Poirot Investigates hp-3 Page 4

  "Oh, I don't know. The usual odd topics. Maltravers asked after my people, and then we discussed the question of German reparations, and then Mrs Maltravers asked a lot of questions about East Africa, and I told them one or two yarns, that's about all, I think."

  "Thank you."

  Poirot was silent for a moment, then he said gently: "With your permission, I should like to try a little experiment. You have told us all that your conscious self knows, I want now to question your subconscious self."

  "Psychoanalysis, what?" said Black, with visible alarm.

  "Oh, no," said Poirot reassuringly. "You see, it is like this, I give you a word, you answer with another, and so on. Any word, the first one you think of. Shall we begin?"

  "All right," said Black slowly, but he looked uneasy.

  "Note down the words, please, Hastings," said Poirot. Then he took from his pocket his big turnip-faced watch and laid it on the table beside him. "We will commence. Day."

  There was a moment's pause, and then Black replied: "Night."

  As Poirot proceeded, his answers came quicker.

  "Name," said Poirot.

  "Place."

  "Bernard."

  "Shaw."

  "Tuesday."

  "Dinner."

  "Journey."

  "Ship."

  "Country."

  " Uganda."

  "Story."

  "Lions."

  "Rook Rifle."

  "Farm."

  "Shot."

  "Suicide."

  "Elephant."

  "Tusks."

  "Money."

  "Lawyers."

  "Thank you, Captain Black. Perhaps you could spare me a few minutes in about half an hour's time?"

  "Certainly." The young soldier looked at him curiously and wiped his brow as he got up.

  "And now, Hastings," said Poirot, smiling at me as the door closed behind him. "You see it all, do you not?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Does that list of words tell you nothing?" I scrutinised it, but was forced to shake my head.

  "I will assist you. To begin with, Black answered well within the normal time limit, with no pauses, so we can take it that he himself has no guilty knowledge to conceal. 'Day' to 'Night' and 'Place' to 'Name' are normal associations. I began work with 'Bernard' which might have suggested the local doctor had he come across him at all. Evidently he had not. After our recent conversation, he gave 'Dinner' to my 'Tuesday,' but 'Journey' and 'Country' were answered by 'Ship' and 'Uganda,' showing clearly that it was his journey abroad that was important to him and not the one which brought him down here. 'Story' recalls to him one of the 'Lion' stories he told at dinner. I proceed to 'Rook Rifle' and he answered with the totally unexpected word 'Farm.' When I say 'Shot,' he answers at once 'Suicide.' The association seems clear. A man he knows committed suicide with a rook rifle on a farm somewhere. Remember, too, that his mind is still on the stories he told at dinner, and I think you will agree that I shall not be far from the truth if I recall Captain Black and ask him to repeat the particular suicide story which he told at the dinner-table on Tuesday evening."

  Black was straightforward enough over the matter.

  "Yes, I did tell them that story now that I come to think of it. Chap shot himself on a farm out there. Did it with a rook rifle through the roof of the mouth, bullet lodged in the brain. Doctors were no end puzzled over it – there was nothing to show except a little blood on the lips. But what -"

  "What has it got to do with Mr Maltravers? You did not know, I see, that he was found with a rook rifle by his side."

  "You mean my story suggested to him – oh, but that is awful!"

  "Do not distress yourself – it would have been one way or another. Well, I must get on the telephone to London."

  Poirot had a lengthy conversation over the wire, and came back thoughtful. He went off by himself in the afternoon, and it was not till seven o'clock that he announced that he could put it off no longer, but must break the news to the young widow. My sympathy had already gone out to her unreservedly. To be left penniless, and with the knowledge that her husband had killed himself to assure her future was a hard burden for any woman to bear. I cherished a secret hope, however, that young Black might prove capable of consoling her after her first grief had passed. He evidently admired her enormously.

  Our interview with the lady was painful. She refused vehemently to believe the facts that Poirot advanced, and when she was at last convinced broke down into bitter weeping. An examination of the body turned our suspicions into certainty. Poirot was very sorry for the poor lady, but, after all, he was employed by the Insurance Company, and what could he do? As he was preparing to leave he said gently to Mrs Maltravers: "Madame, you of all people should know that there are no dead!"

  "What do you mean?" she faltered, her eyes growing wide.

  "Have you never taken part in any spiritualistic séances? You are mediumistic, you know."

  "I have been told so. But you do not believe in Spiritualism, surely?"

  "Madame, I have seen some strange things. You know that they say in the village that this house is haunted?"

  She nodded, and at that moment the parlormaid announced that dinner was ready.

  "Won't you just stay and have something to eat?"

  We accepted gratefully, and I felt that our presence could not but help distract her a little from her own griefs.

  We had just finished our soup, when there was a scream outside the door, and the sound of breaking crockery. We jumped up. The parlormaid appeared, her hand to her heart.

  "It was a man – standing in the passage."

  Poirot rushed out, returning quickly.

  "There is no one there."

  "Isn't there, sir!" said the parlormaid weakly. "Oh, it did give me a start!"

  "But why?"

  She dropped her voice to a whisper.

  "I thought – I thought it was the master – it looked like 'im."

  I saw Mrs Maltravers give a terrified start, and my mind flew to the old superstition that a suicide cannot rest. She thought of it too, I am sure, for a minute later, she caught Poirot's arm with a scream.

  "Didn't you hear that? Those three taps on the window? That's how he always used to tap when he passed round the house."

  "The ivy," I cried. "It was the ivy against the pane."

  But a sort of terror was gaining on us all. The parlormaid was obviously unstrung, and when the meal was over Mrs Maltravers besought Poirot not to go at once. She was clearly terrified to be left alone. We sat in the little morning-room. The wind was getting up, and moaning round the house in an eerie fashion. Twice the door of the room carne unlatched and the door slowly opened, and each time she clung to me with a terrified gasp.

  "Ah, but this door, it is bewitched!" cried Poirot angrily at last. He got up and shut it once more, then turned the key in the lock. "I shall lock it, so!"

  "Don't do that," she gasped, "if it should come open now -"

  And even as she spoke the impossible happened. The locked door slowly swung open. I could not see into the passage from where I sat, but she and Poirot were facing it. She gave one long shriek as she turned to him.

  "You saw him – there in the passage!" she cried.

  He was staring down at her with a puzzled face, then shook his head.

  "I saw him – my husband – you must have seen him too?"

  "Madame, I saw nothing. You are not well – unstrung -"

  "I am perfectly well, I – Oh, God!"

  Suddenly, without any warning, the lights quivered and went out. Out of the darkness carne three loud raps. I could hear Mrs Maltravers moaning.

  And then – I saw!

  The man I had seen on the bed upstairs stood there facing us, gleaming with a faint ghostly light. There was blood on his lips, and he held his right hand out, pointing. Suddenly a brilliant light seemed to proceed from it. It passed over Poirot and me, and fell on Mrs Maltravers. I saw
her white terrified face, and something else!

  "My God, Poirot!" I cried. "Look at her hand, her right hand. It's all red!"

  Her own eyes fell on it, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  "Blood," she cried hysterically. "Yes, it's blood. I killed him. I did it. He was showing me, and then I put my hand on the trigger and pressed. Save me from him- save me! He's come back!"

  Her voice died away in a gurgle.

  "Lights," said Poirot briskly.

  The lights went on as if by magic.

  "That's it," he continued. "You heard, Hastings? And you, Everett? Oh, by the way, this is Mr Everett, rather a fine member of the theatrical profession. I phoned to him this afternoon. His make-up is good, isn't it? Quite like the dead man, and with a pocket torch and the necessary phosphorescence he made the proper impression. I shouldn't touch her right hand if I were you, Hastings. Red paint marks so. When the lights went out I clasped her hand, you see. By the way, we mustn't miss our train. Inspector Japp is outside the window. A bad night – but he has been able to while away the time by tapping on the window every now and then."

  "You see," continued Poirot, as we walked briskly through the wind and rain, "there was a little discrepancy. The doctor seemed to think the deceased was a Christian Scientist, and who could have given him that impression but Mrs Maltravers? But to us she represented him as being in a grave state of apprehension about his own health. Again, why was she so taken aback by the reappearance of young Black? And lastly, although I know that convention decrees that a woman must make a decent pretence of mourning for her husband, I do not care for such heavily-roughed eyelids! You did not observe them, Hastings? No? As I always tell you, you see nothing!

  "Well, there it was. There were the two possibilities. Did Black's story suggest an ingenious method of committing suicide to Mr Maltravers, or did his other listener, the wife, see an equally ingenious method of committing murder? I inclined to the latter view. To shoot himself in the way indicated, he would probably have had to pull the trigger with his toe – or at least so I imagine. Now if Maltravers had been found with one boot off, we should almost certainly have heard of it from some one. An odd detail like that would have been remembered.

  "No, as I say, I inclined to the view that it was a case of murder, not suicide, but I realised that I had not a shadow of proof in support of my theory. Hence the elaborate little comedy you saw played tonight."

  "Even now I don't quite see all the details of the crime," I said.

  "Let us start from the beginning. Here is a shrewd and scheming woman who, knowing of her husband's financial débâcle and tired of the elderly mate she has only married for his money, induces him to insure his life for a large sum, and then seeks for the means to accomplish her purpose. An accident gives her that – the young soldier's strange story. The next afternoon when monsieur le capitaine, as she thinks, is on the high seas, she and her husband are strolling round the grounds. 'What a curious story that was last night!' she observes. 'Could a man shoot himself in such a way? Do show me if it is possible!' The poor fool – he shows her. He places the end of the rifle in his mouth. She stoops down, and puts her finger on the trigger, laughing up at him. 'And now, sir,' she says saucily, 'supposing I pull the trigger?'

  "And then – and then, Hastings – she pulls it!"

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHEAP FLAT

  So far, in the cases which I have recorded, Poirot's investigations have started from the central fact, whether murder or robbery, and have proceeded from thence by a process of logical deduction to the final triumphant unravelling. In the events I am now about to chronicle, a remarkable chain of circumstances led from the apparently trivial incidents which first attracted Poirot's attention to the sinister happenings which completed a most unusual case.

  I had been spending the evening with an old friend of mine, Gerald Parker. There had been, perhaps, about half a dozen people there beside my host and myself, and the talk fell, as it was bound to do sooner or later wherever Parker found himself, on the subject of house-hunting in London. Houses and flats were Parker's special hobby. Since the end of the War, he had occupied at least half a dozen different flats and maisonnettes. No sooner was he settled anywhere than he would light unexpectedly upon a new find, and would forthwith depart bag and baggage. His moves were nearly always accomplished at a slight pecuniary gain, for he had a shrewd business head, but it was sheer love of the sport that actuated him, and not a desire to make money at it. We listened to Parker for some time with the respect of the novice for the expert. Then it was our turn, and a perfect babel of tongues was let loose. Finally the floor was left to Mrs Robinson, a charming little bride who was there with her husband. I had never met them before, as Robinson was only a recent acquaintance of Parker's.

  "Talking of flats," she said, "have you heard of our piece of luck, Mr Parker? We've got a flat – at last! In Montagu Mansions."

  "Well," said Parker, "I've always said there are plenty of flats – at a price!"

  "Yes, but this isn't at a price. It's dirt cheap. Eighty pounds a year!"

  "But – but Montagu Mansions is just off Knightsbridge, isn't it? Big handsome buildings. Or are you talking of a poor relation of the same name stuck in the slums somewhere?"

  "No, it's the Knightsbridge one. That's what makes it so wonderful."

  "Wonderful is the word! It's a blinking miracle. But there must be a catch somewhere. Big premium, I suppose?"

  "No premium!"

  "No prem- oh, hold my head, somebody!" groaned Parker.

  "But we've got to buy the furniture," continued Mrs Robinson.

  "Ah!" Parker brisked up. "I knew there was a catch!"

  "For fifty pounds. And it's beautifully furnished!"

  "I give it up," said Parker. "The present occupants must be lunatics with a taste for philanthropy."

  Mrs Robinson was looking a little troubled. A little pucker appeared between her dainty brows.

  "It is queer, isn't it? You don't think that – that – the place is haunted?"

  "Never heard of a haunted flat," declared Parker decisively.

  "N-o." Mrs Robinson appeared far from convinced. "But there were several things about it all that struck me as – well, queer."

  "For instance -" I suggested.

  "Ah," said Parker, "our criminal expert's attention is aroused! Unburden yourself to him, Mrs Robinson. Hastings is a great unraveler of mysteries."

  I laughed, embarrassed but not wholly displeased with the rôle thrust upon me.

  "Oh, not really queer, Captain Hastings, but when we went to the agents, Stasser and Paul – we hadn't tried them before because they only have the expensive Mayfair flats, but we thought at any rate it would do no harm – everything they offered us was four and five hundred a year, or else huge premiums, and then, just as we were going, they mentioned that they had a flat at eighty, but that they doubted if it would be any good our going there, because it had been on their books some time and they had sent so many people to see it that it was almost sure to be taken – 'snapped up' as the clerk put it – only people were so tiresome in not letting them know, and then they went on sending, and people get annoyed at being sent to a place that had, perhaps, been let some time."

  Mrs Robinson paused for some much needed breath, and then continued: "We thanked him, and said that we quite understood it would probably be no good, but that we should like an order all the same – just in case. And we went there straightaway in a taxi, for, after all, you never know. No.4 was on the second floor, and just as we were waiting for the lift, Elsie Ferguson – she's a friend of mine, Captain Hastings, and they are looking for a flat too – came hurrying down the stairs. 'Ahead of you for once, my dear,' she said. 'But it's no good. It's already let.' That seemed to finish it, but – well, as John said, the place was very cheap, we could afford to give more, and perhaps if we offered a premium – A horrid thing to do, of course, and I feel quite ashamed of telling you, but you kno
w what flat-hunting is."

  I assured her that I was well aware that in the struggle for house-room the baser side of human nature frequently triumphed over the higher, and that the well-known rule of dog eat dog always applied.

  "So we went up and, would you believe it, the flat wasn't let at all. We were shown over it by the maid, and then we saw the mistress, and the thing was settled then and there. Immediate possession and fifty pounds for the furniture. We signed the agreement next day, and we are to move in tomorrow!" Mrs Robinson paused triumphantly.

  "And what about Mrs Ferguson?" asked Parker. "Let's have your deductions, Hastings."

  "'Obvious, my dear Watson,'" I quoted lightly. "She went to the wrong flat."

  "Oh, Captain Hastings, how clever of you!" cried Mrs Robinson admiringly.

  I rather wished Poirot had been there. Some times I have the feeling that he rather underestimates my capabilities.

  The whole thing was rather amusing, and I propounded the thing as a mock problem to Poirot on the following morning. He seemed interested, and questioned me rather narrowly as to the rents of flats in various localities.

  "A curious story," he said thoughtfully. "Excuse me, Hastings, I must take a short stroll."

  When he returned, about an hour later, his eyes were gleaming with a peculiar excitement. He laid his stick on the table, and brushed the nap of his hat with his usual tender care before he spoke.

  "It is as well, mon ami, that we have no affairs of moment on hand. We can devote ourselves wholly to the present investigation."

  "What investigation are you talking about?"

  "The remarkable cheapness of your friend's, Mrs Robinson's, new flat."

  "Poirot, you are not serious!"

  "I am most serious. Figure to yourself, my friend, that the real rent of those flats is £350. I have just ascertained that from the landlord's agents. And yet this particular flat is being sublet at eighty pounds! Why?"

  "There must be something wrong with it. Perhaps it is haunted, as Mrs Robinson suggested."

  Poirot shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.

  "Then again how curious it is that her friend tells her the flat is let, and, when she goes up, behold, it is not so at all!"