yes?'
An eager assent greeted this proposal. Poirot led the way
the flat below and inserted the key the inspector had given him
in the lock. On entering, he did not, as the others had expected,
enter the sitting-room. Instead he went straight to the kitchen
In a little recess which served as a scullery a big iron bin was
216
stding. Poirot uncovered this and, doubling himself up,
began to roofie in it with the energy of a ferocious terrier.
Both Jimmy and Donovan stared at him in amazement.
Suddenly with a cry of triumph he emerged. In his hand he
held aloft a small stoppered bottle.
'VoilcW he said. 'I fred what I seek.' He sniffed at it
delicately. 'Alas! I am enrhum - I have the cold in the head.'
Donovan took the bottle from him and sniffed in his turn,
but could smell nothing. He took out the stopper and held the
bottle to his nose before Poirot's warning cry could stop him.
Immediately he fell like a log. Poirot, by springing forward,
partly broke his fall.
'Imbecile!' he cried. 'The idea. To remove the stopper in
that foolhardy manner! Did he not observe how delicately I
'handled it? Monsieur - Faulkener - is it not? Will you be so
good as to get me a little brandy? I observed a decanter in the
sitting-room.'
Jimmy hurried off, but by the time he returned, Donovan
was sitting up and declaring himself quite all fight again. He
had to listen to a short lecture from Poirot on the necessity of
caution in sniff'rog at possibly poisonous substances.
'I think I'll be off home,' said Donovan, rising shakily to his
feet. 'That is, if I can't be any more use here. I feel a bit wonky
still.'
'Assuredly,' said Poirot. 'That is the best thing'you can do.
M. Faulkener, attend me here a little minute. I will return on
the instant.'
He accompanied Donovan to the door and beyond. They
remained outside on the laxaxling talking for some minutes.
When Poirot at last re-entered the flat he found Jimmy
standing in the sitting-room gazing round him with puwled
eyes.
'Well, M. Poirot,' he said, 'what next?'
'There is nothing next. The case is f'mished.'
'What?'
'I know everything - now.'
Jimmy stared at him. 'That little bottle you found?'
'Exactly. That little bottle.'
217
Jimmy shook his head. 'I can't make head or tail of it. For
some reason or other I can see you are dissatisfied ih
evidence against this John Fraser, whoever he may be.
'Whoever he may be,' repeated Poirot soffiy. 'If he is any0
at all - well, I shall be surprised.'
'I don't understand.'
'He is a - that is all - s name carefully marked on
handkerchiefl'
'And the letter?'
'Did you notice that it was printed? Now, why? I will tell
you. Handwriting 'might be recognized, and a typne
letter is more easily traced thlm you would imagine - but if
real John Fraser wrote that letter those two points would not
have appealed to him! No, it was written on purposed put
in the dead woman's pocket for us to find. There is no such
person as John Fraser.'
Jimmy looked at him inquiringly.
'And so,' went on Poirot, 'I went bck to the point that
struck me. You heard me say rkst certain things in a room were
always in the same place under given cirounstances. I gave
three instances. I might hsve mentioned a fourth - the electric-light
switch, my friend.'
Jimmy still stared uncompy. Poirot went on.
'Your friend Donovan did not go nesr 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 d mm it on? That was the natural, the
normal thing to do. According to him, he tried to turn on
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 hsd 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?'
218
'I mean - this.'
poirot held up a Yale door hey.
'The key of this flat?'
'No, mort am/, the hey of the flat above. Mademoiselle
from her
pamca key, which M. Donovan Bailey abstracted
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 unsuspidous manner. He
made sure that the lift door was unbolted earlier in the
m '
even g.
'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 unconsdousness
I need. I take from his pocket the two things that I
knew would be there. This key was one of them - the other -'
Hie stopped and then went on. .
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
- ---- friend The evening post that comes at half.p?t
tile post my ,,,
·
'
nine or theresbouts. Say the murderer does not find sometmug
he expects to f'md, 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 or the police
would take possession of the flat, so he hides the body behind
the curtsin. 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
219
contents of this letter. Are you or are you not in 1o wi
Mademoiselle Patri?'
'I care for Pat damnably - but I've never thought I had a
chance.'
'You thought that she cmd 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?' said Jimmy sh*ply.
'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 tdn place in a foreign country does
not invalidate it in .ny way.
Yours truly, etc.
Poirot spread out the enclosure, h was a certificate of
marriage between Donovan Bailey Emestine Grant, dated
eight years ago.
'Oh, my God!' said Jimmy. 'Pat said she'd had 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, cl 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
220
'He seemed in quite good-spirits, too, all the evening. M.
poirot, you haven't let him escape?' Jimmy shuddered.
· ,
·
' u need
,There is no escape for him, said Potrot gravely. Yo
not fear.'
'It's Pat I'm thinking about mostly,' said ]immy. 'You don't
think - she really cared.'
Then 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!'
221
THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLy
'You can understand the feelings of a mother,' said Mrs
Waverly for perhaps the sixth time.
She looked appealing/y at Poirot. My Little friend, always
sympathetic to motherhood in distress, gesticulated
reassuringly.
'But yes, but yes, I comprehend perfectly. Have faith in Papa
Poirot.'
'The police -' began Mr Waverly.
His wife waved the interruption aside. 'I won't have
anything more to do with the poLice. We trusted to them and
look what happened! But I'd heard so much ofM. Poirot and
the wonderful things he'd done, that I felt he might possibly be
able to help us. A mother's feelings -'
Poirot hastily stemmed the reiteration with an eloquent
gegture. Mrs Waverly's emotion was obviously genuine, but it
assorted strangely with her shrewd, rather hard type of
countenance. When I heard later that she was the daughter of
hPe r°minent steel manufacturer who had worked ;
·
world from an office boy to hi
ms way .Up m
o ,,cnt eminence, I realized
that she had inherited many of the paternal qualities.
Mr Waverly was a big, ton'd, jovial-looking man. He stood
with his legs straddled wide apart and looked the type of the
country squire.
'I suppose you know all about this business, M. Poirot?'
The question was almost superfluous. For some days past the papers had been full of the sensational kidnapping of Little
Johnnie Waver/y, the three-year-old son and heir of Marcus
Waverly, Esq., of Waverly Court, Surrey, one of the oldest
families in England.
'The main facts I know, of course, but recount to me the
whole story, monsieur, I beg of you. And in detail if you
please.'
222
'Well, I suppose the beginning of the whole thing was aborn
ten days ago when I got an anonymous letter - beastly things,
qyway - that I couldn't make head or tail of. The writer had
the impudence to demand that I should pay him twenty-five
thousand pounds - twenty-five thousand pounds, M. Poirot!
Failing my agreement, he threatened to kidnap Johnnie. Of
course I threw the thing into the wastepaper basket without
more ado. Thought it was some silly joke. Five days later I got
another letter. "Unless you pay, your son will be kidnapped on
the twenty-ninth." That was on the twenty-seventh. Ada was
worded, but I couldn't bring myself to treat the matter
seriously. Damn it all, we're in England. Nobody goes about
kidnapping children and holding them up to ransom.'
'It is not a common practice, certainly,' said Poirot.
'Proceed, monsieur.'
'Well, Ada gave me no peace, so - feeling a bit of a fool - I
laid the matter before Scotland Yard. They didn't seem to take
the thing very seriously - inclined to my view that it was some
silly joke. On the twenty-eighth I got a third letter. "You have
not paid. Your son will be taken from you at twdve o'clock
noon tomorrow, the twenty-ninth. It will cost you fifty
thousand pounds to recover him." Up I drove to Scotland'
Yard again. This time they were more impressed. They
inc)ined to the view that the letters were written by a lunatic,
and that in all probability an attempt of some kind would be
made at the hour stated. They assured me that they would take
all due precautions. Inspector NcNefl and a sufficient force
would come down to Waverly on the morrow and take charge.
'I went home much relieved in mind. Yet we already had the
feeling of being in a state of siege. I gave orders that'no stranger
was to be admitted, and that no one was to leave the house. The
evening passed off without any untoward incident, but on the
following morning my wife was seriously unwell. Alarmed by
her condition, I sent for Doctor D.ers. Her symptoms
appeared to pn,.,le him. While hesitating to suggest that she
had been poisoned, I could see that that was what was in his
mind. There was no danger, he assured me, but it would be a
day or two before she would be able to get about again.
223
Returning to my own room, I was startled and amazed to a note pinned to my pi/low. It was in the same
the others and contained just three words: "At twelve
'I admit, M. Poirot, that then I saw red! Someone
house was in this - one of the servants. I had them all
blackguarded them right and left. They never split on
other, t was Miss Collins, my wife's companion, who
me that she had ·
that morning seen Johnnie's nurse slip down the drive
· I taxed her with it, and she broke down. She
left the child with the nursery maid and stolen out to meet
friend of hers - a man! Pretty goings on! She denied
pinned the note to my pillow - she may have been
truth, I don't know. I felt I couldn't take the risk of the ck
own nurse being in the plot. One of the servants was implio; ed
- of that I Was sure. Finally I lost my temper and sacked the
whole bunch, nurse and all. I gave them an hour to pack their
boxes and get out of the house.'
> Mr Waverly,s face was quite two shades redder as he
remembered his just wrath.
'Was not that little injudicious, monsieur?' suggested
Poirot. 'IF
a
or all you know, you might have been playing into the
enemy's hands.,
Mr Waverly stared at him. 'I don't see that. Send the whole
lot packing, that was my idea. I wired to London for a fresh lot
to be sent down that evening. In the meantime, there'd be only
people I could trust in the house: my wife's secretary, Miss
Collins, and Tredwell, the butler, who has been with me since
I was a boy.'
'And this Miss Collins, how long has she been with you?'
'Just a year,' Said Mrs Waverly. 'She has been invaluable
nc as a secretary-companion, and is also a very efficien
housekeeper.,
'The nurse?'
'She has been with me six months. She came to me with
excellent references. All the same, I never really liked her,
although Johnnie was quite devoted to her.'
'Still, I gather she had already left when the catastrophe
224
occurred. Perhaps, Monsieur Waverly, you will be so kind as to
continue.'
Mr Waverly resumed his narrative.
'Inspector McNeil arrived about ten-thirty. The servants
had all left by then. He declared himself quite satisfied with the
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