Hercule Poirot's Casebook (hercule poirot) Page 21

  'As a little favour, may I examine the flat below?'

  'Why, certainly, M. Poirot. I know what they think of yon at headquarters. I'll leave you a key. I've got two. It' empty. The maid cleared out to some relatives too stay there alone.'

  'I thank you,' said M. Poirot. He went back into ?:¢ thoughtful.

  'You're not satisfied, M. Poirot?' said Jimmy.

  'No,' said Poirot. 'I am not satisfied.'

  Donovan looked at him curiously. 'What is it that well, worries you?

  Poirot did not answer. He remained silent for a minute or two, frowning, as though in thought, then he made a sudden impatent movement of the shoulders.

  'I will say good night to you, mademoiselle. You must be tired. You have had much cooking to do - eh?'

  Pat laughed. 'Only the omelette. I didn't do dinner.

  Donovan and Jimmy came and called for us, and we went out to a little place in Soho.'

  'And then without doubt, you went to a theatre?'

  'Yes. The Brown Eyes of Caroline.'

  'Ah!' said Poirot. 'It should have been blue eyes - the blue eyes of mademoiselle.' He made a sentimental gesture, and then once more wished Pat good night, also Mildred, who was staying the night by special request, as Pat admitted fnmkiy that she would get the horrors if left alone on this particular night.

  The two young men accompanied Poirot. When the door was shut, and they were preparing to say goodbye to him on the landing, Poirot forestalled them.

  'My young friends, you heard me say I was not satisfied? Eh bien, it is true - I am not. I go now to make some little investigations of my own. You would like to accompany me, 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 standing. 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.

  'Voila! he said. 'I find 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 right again. He had to listen to a short lecture from Poirot on the necessity of caution in sniffing 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 finished.'

  'What?'

  'I know everything - now.'

  Jimmy stared at him. 'That little bottle you found?'

  'Exactly. That little bottle.'

  Jimmy shook his head. 'I can't make head or tail of it. For some reason or other I can see you are dissatisfied in evidence against this John Fraser, whoever he may be.

  'Whoever he may be,' repeated Poirot soffiy. 'If he is any 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 back to the point that struck me. You heard me say thst certain things in a room were always in the same place under given cirounstances. I gave three instances. I might have mentioned a fourth - the electric-light switch, my friend.'

  Jimmy still stared uncompy. Poirot went on.

  'Your friend Donovan did not go near 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 had 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?'

  'I mean - this.'

  Poirot held up a Yale door key.

  'The key of this flat?'

  'No, mon ami, the key 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 unsuspicious manner. He made sure that the lift door was unbolted earlier in the evening.'

  '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 unconsciousness 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. .

  'I 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 find, 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 curtain. 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 contents of this letter. Are you or are you not in love with Mademoiselle Patri?'

  'I care for Pat damnably - but I've never thought I had a chance.'

  'You thought that she cared for M. Dono
van? 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.'

  'Trouble?' said Jimmy sharply.

  '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 taken place in a foreign country does not invalidate it in any way.

  Yours truly, etc.

  Poirot spread out the enclosure, it 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, and 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

  'He seemed in quite good-spirits, too, all the evening. M. Poirot, you haven't let him escape?' Jimmy shuddered.

  'No need ,There is no escape for him, said Potrot gravely. Do not fear.'

  'It's Pat I'm thinking about mostly,' said ]immy. 'You don't think - she really cared.'

  'Mon 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!'

  THE ADVENTURE OF JOHNNIE WAVERLY

  'You can understand the feelings of a mother,' said Mrs Waverly for perhaps the sixth time.

  She looked appealingly 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 of M. 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 gesture. 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 Prominent steel manufacturer who had worked world from an office boy to his 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 Waverly, 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.'

  '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 twelve 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 inclined 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 NcNeil 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.

  Returning to my own room, I was startled and amazed to a note pinned to my pillow. 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, it 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 as a secretary-companion, and is also a very efficient 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 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 internal arrangements. He had various men posted in the park outside, guarding all the approaches to the house, and he assured me that if the whole thing were not a hoax, we should undoubtedly catch my mysterious correspondent.

  'I had Johnnie with me, and he and I and the inspector went together into the room we call the council chamber. The inspector locked the door. There is a big grandfather clock there, and as the hands drew near to twelve I don't
mind confessing that I was as nervous as a cat. There was a whirring sound, and the clock began to strike. I clutched at Johnnie. I had a feeling a man might drop from the skies. The last stroke sounded, and as it did so, there was a great commotion outside - shouting and running. The inspector flung up the window, and a constable came running up.

  '"We've got him sir," he panted. "He was sneaking up through the bushes. He's got a wholedope outfit on him."

  'We hurried out on the terrace where two constables were holding a ruffianly-looking fellow in shabby clothes, who was twisting and turning in a vain endeavour to escape. One of the policemen held out an unrolled parcel which they had wrested from their captive. It contained a pad of cotton wool and a bottle of chloroform. It made my blood boil to see it. There was a note, too, addressed to me. I tore it open. It bore the following words: "You should have paid up. To ransom your son will now cost you fifty thousand. In spite of all your precautions he has been abducted on the twenty-ninth as I said."

  'I gave a great laugh, the laugh of relief, but as I did so I heard the hum of a motor and a shout. I turned my head.

  Racing down the drive towards the south lodge at a furious speed was a low, long grey car. It was the man who drove it who shouted, but that was not what gave me a shock of horror. It was the sight of Johnnie's flaxen curls. The child was in the car beside him.

  'The inspector ripped out an oath. "The child was here not a minute ago," he cried. His eyes swept over us. We were all there: myself, Tredwell, Miss Collins. "When did you last see him, Mr Waverly?"

  'I cast my mind back, trying to remember. When the constable had called us, I had run out with the inspector, forgetting all about Johnnle.

  'And then there came a sound that startled us, the chiming of a church clock from the village. With an exclamation the inspector pulled out his watch. It was exactly twelve o'clock.

  With one common accord we ran to the council chamber; the clock there marked the hour as ten minutes past. Someone must have deliberately tampered with it, for I have never known it gain or lose before. It is a perfect timekeeper.'