unaltered sentiment - Armand de la Rochefour.”

  Poirot handed the letter back to Halliday with a bow.

  “I fancy, monsieur, that you did not know that your daughter intended renewing her acquaintance with the Count de la Rochefour?”

  “It came as a thunderbolt to me! I found this letter in my daughter's handbag. As you probably know, Monsieur Poirot, this so-called count is an adventurer of the worst type.” Poirot nodded.

  “But I want to know how you knew of the existence of this letter?” My friend smiled. “Monsieur, I did not. But to track footmarks and recognize cigarette-ash is not sufficient for a detective. He must also be a good psychologist! I knew that you disliked and mistrusted your son-in-law. He benefits by your daughter's death; the maid's description of the mysterious man bears a sufficient resemblance to him. Yet you are not keen on his track! Why? Surely because your suspicions lie in another direction. Therefore you were keeping something back.”