The Labours of Hercules Read online

Poirot pushed the door open and entered.

  He uttered a sharp, horrified exclamation.

  The room was a bedroom. The bed had been slept in and there was a tray of food on the table.

  In the middle of the floor lay the body of a man. He was of just over middle height and he had been attacked with savage and unbelievable ferocity. There were a dozen wounds on his arms and chest and his head and face had been battered almost to a pulp.

  Schwartz gave a half-stifled exclamation and turned away looking as though he might be sick.

  Dr. Lutz uttered a horrified exclamation in German.

  Schwartz said faintly:

  “Who is this guy? Does anyone know?”

  “I fancy,” said Poirot, “that he was known here as Robert, a rather unskilful waiter. . . .”

  Lutz had gone nearer, bending over the body. He pointed with a finger.

  There was a paper pinned to the dead man’s breast. It had some words scrawled on it in ink.

  Marrascaud will kill no more—nor will he rob his friends!

  Schwartz ejaculated:

  “Marrascaud? So this is Marrascaud! But what brought him up here to this out of the way spot? And why do you say his name is Robert?”

  Poirot said:

  “He was here masquerading as a waiter—and by all accounts he was a very bad waiter. So bad that no one was surprised when he was given the sack. He left—presumably to return to Andermatt. But nobody saw him go.”

  Lutz said in his slow rumbling voice:

  “So—and what do you think happened?”

  Poirot replied:

  “I think we have here the explanation of a certain worried expression on the hotel manager’s face. Marrascaud must have offered him a big bribe to allow him to remain hidden in the unused part of the hotel. . . .”

  He added thoughtfully: “But the manager was not happy about it. Oh no, he was not happy at all.”

  “And Marrascaud continued to live in this unused wing with no one but the manager knowing about it?”

  “So it seems. It would be quite possible, you know.”

  Dr. Lutz said:

  “And why was he killed? And who killed him?”

  Schwartz cried:

  “That’s easy. He was to share out the money with his gang. He didn’t. He double-crossed them. He came here, to this out of the way place, to lie low for a while. He thought it was the last place in the world they’d ever think of. He was wrong. Somehow or other they got wise to it and followed him.” He touched the dead body with the tip of his shoe. “And they settled his account—like this.”

  Hercule Poirot murmured:

  “Yes, it was not quite the kind of rendezvous we thought.”

  Dr. Lutz said irritably:

  “These hows and whys may be very interesting, but I am concerned with our present position. Here we have a dead man. I have a sick man on my hands and a limited amount of medical supplies. And we are cut off from the world! For how long?”

  Schwartz added:

  “And we’ve got three murderers locked in a cupboard! It’s what I’d call kind of an interesting situation.”

  Dr. Lutz said:

  “What do we do?”

  Poirot said:

  “First, we get hold of the manager. He is not a criminal, that one, only a man who was greedy for money. He is a coward, too. He will do everything we tell him. My good friend Jacques, or his wife, will perhaps provide some cord. Our three miscreants must be placed where we can guard them in safety until the day when help comes. I think that Mr. Schwartz’s automatic will be effective in carrying out any plans we may make.”

  Dr. Lutz said:

  “And I? What do I do?”

  “You, doctor,” said Poirot gravely, “will do all you can for your patient. The rest of us will employ ceaseless vigilance—and wait. There is nothing else we can do.”

  VI

  It was three days later that a little party of men appeared in front of the hotel in the early hours of the morning.

  It was Hercule Poirot who opened the front door to them with a flourish.

  “Welcome, mon vieux.”

  Monsieur Lementeuil, Commissaire of Police, seized Poirot by both hands.

  “Ah, my friend, with what emotion I greet you! What stupendous events—what emotions you have passed through! And we below, our anxiety, our fears—knowing nothing—fearing everything. No wireless—no means of communication. To heliograph, that was indeed a stroke of genius on your part.”

  “No, no,” Poirot endeavoured to look modest. “After all, when the inventions of man fail, one falls back upon nature. There is always the sun in the sky.”

  The little party filed into the hotel. Lementeuil said:

  “We are not expected?” His smile was somewhat grim.

  Poirot smiled also. He said:

  “But no! It is believed that the funicular is not nearly repaired yet.”

  Lementeuil said with emotion:

  “Ah, this is a great day. There is no doubt, you think? It is really Marrascaud?”

  “It is Marrascaud all right. Come with me.”

  They went up the stairs. A door opened and Schwartz came out in his dressing gown. He stared when he saw the men.

  “I heard voices,” he explained. “Why, what’s this?”

  Hercule Poirot said grandiloquently:

  “Help has come! Accompany us, monsieur. This is a great moment.”

  He started up the next flight of stairs.

  Schwartz said:

  “Are you going up to Drouet? How is he, by the way?”

  “Dr. Lutz reported him going on well last night.”

  They came to the door of Drouet’s room. Poirot flung it open. He announced:

  “Here is your wild boar, gentlemen. Take him alive and see to it that he does not cheat the guillotine.”

  The man in the bed, his face still bandaged, started up. But the police officers had him by the arms before he could move.

  Schwartz cried bewildered:

  “But that’s Gustave the waiter—that’s Inspector Drouet.”

  “It is Gustave, yes—but it is not Drouet. Drouet was the first waiter, the waiter Robert who was imprisoned in the unused part of the hotel and whom Marrascaud killed the same night as the attack was made on me.”

  VII

  Over breakfast, Poirot explained gently to the bewildered American.

  “You comprehend, there are certain things one knows—knows quite certainly in the course of one’s profession. One knows, for instance, the difference between a detective and a murderer! Gustave was no waiter—that I suspected at once—but equally he was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I know. He could pass as a detective to an outsider—but not to a man who was a policeman himself.

  “And so, at once, I was suspicious. That evening, I did not drink my coffee. I poured it away. And I was wise. Late that evening a man came into my room, came in with the easy confidence of one who knows that the man whose room he is searching is drugged. He looked through my affairs and he found the letter in my wallet—where I had left it for him to find! The next morning Gustave comes into my room with my coffee. He greets me by name and acts his part with complete assurance. But he is anxious—horribly anxious—for somehow or other the police have got on his track! They have learnt where he is and that is for him a terrible disaster. It upsets all his plans. He is caught up here like a rat in a trap.”

  Schwartz said:

  “The damn fool thing was ever to come here! Why did he?”

  Poirot said gravely:

  “It is not so foolish as you think. He had need, urgent need, of a retired spot, away from the world, where he could meet a certain person, and where a certain happening could take place.”

  “What person?”

  “Dr. Lutz.”

  “Dr. Lutz? Is he a crook too?”

  “Dr. Lutz is really Dr. Lutz—but he is not a nerve specialist—not a psychoanalyst. He is a surg
eon, my friend, a surgeon who specializes in facial surgery. That is why he was to meet Marrascaud here. He is poor now, turned out of his country. He was offered a huge fee to meet a man here and change that man’s appearance by means of his surgical skill. He may have guessed that that man was a criminal, but if so, he shut his eyes to the fact. Realize this, they dared not risk a nursing home in some foreign country. No, up here, where no one ever comes so early in the season except for an odd visit, where the manager is a man in need of money who can be bribed, was an ideal spot.

  “But, as I say, matters went wrong. Marrascaud was betrayed. The three men, his bodyguard, who were to meet him here and look after him had not yet arrived, but Marrascaud acts at once. The police officer who is pretending to be a waiter is kidnapped and Marrascaud takes his place. The gang arrange for the funicular to be wrecked. It is a matter of time. The following evening Drouet is killed and a paper is pinned on the dead body. It is hoped that by the time that communications are established with the world Drouet’s body may have been buried as that of Marrascaud. Dr. Lutz performs his operation without delay. But one man must be silenced—Hercule Poirot. So the gang are sent to attack me. Thanks to you, my friend—”

  Hercule Poirot bowed gracefully to Schwartz who said:

  “So you’re really Hercule Poirot?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And you were never fooled by that body for a minute? You knew all along that it wasn’t Marrascaud?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Hercule Poirot’s face was suddenly stern.

  “Because I wanted to be quite sure of handing the real Marrascaud over to the police.”

  He murmured below his breath:

  “To capture alive the wild boar of Erymanthea. . . .”

  Five

  THE AUGEAN STABLES

  “The situation is an extremely delicate one, M. Poirot.”

  A faint smile flitted across Hercule Poirot’s lips. He almost replied:

  “It always is!”

  Instead, he composed his face and put on what might be described as a bedside manner of extreme discretion.

  Sir George Conway proceeded weightily. Phrases fell easily from his lips—the extreme delicacy of the Government’s position—the interests of the public—the solidarity of the Party—the necessity of presenting a united front—the power of the Press—the welfare of the Country. . . .

  It all sounded well—and meant nothing. Hercule Poirot felt that familiar aching of the jaw when one longs to yawn and politeness forbids. He had felt the same sometimes when reading the parliamentary debates. But on those occasions there had been no need to restrain his yawns.

  He steeled himself to endure patiently. He felt, at the same time, a sympathy for Sir George Conway. The man obviously wanted to tell him something—and as obviously had lost the art of simple narration. Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts—not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase—that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

  The words rolled on—poor Sir George became quite red in the face. He shot a desperate glance at the other man sitting at the head of the table, and the other man responded.

  Edward Ferrier said:

  “All right, George. I’ll tell him.”

  Hercule Poirot shifted his gaze from the Home Secretary to the Prime Minister. He felt a keen interest in Edward Ferrier—an interest aroused by a chance phrase from an old man of eighty-two. Professor Fergus MacLeod, after disposing of a chemical difficulty in the conviction of a murderer, had touched for a moment on politics. On the retirement of the famous and beloved John Hammett (now Lord Cornworthy) his son-in-law, Edward Ferrier, had been asked to form a Cabinet. As politicians go he was a young man—under fifty. Professor MacLeod had said: “Ferrier was once one of my students. He’s a sound man.”

  That was all, but to Hercule Poirot it represented a good deal. If MacLeod called a man sound it was a testimonial to character compared with which no popular or press enthusiasm counted at all.

  It coincided, it was true, with the popular estimate. Edward Ferrier was considered sound—just that—not brilliant, not great, not a particularly eloquent orator, not a man of deep learning. He was a sound man—a man bred in the tradition—a man who had married John Hammett’s daughter—who had been John Hammett’s right-hand man and who could be trusted to carry on the government of the country in the John Hammett tradition.

  For John Hammett was particularly dear to the people and Press of England. He represented every quality which was dear to Englishmen. People said of him: “One does feel that Hammett’s honest.” Anecdotes were told of his simple home life, of his fondness for gardening. Corresponding to Baldwin’s pipe and Chamberlain’s umbrella, there was John Hammett’s raincoat. He always carried it—a weather-worn garment. It stood as a symbol—of the English climate, of the prudent forethought of the English race, of their attachment to old possessions. Moreover, in his bluff British way, John Hammett was an orator. His speeches, quietly and earnestly delivered, contained those simple sentimental clichés which are so deeply rooted in the English heart. Foreigners sometimes criticize them as being both hypocritical and unbearably noble. John Hammett did not in the least mind being noble—in a sporting, public school, deprecating fashion.

  Moreover, he was a man of fine presence, tall, upstanding, with fair colouring and very bright blue eyes. His mother had been a Dane and he himself had been for many years First Lord of the Admiralty, which gave rise to his nickname of “the Viking.” When at last ill-health forced him to give up the reins of office, deep uneasiness was felt. Who would succeed him? The brilliant Lord Charles Delafield? (Too brilliant—England didn’t need brilliance.) Evan Whittler? (Clever—but perhaps a little unscrupulous.) John Potter? (The sort of man who might fancy himself as Dictator—and we didn’t want any dictators in this country, thank you very much.) So a sigh of relief went up when the quiet Edward Ferrier assumed office. Ferrier was all right. He had been trained by the Old Man, he had married the Old Man’s daughter. In the classic British phrase, Ferrier would “carry on.”

  Hercule Poirot studied the quiet dark-faced man with the low pleasant voice. Lean and dark and tired-looking.

  Edward Ferrier was saying:

  “Perhaps, M. Poirot, you are acquainted with a weekly periodical called the X-ray News?”

  “I have glanced at it,” admitted Poirot, blushing slightly.

  The Prime Minister said:

  “Then you know more or less of what it consists. Semilibellous matter. Snappy paragraphs hinting at sensational secret history. Some of them true, some of them harmless—but all served up in a spicy manner. Occasionally—”

  He paused and then said, his voice altering a little:

  “Occasionally something more.”

  Hercule Poirot did not speak. Ferrier went on:

  “For two weeks now there have been hints of impending disclosures of a first-class scandal in ‘the highest political circles.’ ‘Astonishing revelations of corruption and jobbery.’ ”

  Hercule Poirot said, shrugging his shoulders:

  “A common trick. When the actual revelations come they usually disappoint the cravers after sensation badly.”

  Ferrier said drily: “These will not disappoint them.”

  Hercule Poirot asked:

  “You know then, what these revelations are going to be?”

  “With a fair amount of accuracy.”

  Edward Ferrier paused a minute, then he began speaking. Carefully, methodically, he outlined the story.

  It was not an edifying story. Accusations of shameless chicanery, of share juggling, of a gross misuse of Party Funds. The charges were levelled against the late Prime Minister, John Hammett. They showed him to be a dishonest rascal, a gigantic confidence trickster, who had used his position to amass for himself a vast private fortune.

  The Prime
Minister’s quiet voice stopped at last. The Home Secretary groaned. He spluttered out:

  “It’s monstrous—monstrous! This fellow, Perry, who edits the rag, ought to be shot!”

  Hercule Poirot said:

  “These so-called revelations are to appear in the X-ray News?”

  “Yes.”

  “What steps do you propose to take about them?”

  Ferrier said slowly:

  “They constitute a private attack on John Hammett. It is open to him to sue the paper for libel.”

  “Will he do that?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Ferrier said:

  “It is probable that there is nothing the X-ray News would like better. The publicity given them would be enormous. Their defence would be fair comment and that the statements complained of were true. The whole business would be exhaustively held up to view in a blaze of limelight.”

  “Still, if the case went against them, the damages would be extremely heavy.”

  Ferrier said slowly: “It might not go against them.”

  “Why?”

  Sir George said primly: “I really think that—”

  But Edward Ferrier was already speaking.

  “Because what they intend to print is—the truth.”

  A groan burst from Sir George Conway, outraged at such un-Parliamentary frankness. He cried out:

  “Edward, my dear fellow. We don’t admit, surely—”

  The ghost of a smile passed over Edward Ferrier’s tired face. He said:

  “Unfortunately, George, there are times when the stark truth has got to be told. This is one of them.”

  Sir George exclaimed:

  “You understand, M. Poirot, all this is strictly in confidence. Not one word—”

  Ferrier interrupted him. He said:

  “M. Poirot understands that.” He went on slowly, “What he may not understand is this: the whole future of the People’s Party is at stake. John Hammett, M. Poirot, was the People’s Party. He stood for what it represents to the people of England—he stood for Decency and Honesty. No one has ever thought us brilliant. We have muddled and blundered. But we have stood for the tradition of doing one’s best—and we have stood, too, for fundamental honesty. Our disaster is this—that the man who was our figurehead, the Honest Man of the People, par excellence—turns out to have been one of the worst crooks of this generation.”