His hand reached out to the switch.
‘Not at all,’ said Poirot sharply. ‘We shall do very well as we are. Here am I bending over the desk, there are you standing by the door. Advance now, George, advance, and put your hand on my shoulder.’
George obeyed.
‘Lean on me a little, George, to steady yourself on your feet, as it were. Ah! Voilà.’
Hercule Poirot’s limp body slid artistically sideways.
‘I collapse – so!’ he observed. ‘Yes, it is very well imagined. There is now something most important that must be done.’
‘Indeed, sir?’ said the valet.
‘Yes, it is necessary that I should breakfast well.’
The little man laughed heartily at his own joke.
‘The stomach, George; it must not be ignored.’
George maintained a disapproving silence. Poirot went downstairs chuckling happily to himself. He was pleased at the way things were shaping. After breakfast he made the acquaintance of Gladys, the third housemaid. He was very interested in what she could tell him of the crime. She was sympathetic towards Charles, although she had no doubt of his guilt.
‘Poor young gentleman, sir, it seems hard, it does, him not being quite himself at the time.’
‘He and Miss Margrave should have got on well together,’ suggested Poirot, ‘as the only two young people in the house.’
Gladys shook her head. ‘Very stand-offish Miss Lily was with him. She wouldn’t have no carryings-on, and she made it plain.’
‘He was fond of her, was he?’
‘Oh, only in passing, so to speak; no harm in it, sir. Mr Victor Astwell, now he is properly gone on Miss Lily.’
She giggled.
‘Ah vraiment!’
Gladys giggled again.
‘Sweet on her straight away he was. Miss Lily is just like a lily, isn’t she, sir? So tall and such a lovely shade of gold hair.’
‘She should wear a green evening frock,’ mused Poirot. ‘There is a certain shade of green –’
‘She has one, sir,’ said Gladys. ‘Of course, she can’t wear it now, being in mourning, but she had it on the very night Sir Reuben died.’
‘It should be a light green, not a dark green,’ said Poirot.
‘It is a light green, sir. If you wait a minute I’ll show it to you. Miss Lily has just gone out with the dogs.’
Poirot nodded. He knew that as well as Gladys did. In fact, it was only after seeing Lily safely off the premises that he had gone in search of the housemaid. Gladys hurried away, and returned a few minutes later with a green evening dress on a hanger.
‘Exquis! ’ murmured Poirot, holding up hands of admiration. ‘Permit me to take it to the light a minute.’
He took the dress from Gladys, turned his back on her and hurried to the window. He bent over it, then held it out at arm’s length.
‘It is perfect,’ he declared. ‘Perfectly ravishing. A thousand thanks for showing it to me.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ said Gladys. ‘We all know that Frenchmen are interested in ladies’ dresses.’
‘You are too kind,’ murmured Poirot.
He watched her hurry away again with the dress. Then he looked down at his two hands and smiled. In the right hand was a tiny pair of nail scissors, in the left was a neatly clipped fragment of green chiffon.
‘And now,’ he murmured, ‘to be heroic.’
He returned to his own apartment and summoned George.
‘On the dressing-table, my good George, you will perceive a gold scarf pin.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘On the washstand is a solution of carbolic. Immerse, I pray you, the point of the pin in the carbolic.’
George did as he was bid. He had long ago ceased to wonder at the vagaries of his master.
‘I have done that, sir.’
‘Très bien! Now approach. I tender to you my first finger; insert the point of the pin in it.’
‘Excuse me, sir, you want me to prick you, sir?’
‘But yes, you have guessed correctly. You must draw blood, you understand, but not too much.’
George took hold of his master’s finger. Poirot shut his eyes and leaned back. The valet stabbed at the finger with the scarf pin, and Poirot uttered a shrill yell.
‘Je vous remercie, George,’ he said. ‘What you have done is ample.’
Taking a small piece of green chiffon from his pocket, he dabbed his finger with it gingerly.
‘The operation has succeeded to a miracle,’ he remarked, gazing at the result. ‘You have no curiosity, George? Now, that is admirable!’
The valet had just taken a discreet look out of the window.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he murmured, ‘a gentleman has driven up in a large car.’
‘Ah! Ah!’ said Poirot. He rose briskly to his feet. ‘The elusive Mr Victor Astwell. I go down to make his acquaintance.’
Poirot was destined to hear Mr Victor Astwell some time before he saw him. A loud voice rang out from the hall.
‘Mind what you are doing, you damned idiot! That case has got glass in it. Curse you, Parsons, get out of the way! Put it down, you fool!’
Poirot skipped nimbly down the stairs. Victor Astwell was a big man. Poirot bowed to him politely.
‘Who the devil are you?’ roared the big man.
Poirot bowed again.
‘My name is Hercule Poirot.’
‘Lord!’ said Victor Astwell. ‘So Nancy sent for you, after all, did she?’
He put a hand on Poirot’s shoulder and steered him into the library.
‘So you are the fellow they make such a fuss about,’ he remarked, looking him up and down. ‘Sorry for my language just now. That chauffeur of mine is a damned ass, and Parsons always does get on my nerves, blithering old idiot.
‘I don’t suffer fools gladly, you know,’ he said, half-apologetically, ‘but by all accounts you are not a fool, eh, M. Poirot?’
He laughed breezily. ‘Those who have thought so have been sadly mistaken,’ said Poirot placidly.
‘Is that so? Well, so Nancy has carted you down here – got a bee in her bonnet about the secretary. There is nothing in that; Trefusis is as mild as milk – drinks milk, too, I believe. The fellow is a teetotaller. Rather a waste of your time isn’t it?’
‘If one has an opportunity to observe human nature, time is never wasted,’ said Poirot quietly.
‘Human nature, eh?’
Victor Astwell stared at him, then he flung himself down in a chair.
‘Anything I can do for you?’
‘Yes, you can tell me what your quarrel with your brother was about that evening.’
Victor Astwell shook his head.
‘Nothing to do with the case,’ he said decisively.
‘One can never be sure,’ said Poirot.
‘It had nothing to do with Charles Leverson.’
‘Lady Astwell thinks that Charles had nothing to do with the murder.’
‘Oh, Nancy!’
‘Parsons assumes that it was M. Charles Leverson who came in that night, but he didn’t see him. Remember nobody saw him.’
‘It’s very simple. Reuben had been pitching into young Charles – not without good reason, I must say. Later on he tried to bully me. I told him a few home truths and, just to annoy him, I made up my mind to back the boy. I meant to see him that night, so as to tell him how the land lay. When I went up to my room I didn’t go to bed. Instead, I left the door ajar and sat on a chair smoking. My room is on the second floor, M. Poirot, and Charles’s room is next to it.’
‘Pardon my interrupting you – Mr Trefusis, he, too, sleeps on that floor?’
Astwell nodded.
‘Yes, his room is just beyond mine.’
‘Nearer the stairs?’
‘No, the other way.’
A curious light came into Poirot’s face, but the other didn’t notice it and went on:
‘As I say, I waited up for Charles. I heard the fr
ont door slam, as I thought, about five minutes to twelve, but there was no sign of Charles for about ten minutes. When he did come up the stairs I saw that it was no good tackling him that night.’
He lifted his elbow significantly.
‘I see,’ murmured Poirot.
‘Poor devil couldn’t walk straight,’ said Astwell. ‘He was looking pretty ghastly, too. I put it down to his condition at the time. Of course, now, I realize that he had come straight from committing the crime.’
Poirot interposed a quick question.
‘You heard nothing from the Tower room?’
‘No, but you must remember that I was right at the other end of the building. The walls are thick, and I don’t believe you would even hear a pistol shot fired from there.’
Poirot nodded.
‘I asked if he would like some help getting to bed,’ continued Astwell. ‘But he said he was all right and went into his room and banged the door. I undressed and went to bed.’
Poirot was staring thoughtfully at the carpet.
‘You realize, M. Astwell,’ he said at last, ‘that your evidence is very important?’
‘I suppose so, at least – what do you mean?’
‘Your evidence that ten minutes elapsed between the slamming of the front door and Leverson’s appearance upstairs. He himself says, so I understand, that he came into the house and went straight up to bed. But there is more than that. Lady Astwell’s accusation of the secretary is fantastic, I admit, yet up to now it has not been proved impossible. But your evidence creates an alibi.’
‘How is that?’
‘Lady Astwell says that she left her husband at a quarter to twelve, while the secretary had gone to bed at eleven o’clock. The only time he could have committed the crime was between a quarter to twelve and Charles Leverson’s return. Now, if, as you say, you sat with your door open, he could not have come out of his room without your seeing him.’
‘That is so,’ agreed the other.
‘There is no other staircase?’
‘No, to get down to the Tower room he would have had to pass my door, and he didn’t, I am quite sure of that. And, anyway, M. Poirot, as I said just now, the man is as meek as a parson, I assure you.’
‘But yes, but yes,’ said Poirot soothingly, ‘I understand all that.’ He paused. ‘And you will not tell me the subject of your quarrel with Sir Reuben?’
The other’s face turned a dark red.
‘You’ll get nothing out of me.’
Poirot looked at the ceiling.
‘I can always be discreet,’ he murmured, ‘where a lady is concerned.’
Victor Astwell sprang to his feet.
‘Damn you, how did you – what do you mean?’
‘I was thinking,’ said Poirot, ‘of Miss Lily Margrave.’
Victor Astwell stood undecided for a minute or two, then his colour subsided, and he sat down again.
‘You are too clever for me, M. Poirot. Yes, it was Lily we quarrelled about. Reuben had his knife into her; he had ferreted out something or other about the girl – false references, something of that kind. I don’t believe a word of it myself.
‘And then he went further than he had any right to go, talked about her stealing down at night and getting out of the house to meet some fellow or other. My God! I gave it to him; I told him that better men than he had been killed for saying less. That shut him up. Reuben was inclined to be a bit afraid of me when I got going.’
‘I hardly wonder at it,’ murmured Poirot politely.
‘I think a lot of Lily Margrave,’ said Victor in another tone. ‘A nice girl through and through.’
Poirot did not answer. He was staring in front of him, seemingly lost in abstraction. He came out of his brown study with a jerk.
‘I must, I think, promenade myself a little. There is a hotel here, yes?’
‘Two,’ said Victor Astwell, ‘the Golf Hotel up by the links and the Mitre down by the station.’
‘I thank you,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes, certainly I must promenade myself a little.’
The Golf Hotel, as befits its name, stands on the golf links almost adjoining the club house. It was to this hostelry that Poirot repaired first in the course of that ‘promenade’ which he had advertised himself as being about to take. The little man had his own way of doing things. Three minutes after he had entered the Golf Hotel he was in private consultation with Miss Langdon, the manageress.
‘I regret to incommode you in any way, Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, ‘but you see I am a detective.’
Simplicity always appealed to him. In this case the method proved efficacious at once.
‘A detective!’ exclaimed Miss Langdon, looking at him doubtfully.
‘Not from Scotland Yard,’ Poirot assured her. ‘In fact – you may have noticed it? I am not an Englishman. No, I make the private inquiries into the death of Sir Reuben Astwell.’
‘You don’t say, now!’ Miss Langdon goggled at him expectantly.
‘Precisely,’ said Poirot, beaming. ‘Only to someone of discretion like yourself would I reveal the fact. I think, Mademoiselle, you may be able to aid me. Can you tell me of any gentleman staying here on the night of the murder who was absent from the hotel that evening and returned to it about twelve or half past?’
Miss Langdon’s eyes opened wider than ever.
‘You don’t think –?’ she breathed.
‘That you had the murderer here? No, but I have reason to believe that a guest staying here promenaded himself in the direction of Mon Repos that night, and if so he may have seen something which, though conveying no meaning to him, might be very useful to me.’
The manageress nodded her head sapiently, with an air of one thoroughly well up in the annals of detective logic.
‘I understand perfectly. Now, let me see; who did we have staying here?’
She frowned, evidently running over the names in her mind, and helping her memory by occasionally checking them off on her fingertips.
‘Captain Swann, Mr Elkins, Major Blyunt, old Mr Benson. No, really, sir, I don’t believe anyone went out that evening.’
‘You would have noticed if they had done so, eh?’
‘Oh, yes, sir, it is not very usual, you see. I mean gentlemen go out to dinner and all that, but they don’t go out after dinner, because – well, there is nowhere to go to, is there?’
The attractions of Abbots Cross were golf and nothing but golf.
‘That is so,’ agreed Poirot. ‘Then, as far as you remember, Mademoiselle, nobody from here was out that night?’
‘Captain England and his wife were out to dinner.’
Poirot shook his head. ‘That is not the kind of thing I mean. I will try the other hotel; the Mitre, is it not?’
‘Oh, the Mitre,’ said Miss Langdon. ‘Of course, anyone might have gone out walking from there.’
The disparagement of her tone, though vague, was evident, and Poirot beat a tactful retreat.
VI
Ten minutes later he was repeating the scene, this time with Miss Cole, the brusque manageress of the Mitre, a less pretentious hotel with lower prices, situated close to the station.
‘There was one gentleman out late that night, came in about half past twelve, as far as I can remember. Quite a habit of his it was, to go out for a walk at that time of the evening. He had done it once or twice before. Let me see now, what was his name? Just for the moment I can’t remember it.’
She pulled a large ledger towards her and began turning over the pages.
‘Nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second. Ah, here we are. Naylor, Captain Humphrey Naylor.’
‘He had stayed here before? You know him well?’
‘Once before,’ said Miss Cole, ‘about a fortnight earlier. He went out then in the evening, I remember.’
‘He came to play golf, eh?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Miss Cole, ‘that’s what most of the gentlemen come for.’
‘Very t
rue,’ said Poirot. ‘Well, Mademoiselle, I thank you infinitely, and I wish you good day.’
He went back to Mon Repos with a very thoughtful face. Once or twice he drew something from his pocket and looked at it.
‘It must be done,’ he murmured to himself, ‘and soon, as soon as I can make the opportunity.’
His first proceeding on re-entering the house was to ask Parsons where Miss Margrave might be found. He was told that she was in the small study dealing with Lady Astwell’s correspondence, and the information seemed to afford Poirot satisfaction.
He found the little study without difficulty. Lily Margrave was seated at a desk by the window, writing. But for her the room was empty. Poirot carefully shut the door behind him and came towards the girl.
‘I may have a little minute of your time, Mademoiselle, you will be so kind?’
‘Certainly.’
Lily Margrave put the papers aside and turned towards him.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘On the evening of the tragedy, Mademoiselle, I understand that when Lady Astwell went to her husband you went straight up to bed. Is that so?’
Lily Margrave nodded.
‘You did not come down again, by any chance?’
The girl shook her head.
‘I think you said, Mademoiselle, that you had not at any time that evening been in the Tower room?’
‘I don’t remember saying so, but as a matter of fact that is quite true. I was not in the Tower room that evening.’
Poirot raised his eyebrows.
‘Curious,’ he murmured.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Very curious,’ murmured Hercule Poirot again. ‘How do you account, then, for this?’
He drew from his pocket a little scrap of stained green chiffon and held it up for the girl’s inspection.
Her expression did not change, but he felt rather than heard the sharp intake of breath.
‘I don’t understand, M. Poirot.’
‘You wore, I understand, a green chiffon dress that evening, Mademoiselle. This –’ he tapped the scrap in his fingers – ‘was torn from it.’
‘And you found it in the Tower room?’ asked the girl sharply. ‘Whereabouts?’
Hercule Poirot looked at the ceiling.
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding Page 13
