Cards on the Table (SB) Page 14

  “My methods being less straightforward?”

  “You can put it that way if you like,” said Battle grinning. “I’ve heard Inspector Japp say that you’ve got a tortuous mind.”

  “Like the late Mr. Shaitana?”

  “You think he would have been able to get things out of her?”

  Poirot said slowly:

  “I rather think he did get things out of her!”

  “What makes you think so?” asked Battle sharply.

  “A chance remark of Major Despard’s.”

  “Gave himself away, did he? That sounds unlike him.”

  “Oh, my dear friend, it is impossible not to give oneself away—unless one never opens one’s mouth! Speech is the deadliest of revealers.”

  “Even if people tell lies?” asked Mrs. Oliver.

  “Yes, madame, because it can be seen at once that you tell a certain kind of lie.”

  “You make me feel quite uncomfortable,” said Mrs. Oliver, getting up.

  Superintendent Battle accompanied her to the door and shook her by the hand.

  “You’ve been the goods, Mrs. Oliver,” he said. “You’re a much better detective than that long lanky Laplander of yours.”

  “Finn,” corrected Mrs. Oliver. “Of course he’s idiotic. But people like him. Good-bye.”

  “I, too, must depart,” said Poirot.

  Battle scribbled an address on a piece of paper and shoved it into Poirot’s hand.

  “There you are. Go and tackle her.”

  Poirot smiled.

  “And what do you want me to find out?”

  “The truth about Professor Luxmore’s death.”

  “Mon cher Battle! Does anybody know the truth about anything?”

  “I’m going to about this business in Devonshire,” said the superintendent with decision.

  Poirot murmured:

  “I wonder.”

  Twenty

  THE EVIDENCE OF MRS. LUXMORE

  The maid who opened the door at Mrs. Luxmore’s South Kensington address looked at Hercule Poirot with deep disapproval. She showed no disposition to admit him into the house.

  Unperturbed, Poirot gave her a card.

  “Give that to your mistress. I think she will see me.”

  It was one of his more ostentatious cards. The words “Private Detective” were printed in one corner. He had had them specially engraved for the purpose of obtaining interviews with the so-called fair sex. Nearly every woman, whether conscious of innocence or not, was anxious to have a look at a private detective and find out what he wanted.

  Left ignominiously on the mat, Poirot studied the doorknocker with intense disgust at its unpolished condition.

  “Ah! for some Brasso and a rag,” he murmured to himself.

  Breathing excitedly the maid returned and Poirot was bidden to enter.

  He was shown into a room on the first floor—a rather dark room smelling of stale flowers and unemptied ashtrays. There were large quantities of silk cushions of exotic colours all in need of cleaning. The walls were emerald green and the ceiling was of pseudo copper.

  A tall, rather handsome woman was standing by the mantelpiece. She came forward and spoke in a deep husky voice.

  “M. Hercule Poirot?”

  Poirot bowed. His manner was not quite his own. He was not only foreign but ornately foreign. His gestures were positively baroque. Faintly, very faintly, it was the manner of the late Mr. Shaitana.

  “What did you want to see me about?”

  Again Poirot bowed.

  “If I might be seated? It will take a little time—”

  She waved him impatiently to a chair and sat down herself on the edge of a sofa.

  “Yes? Well?”

  “It is, madame, that I make the inquiries—the private inquiries, you understand?”

  The more deliberate his approach, the greater her eagerness.

  “Yes—yes?”

  “I make inquiries into the death of the late Professor Luxmore.”

  She gave a gasp. Her dismay was evident.

  “But why? What do you mean? What has it got to do with you?”

  Poirot watched her carefully before proceeding.

  “There is, you comprehend, a book being written. A life of your eminent husband. The writer, naturally, is anxious to get all his facts exact. As to your husband’s death, for instance—”

  She broke in at once:

  “My husband died of fever—on the Amazon.”

  Poirot leaned back in his chair. Slowly, very, very slowly, he shook his head to and fro—a maddening, monotonous motion.

  “Madame—madame—” he protested.

  “But I know! I was there at the time.”

  “Ah, yes, certainly. You were there. Yes, my information says so.”

  She cried out:

  “What information?”

  Eyeing her closely Poirot said:

  “Information supplied to me by the late Mr. Shaitana.”

  She shrank back as though flicked with a whip.

  “Shaitana?” she muttered.

  “A man,” said Poirot, “possessed of vast stores of knowledge. A remarkable man. That man knew many secrets.”

  “I suppose he did,” she murmured, passing a tongue over her dry lips.

  Poirot leaned forward. He achieved a little tap on her knee.

  “He knew, for instance, that your husband did not die of fever.”

  She stared at him. Her eyes looked wild and desperate.

  He leaned back and watched the effect of his words.

  She pulled herself together with an effort.

  “I don’t—I don’t know what you mean.”

  It was very unconvincingly said.

  “Madame,” said Poirot, “I will come out into the open. I will,” he smiled, “place my cards upon the table. Your husband did not die of fever. He died of a bullet!”

  “Oh!” she cried.

  She covered her face with her hands. She rocked herself to and fro. She was in terrible distress. But somewhere, in some remote fibre of her being, she was enjoying her own emotions. Poirot was quite sure of that.

  “And therefore,” said Poirot in a matter-of-fact tone, “you might just as well tell me the whole story.”

  She uncovered her face and said:

  “It wasn’t in the least way you think.”

  Again Poirot leaned forward—again he tapped her knee.

  “You misunderstand me—you misunderstand me utterly,” he said. “I know very well that it was not you who shot him. It was Major Despard. But you were the cause.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I suppose I was. It was all too terrible. There is a sort of fatality that pursues me.”

  “Ah, how true that is,” cried Poirot. “How often have I not seen it? There are some women like that. Wherever they go, tragedies follow in their wake. It is not their fault. These things happen in spite of themselves.”

  Mrs. Luxmore drew a deep breath.

  “You understand. I see you understand. It all happened so naturally.”

  “You travelled together into the interior, did you not?”

  “Yes. My husband was writing a book on various rare plants. Major Despard was introduced to us as a man who knew the conditions and would arrange the necessary expedition. My husband liked him very much. We started.”

  There was a pause. Poirot allowed it to continue for about a minute and a half and then murmured as though to himself.

  “Yes, one can picture it. The winding river—the tropical night—the hum of the insects—the strong soldierly man—the beautiful woman….”

  Mrs. Luxmore sighed.

  “My husband was, of course, years older than I was. I married as a mere child before I knew what I was doing….”

  Poirot shook his head sadly.

  “I know. I know. How often does that not occur?”

  “Neither of us would admit what was happening,” went on Mrs. Luxmore. “John Despard never said
anything. He was the soul of honour.”

  “But a woman always knows,” prompted Poirot.

  “How right you are … Yes, a woman knows … But I never showed him that I knew. We were Major Despard and Mrs. Luxmore to each other right up to the end … We were both determined to play the game.”

  She was silent, lost in admiration of that noble attitude.

  “True,” murmured Poirot. “One must play the cricket. As one of your poets so finely says, ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not cricket more.’”

  “Honour,” corrected Mrs. Luxmore with a slight frown.

  “Of course—of course—honour. ‘Loved I not honour more.’”

  “Those words might have been written for us,” murmured Mrs. Luxmore. “No matter what it cost us, we were both determined never to say the fatal word. And then—”

  “And then—” prompted Poirot.

  “That ghastly night.” Mrs. Luxmore shuddered.

  “Yes?”

  “I suppose they must have quarrelled—John and Timothy, I mean. I came out of my tent … I came out of my tent….”

  “Yes—yes?”

  Mrs. Luxmore’s eyes were wide and dark. She was seeing the scene as though it were being repeated in front of her.

  “I came out of my tent,” she repeated. “John and Timothy were—Oh!” she shuddered. “I can’t remember it all clearly. I came between them … I said ‘No—no, it isn’t true!’ Timothy wouldn’t listen. He was threatening John. John had to fire—in self-defence. Ah!” she gave a cry and covered her face with her hands. “He was dead—stone dead—shot through the heart.”

  “A terrible moment for you, madame.”

  “I shall never forget it. John was noble. He was all for giving himself up. I refused to hear of it. We argued all night. ‘For my sake,’ I kept saying. He saw that in the end. Naturally he couldn’t let me suffer. The awful publicity. Think of the headlines. Two Men and a Woman in the Jungle. Primeval Passions.

  “I put it all to John. In the end he gave in. The boys had seen and heard nothing. Timothy had been having a bout of fever. We said he had died of it. We buried him there beside the Amazon.”

  A deep, tortured sigh shook her form.

  “And then—back to civilization—and to part forever.”

  “Was it necessary, madame?”

  “Yes, yes. Timothy dead stood between us just as Timothy alive had done—more so. We said good-bye to each other—forever. I meet John Despard sometimes—out in the world. We smile, we speak politely—no one would ever guess that there was anything between us. But I see in his eyes—and he in mine—that we will never forget….”

  There was a long pause. Poirot paid tribute to the curtain by not breaking the silence.

  Mrs. Luxmore took out a vanity case and powdered her nose—the spell was broken.

  “What a tragedy,” said Poirot, but in a more everyday tone.

  “You can see, M. Poirot,” said Mrs. Luxmore earnestly, “that the truth must never be told.”

  “It would be painful—”

  “It would be impossible. This friend, this writer—surely he would not wish to blight the life of a perfectly innocent woman?”

  “Or even to hang a perfectly innocent man?” murmured Poirot.

  “You see it like that? I am glad. He was innocent. A crime passionnel is not really a crime. And in any case it was self-defence. He had to shoot. So you do understand, M. Poirot, that the world must continue to think Timothy died of fever?”

  Poirot murmured.

  “Writers are sometimes curiously callous.”

  “Your friend is a woman-hater? He wants to make us suffer? But you must not allow that. I shall not allow it. If necessary I shall take the blame on myself. I shall say I shot Timothy.

  She had risen to her feet. Her head was thrown back.

  Poirot also rose.

  “Madame,” he said as he took her hand, “such splendid self-sacrifice is unnecessary. I will do my best so that the true facts shall never be known.”

  A sweet womanly smile stole over Mrs. Luxmore’s face. She raised her hand slightly, so that Poirot, whether he had meant to do so or not, was forced to kiss it.

  “An unhappy woman thanks you, M. Poirot,” she said.

  It was the last word of a persecuted queen to a favoured courtier—clearly an exit line. Poirot duly made his exit.

  Once out in the street, he drew a long breath of fresh air.

  Twenty-one

  MAJOR DESPARD

  “Quelle femme,” murmured Hercule Poirot. “Ce pauvre Despard! Ce qu’il a dû souffrir! Quel voyage épouvantable!”

  Suddenly he began to laugh.

  He was now walking along the Brompton Road. He paused, took out his watch, and made a calculation.

  “But yes, I have the time. In any case to wait will do him no harm. I can now attend to the other little matter. What was it that my friend in the English police force used to sing—how many years—forty years ago? ‘A little piece of sugar for the bird.’”

  Humming a long-forgotten tune, Hercule Poirot entered a sumptuous-looking shop mainly devoted to the clothing and general embellishment of women and made his way to the stocking counter.

  Selecting a sympathetic-looking and not too haughty damsel he made known his requirements.

  “Silk stockings? Oh, yes, we have a very nice line here. Guaranteed pure silk.”

  Poirot waved them away. He waxed eloquent once more.

  “French silk stockings? With the duty, you know, they are very expensive.”

  A fresh lot of boxes was produced.

  “Very nice, mademoiselle, but I had something of a finer texture in mind.”

  “These are a hundred gauge. Of course, we have some extra fine, but I’m afraid they come out at about thirty-five shillings a pair. And no durability, of course. Just like cobwebs.”

  “C’est ça. C’est ça, exactement.”

  A prolonged absence of the young lady this time.

  She returned at last.

  “I’m afraid they are actually thirty-seven and sixpence a pair. But beautiful, aren’t they?”

  She slid them tenderly from a gauzy envelope—the finest, gauziest wisps of stockings.

  “Enfin—that is it exactly!”

  “Lovely, aren’t they? How many pairs, sir?”

  “I want—let me see, nineteen pairs.”

  The young lady very nearly fell down behind the counter, but long training in scornfulness just kept her erect.

  “There would be a reduction on two dozen,” she said faintly.

  “No, I want nineteen pairs. Of slightly different colours, please.”

  The girl sorted them out obediently, packed them up and made out the bill.

  As Poirot departed with his purchase, the next girl at the counter said:

  “Wonder who the lucky girl is? Must be a nasty old man. Oh, well, she seems to be stringing him along good and proper. Stockings at thirty-seven and sixpence indeed!”

  Unaware of the low estimate formed by the young ladies of Messrs Harvey Robinson’s upon his character, Poirot was trotting homewards.

  He had been in for about half an hour when he heard the doorbell ring. A few minutes later Major Despard entered the room.

  He was obviously keeping his temper with difficulty.

  “What the devil did you want to go and see Mrs. Luxmore for?” he asked.

  Poirot smiled.

  “I wished, you see, for the true story of Professor Luxmore’s death.”

  “True story? Do you think that woman’s capable of telling the truth about anything?” demanded Despard wrathfully.

  “Eh bien, I did wonder now and then,” admitted Poirot.

  “I should think you did. That woman’s crazy.”

  Poirot demurred.

  “Not at all. She is a romantic woman, that is all.”

  “Romantic be damned. She’s an out-and-out liar. I sometimes think she even believes her own lie
s.”

  “It is quite possible.”

  “She’s an appalling woman. I had the hell of a time with her out there.”

  “That also I can well believe.”

  Despard sat down abruptly.

  “Look here, M. Poirot, I’m going to tell you the truth.”

  “You mean you are going to give me your version of the story?”

  “My version will be the true version.”

  Poirot did not reply.

  Despard went on drily:

  “I quite realize that I can’t claim any merit in coming out with this now. I’m telling the truth because it’s the only thing to be done at this stage. Whether you believe me or not is up to you. I’ve no kind of proof that my story is the correct one.”

  He paused for a minute and then began.

  “I arranged the trip for the Luxmores. He was a nice old boy quite batty about mosses and plants and things. She was a—well, she was what you’ve no doubt observed her to be! That trip was a nightmare. I didn’t care a damn for the woman—rather disliked her, as a matter of fact. She was the intense, soulful kind that always makes me feel prickly with embarrassment. Everything went all right for the first fortnight. Then we all had a go of fever. She and I had it slightly. Old Luxmore was pretty bad. One night—now you’ve got to listen to this carefully—I was sitting outside my tent. Suddenly I saw Luxmore in the distance staggering off into the bush by the river. He was absolutely delirious and quite unconscious of what he was doing. In another minute he would be in the river—and at that particular spot it would have been the end of him. No chance of a rescue. There wasn’t time to rush after him—only one thing to be done. My rifle was beside me as usual. I snatched it up. I’m a pretty accurate shot. I was quite sure I could bring the old boy down—get him in the leg. And then, just as I fired, that idiotic fool of a woman flung herself from somewhere upon me, yelping out, ‘Don’t shoot. For God’s sake, don’t shoot.’ She caught my arm and jerked it ever so slightly just as the rifle went off—with the result that the bullet got him in the back and killed him dead!

  “I can tell you that was a pretty ghastly moment. And that damned fool of a woman still didn’t understand what she’d done. Instead of realizing that she’d been responsible for her husband’s death, she firmly believed that I’d been trying to shoot the old boy in cold blood—for the love of her, if you please! We had the devil of a scene—she insisting that we should say he died of fever. I was sorry for her—especially as I saw she didn’t realize what she’d done. But she’d have to realize it if the truth came out! And then her complete certainty that I was head over heels in love with her gave me a bit of a jar. It was going to be a pretty kettle of fish if she went about giving that out. In the end I agreed to do what she wanted—partly for the sake of peace, I’ll admit. After all, it didn’t seem to matter much. Fever or accident. And I didn’t want to drag a woman through a lot of unpleasantness—even if she was a damned fool. I gave it out next day that the professor was dead of fever and we buried him. The bearers knew the truth, of course, but they were all devoted to me and I knew that what I said they’d swear to if need be. We buried poor old Luxmore and got back to civilization. Since then I’ve spent a good deal of time dodging the woman.”