Hercule Poirot's Casebook (hercule poirot) Read online

  'A man who dislikes thick soup, suet pudding and blackberries suddenly orders all three one evening. You say, because he is thinking of something else. But I say that a man who has got something on his mind will order automatically the dish he has ordered most often before.

  'Eh bien, then, what other explanation could there be? I simply could not think of a reasonable explanation. And I was worried! The incident was all wrong. It did not fit! I have an orderly mind and I like things to fit. Mr Gascoigne's dinner order worried me.

  'Then you told me that the man had disappeared. He had missed a Tuesday and a Thursday the first time for years. I liked that even less. A queer hypothesis sprang up in my mind. If I were right about it the man was dead. I made inquiries. The man was dead. And he was very neatly and tidily dead. In other words the bad fish was covered up with the sauce!

  'He had been seen in the King's Road at seven o'clock. He had had dinner here at seven-thirty - two hours before he died. It all fitted in - the evidence of the stomach contents, the evidence of the letter. Much too much sauce! You couldn't see the fish at all!

  'Devoted nephew wrote the letter, devoted nephew had beautiful alibi for time of death. Death very simple - a fall down the stairs. Simple accident? Simple murder? Everyone says the former.

  'Devoted nephew only surviving relative. Devoted nephew will inherit - but is there anything to inherit? Uncle Nat& As you a brother. And brother in his time had Ce. And brother lives in a big rich house on 't would seem that rich wife must have. You see the sequence - rich wife leaves, Anthony leaves money to Henry, George- a complete chain.'

  'Very pretty in theory,' said Bonnington. 'But what did you do?'

  'Once you know - you can usually get hold of what you want. Henry had died two hours after a meal- that is all the inquest really bothered about. But supposing the meal was not dinner, but lunch. Put yourself in George's place. George wants money - badly. Anthony Gascoigne is dying - but his death is no good to George. His money goes to Henry, and Henry Gascoigne may live for years. So Henry must die too-and the sooner the better - but his death must take place after Anthony's, and at the same time George must have an alibi.

  Henry's habit of dining regularly at a restaurant on two evenings of the week suggest an alibi to George. Being a cautious fellow', he tries his plan out first. He impersonates his uncle on Monday evening at the restaurant in question. It goes without a hitch. Everyone there accepts him as his uncle. He is satisfied. He has only to wait till Uncle Anthony shows definite signs of pegging out. The time comes. He writes a letter to his uncle on the afternoon of the second November but dates it the third. He comes up to town on the afternoon of the third, calls on his uncle, and carries his scheme into action. A sharp shove and down the stairs goes Uncle Henry.

  George hunts about for the letter he has written, and shoves it in the pocket of his uncle's dressing-gown. At seven-thirty he is at the Gallant Endeavour, beard, bushy eyebrows all complete. Undoubtedly Mr Henry Gascoigne is alive at seven-thirty. Then a rapid metamorphosis in a lavatory and back full speed in his car to Wimbledon and an evening of bridge. The perfect alibi.'

  Mr Bonnington looked at him.

  'But the postmark on the letter?'

  'Oh, that was very simple. The postmark was smudged. Why? It had been altered with lamp black from second November to third November. You would not notice it unless ou zoere looking for it. And finally there were the blackbirds.'

  'Blackbirds?'

  'Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie! Or black-berries if you prefer to be literal! George, you comprehend, was after all not quite a good enough actor. Do you remember the fellow who blacked himself all over to play Othello? That is the kind of actor you have got to be in crime. George looked like his uncle and walked like his uncle and spoke like his uncle and had his uncles' beard and eyebrows, but he forgot to eat like his uncle. He ordered the dishes that he himself liked. Blackberries discolour the teeth - the corpse's teeth were not discoloured, and yet Henry Gascoigne ate blackberries at the Gallant Endeavour that night. But there were no blackberries in the stomach. I asked this morning.

  And George had been fool enough to keep the beard and the rest of the make-up. Oh! plenty of evidence once you look for it. I called on George and rattled him. That finished it! He had been eating blackberries again, by the way. A greedy fellow - cared a lot about his food. Eh bien, greed will hang him all right unless I am very much mistaken.'

  A waitress brought them two portions of blackberry and apple tart.

  'Take it away,' said Mr Bonnington. 'One can't be too careful. Bring me a small helping of sago pudding.'

  PROBLEM AT SEA

  'Colonel Clapperton!' said General Forbes.

  He said it with an effect midway between a snort and a sniff.

  Miss Ellie Henderson leaned forward, a strand of her soft grey hair blowing across her face. Her eyes, dark and snapping, gleamed with a wicked pleasure.

  'Such a soldierly-looking man!' she said with malicious intent, and smoothed back the lock of hair to await the result.

  'Soldierly!' exploded General Forbes. He tugged at his military moustache and his face became bright red.

  'In the Guards, wasn't he?' murmured Miss Henderson, completing her work.

  'Guards? Guards? Pack of nonsense. Fellow was on the music hall stage! Fact! Joined up and was out in France counting tins of plum and apple. Huns dropped a stray bomb and he went home with a flesh wound in the arm. Somehow or other got into Lady Carrington's hospital.'

  'So that's how they met.'

  'Fact! Fellow played the wounded hero. Lady Carrington had no sense and oceans of money. Old Carrington had been in munitions. She'd been a widow only six months. Tiffs fellow snaps her up in no time. She wangled him a job at the War Office. Colonel Clapperton! Pah!' he snorted.

  'And before the war he was on the music hall stage,' mused Miss Henderson, trying to reconcile the distinguished greyhaired Colonel Clapperton with a red-nosed comedian singing mirth-provoking songs.

  'Fact!' said General Forbes. 'Heard it from old Bassingron French. And he heard it from old Badger Cotterill who'd got it from Snooks Parker.'

  Miss Henderson nodded brightly. 'That does seem to settle it!' she said.

  A fleeting smile showed for a minute on the face of a small man sitting near them. Miss Henderson noticed the smile. She was observant. It had shown appreciation of the underlying her last remark - irony which the General new a moment suspected.

  The General himself did not notice the smile. He glanced at his watch, rose and remarked: 'Exercise. Got to keep oneself fit on a boat,' and passed out through the open door on to the deck.

  Miss Henderson glanced at the man who had smiled. It was a well-bred glance indicating that she was ready to enter conversation with a fellow traveller.

  'He is energetic - yes?' said the little man.

  'He goes round the deck forty-eight times exactly,' said Mis Henderson. 'What an old gossip! And they say we are the scandal-loving sex.'

  'What an impoliteness!'

  'Frenchmen me always polite,' said Miss Henderson was the nuance of a question in her voice.

  The little man responded promptly. 'Beigian, moiselle.'

  'Oh Hercule Poirot. At your service.'

  The name aroused some memory. Surely she had heard before -? 'Are you enjoying this trip, M. Poirot?'

  'Frankly, no. It was an imbecile to allow myself to persuaded to come. I detest la mer. Never does it tranquil - no, not for a lit-de minute.'

  'Well, you admit it's quite calm now.'

  M. Poirot admitted this grudgingly. 'A calm, yes. It is why I revive. I once more interest myself in what passes around me - your very adept handling of the General Forbes for instance.'

  'You mean -' Miss Henderson paused.

  Hcrcule Poirot bowed. 'Your methods of extracting scandalous matter. Admirable!'

  Miss Henderson laughed in an unashamed manner.

  touch about the Guards? I knew
that would bring , ..,4.o and asoing.' She leaned forward confidentially.

  ,Pdmit I liscandal - the more ill-natured, the better.

  Poirot looked thoughtfully at her - her slim well-preserved figure, her keen dark eyes, her grey hair; a woman of forty-five who was content to look her age.

  Ellie said abruptly: 'I have it! Aren't you the great detective?', Poirot bowed. 'You are too tamable, mademotselle. But he. made no disclaimer.'

  'How thrilling,' said Miss Henderson. 'Are you "hot on the trail" as they say in books? Have we a criminal secretly in our midst? Or am I being indiscreet?'

  'Not at all. Not at all. It pains me to disappoint your expectations, but I am simply here, like everyone else, to amuse myself.'

  He said it in such a gloomy voice that Miss Henderson laughed.

  'Oh! Well, you will be able to get ashore tomorrow at Alexandria. You have been to Egypt before?'

  'Never, mademoiselle.'

  Miss Henderson rose somewhat abruptly.

  'I think I shall join the General on his constitutional,' she announced.

  Poirot sprang politely to his feet.

  She gave him a little nod and passed on to the deck.

  A faint puzzled look showed for a moment in Poirot's eyes, then, a little smile creasing his lips, he rose, put his head through the door mad glanced down the deck. Miss Henderson was leaning against the rail talking to a tall, soldierly-looking man.

  Poirot's smile deepened. He drew himself back into the smoking-room with the same exaggerated care with which a tortoise withdraws itself into its shell. For the moment he had the smoking-room to himself, though he rightly conjectured that that would not last long.

  It did not. Mrs Clapperton, her carefully waved platinum head protected with a net, her massaged and dieted form dressed in a smart sports suit, came through the door from the bar with the purposeful air of a woman who has always been able to pay top price for anything she needed.

  She said: 'John - ? Oh! Good morning, M. Poirot - have you seen John?'

  'He's on the starboard deck, madame. Shall I - ?'

  She arrested him with a gesture. 'I'll sit here a minute.' She sat down in a regal fashion in the chair opposite him. From the distance she had looked a possible twenty-eight. Now, in spite of her exquisitely made-up face, her delicately plucked eyebrows, she looked not her actual forty-nine years, but a possible fifty-five. Her eyes were a hard pale blue with tiny pupils.

  'I was sorry not to have seen you at dinner last night,' she said. 'It was just a shade choppy, of course -' 'Prdabnent,' said Poirot with feeling.

  'Luckily, I am an excellent sailor,' said Mrs Clapperton. 'I say luckily, because, with my weak heart,' seasickness would probably be the death of me.'

  'You have the weak heart, madame?'

  'Yes, I have to be most careful. I must not overfire myself. All the specialists say so!' Mrs Clapperton had embarked on the to her - ever-fascinating topic of her health. 'John, poor darling, wears himself out trying to prevent me from doing too much. I live so intensely, if you know what I mean, M. Poirot?'

  'Yes, yes.'

  'He always says to me: "Try to be more of a vegetable, Adeline." But I can't. Life was meant to be lived, I feel. In a matter of fact I wore myself out as a girl in the war. My hospital - you've heard of my hospital? Of course I had nurses and matrons and all that - but I actually ran it.' She sighed.

  'Your vitality is marvellous, dear lady,' said Poirot, with slightly mechanical air of one responding to his cue.

  Mrs Clapperton gave a girlish laugh.

  'Everyone tells me how young I am! It's absurd. I never try to pretend I'm a day less than forty-three,' she continued with slightly mendacious candour, 'but a lot of people find it hard to believe. "You're so alive, Adeline," they say to me. But really, M. Poirot, what would one be if one wasn't alive?'

  'Dead,' said Poirot.

  Mrs Clapperton frowned. The reply was not to her liking.

  The man, she derided, was trying to be funny. She got up and said coldly: 'I must find John.'

  As she stepped through the door she dropped her handbag.

  It opened and the contents flew far and wide. Poirot rushed gallantly to the rescue. It was some few minutes before the lipsticks, vanity boxes, cigarette case and lighter and other odds and ends were collected. Mrs Clapperton thanked him politely, then she swept down the deck and said, 'John '

  Colonel Clapperton was still deep in conversation with Miss Henderson. He swung round and came quickly to meet his wife. He bent over her protectively. Her deck chair - was it in the right place? Wouldn't it be better - ? His manner was courteous - full of gentle consideration. Clearly an adored wife spoilt by an adoring husband.

  Miss Ellie Henderson looked out at the horizon as though something about it rather disgusted her.

  Standing in the smoking-room door, Poirot looked on.

  A hoarse quavering voice behind him said: 'I'd take a hatchet to that woman if I were her husband.' The old gentleman known disrespectfully among the younger set on board as the Grandfather of All the Tea Planters, had just shttttled in. 'Boy!' he called. 'Get me a whisky peg.'

  Poirot stooped to retrieve a torn scrap of notepaper, an overlooked item from the contents of Mrs Clapperton's bag.

  Part of a prescription, he noted, containing digitalin. He put it in his pocket, meaning to reswre it to Mrs Clapperton later.

  'Yes,' went on the aged passenger. 'Poisonous woman. I remember a woman like that in Poona. In '87 that was.'

  'Did anyone take a hatchet to her?' inquired Poirot.

  The old gentleman shook his head sadly.

  'Worried her husband into his grave within the year. Clapperton ought to assert himself. Gives his wife her head too much.'

  'She holds the purse strings,' said Poirot gravely.

  'Ha, ha!' chuckled the old gentleman. 'You've put the matter in a nutshell. Holds the purse strings. Ha, ha!'

  Two girls burst into the smoking-room. One had a r. face with freckles and dark hair streaming out in a windsw?pt confusion, the other had freckles and curly chestnut hair.

  'A rescue - a rescue!' cried Kitty Mooney. 'Pam and I going to rescue Colonel Clapperton.'

  'From his wife,' gasped Pamela Cregan.

  'We think he's a pet...'

  'And she's just awful - she won't let him do anything,' the two girls exclaimed.

  'And if he isn't with her, he's usually grabbed by the Henderson woman ...'

  'Who's quite nice. But terribly old...'

  They ran out, gasping in between giggles. 'A rescue - a rescue...'

  That the rescue of Colonel Clapperton was no isolated sally, but a fixed project was made clear that same evening when the eighteen-year-old Para Cregan came up to Hercule Poirot, and murmured: 'Watch us, M. Poirot. He's going to be cut out from under her nose and taken to walk in the moonlight on the boat deck.'

  It was just at that moment that Colonel Clapperton was saying: 'I grant you the price of a Rolls-Royce. But it's practically good for a lifetime. Now my car '

  'My car, I think, John.' Mrs Clapperton's voice was shrill and penetrating.

  He showed no annoyance at her ungradousness. Either was used to it by this time, or else 'Or else?' thought Poirot and let himself speculate.

  'Certainly, my dear, your car' Clapperton bowed to his a s and finished what he had been saying, perfectly unrutTled.

  'Voila ce qu'on appelle le pukka sahib,' thought Poirot.'

  the General Forbes says that Clapperton is no gentleman at all. I wonder now.'

  There was a suggestion of bridge. Mrs Clapperton, General Forbes and a hawk-eyed couple sat down to it. Miss Henderson had excused herself and gone out on deck.

  'What about your husband?' asked General Forbes, hesitating.

  'John won't play,' said Mrs Clapperton. 'Most tiresome of him.'

  The four bridge players began shuffling the cards.

  Para and Kitty advanced on Colonel Clappenon. Each one took an arm.r />
  'You're coming with us!' said Pain. 'To the boat deck. There's a moon.'

  'Don't be foolish, John,' said Mrs Clapperton. You'll catch a chill.'

  'Not with us, he won't,' said Kitty. 'We're hot stuff.'

  He went with them, laughing.

  Poirot noticed that Mrs Clappenon said No Bid to her initial hid of Two Clubs.

  He strolled out on to the promenade deck. Miss Henderson was standing by the rail. She looked round expectantly as he came to stand beside her and he saw the drop in her expression.

  They chatted for a while. Then presently as he fell silent she asked: 'What are you thinking about?'

  Poirot replied: 'I am wondering about my knowledge of English. Mrs Clapperton said: "John won't play bridge." Is not "can't play" the usual term?'

  'She takes it as a personal insult that he doesn't, I suppose,' said Ellie drily. 'The man was a fool ever to have married her.'

  In the darkness Poirot smiled. 'You don't think it's just possible that the marriage may be a success?' he asked diffidently.

  'With a woman like that?'

  Poirot shrugged his shoulders. 'Many odious women have devoted husbands. An enigma of nature. You will admit that nothing she says or does appears to gall him.' Miss Henderson was considering her reply when Mrs Clappenon's voice floated out through the smoking-room window.

  'No - I don't think I will play another rubber. So stuffy. I think I'll go up and get some air on the boat deck.'

  'Good night,' said Miss Henderson. 'I'm going to bed.' She disappeared abruptly.

  Poirot strolled forward to the lounge - deserted now: for Colonel Clapperton and the two girls. He was doing card t for them and noting the dexterity of his shuffling and handling of the cards, Poirot remembered the General's story of a c: ?eer on the music hall stage.

  'I see you enjoy the cards even though you do not play bridge,' he remarked.

  'I've my reasons for not playing bridge,' said Clapperton, his charming smile breaking out. 'I'll show you. We'll play one hand.'

  He dealt the cards rapidly. 'Pick up your hands. Well, what about it?' He laughed at the bewildered expression on Kitty's face. He laid down his hand and the others followed suit. Kitty held the entire club suit, M. Poirot the hearts, Pam the diamonds and Colonel Clapperton the spades.