Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories Read online

  Valentine was sitting up very straight between the two men and talking. She talked easily and lightly in her sweet, drawling voice, turning her head to take first one man and then the other in the conversation.

  She was just finishing an anecdote.

  “—and what do you think the foolish man said? ‘It may have been only a minute, but I’d remember you anywhere, Mum!’ Didn’t he, Tony? And you know, I thought it was so sweet of him. I do think it’s such a kind world—I mean, everybody is so frightfully kind to me always—I don’t know why—they just are. But I said to Tony—d’you remember, darling—‘Tony, if you want to be a teeny-weeny bit jealous, you can be jealous of that commissionaire.’ Because he really was too adorable. . . .”

  There was a pause and Douglas Gold said:

  “Good fellows—some of these commissionaires.”

  “Oh, yes—but he took such trouble—really an immense amount of trouble—and seemed just pleased to be able to help me.”

  Douglas Gold said:

  “Nothing odd about that. Anyone would for you, I’m sure.”

  She cried delightedly:

  “How nice of you! Tony, did you hear that?”

  Commander Chantry grunted.

  His wife sighed:

  “Tony never makes pretty speeches—do you, my lamb?”

  Her white hand with its long red nails ruffled up his dark head.

  He gave her a sudden sidelong look. She murmured:

  “I don’t really know how he puts up with me. He’s simply frightfully clever—absolutely frantic with brains—and I just go on talking nonsense the whole time, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Nobody minds what I do or say—everybody spoils me. I’m sure it’s frightfully bad for me.”

  Commander Chantry said across her to the other man:

  “That your missus in the sea?”

  “Yes. Expect it’s about time I joined her.”

  Valentine murmured:

  “But it’s so lovely here in the sun. You mustn’t go into the sea yet. Tony darling, I don’t think I shall actually bathe today—not my first day. I might get a chill or something. But why don’t you go in now, Tony darling? Mr.—Mr. Gold will stay and keep me company while you’re in.”

  Chantry said rather grimly:

  “No, thanks. Shan’t go in just yet. Your wife seems to be waving to you, Gold.”

  Valentine said:

  “How well your wife swims. I’m sure she’s one of those terribly efficient women who do everything well. They always frighten me so because I feel they despise me. I’m so frightfully bad at everything—an absolute duffer, aren’t I, Tony darling?”

  But again Commander Chantry only grunted.

  His wife murmured affectionately:

  “You’re too sweet to admit it. Men are so wonderfully loyal—that’s what I like about them. I do think men are so much more loyal than women—and they never say nasty things. Women, I always think, are rather petty.”

  Sarah Blake rolled over on her side towards Poirot.

  She murmured between her teeth.

  “Examples of pettiness, to suggest that dear Mrs. Chantry is in any way not absolute perfection! What a complete idiot the woman is! I really do think Valentine Chantry is very nearly the most idiotic woman I ever met. She can’t do anything but say, ‘Tony, darling,’ and roll her eyes. I should fancy she’d got cottonwool padding instead of brains.”

  Poirot raised his expressive eyebrows.

  “Un peu sévère!”

  “Oh, yes. Put it down as pure ‘Cat,’ if you like. She certainly has her methods! Can’t she leave any man alone? Her husband’s looking like thunder.”

  Looking out to sea, Poirot remarked:

  “Mrs. Gold swims well.”

  “Yes, she isn’t like us who find it a nuisance to get wet. I wonder if Mrs. Chantry will ever go into the sea at all while she’s out here.”

  “Not she,” said General Barnes huskily. “She won’t risk that makeup of hers coming off. Not that she isn’t a fine-looking woman although perhaps a bit long in the tooth.”

  “She’s looking your way, General,” said Sarah wickedly. “And you’re wrong about the makeup. We’re all waterproof and kissproof nowadays.”

  “Mrs. Gold’s coming out,” announced Pamela.

  “Here we go gathering nuts and may,” hummed Sarah. “Here comes his wife to fetch him away—fetch him away—fetch him away. . . .”

  Mrs. Gold came straight up the beach. She had quite a pretty figure but her plain, waterproof cap was rather too serviceable to be attractive.

  “Aren’t you coming, Douglas?” she demanded impatiently. “The sea is lovely and warm.”

  “Rather.”

  Douglas Gold rose hastily to his feet. He paused a moment and as he did so Valentine Chantry looked up at him with a sweet smile.

  “Au revoir,” she said.

  Gold and his wife went down the beach.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Pamela said critically:

  “I don’t think, you know, that that was wise. To snatch your husband away from another woman is always bad policy. It makes you seem so possessive. And husbands hate that.”

  “You seem to know a lot about husbands, Miss Pamela,” said General Barnes.

  “Other people’s—not my own!”

  “Ah! that’s where the difference comes in.”

  “Yes, but General, I shall have learnt a lot of Do Nots.”

  “Well, darling,” said Sarah, “I shouldn’t wear a cap like that for one thing. . . .”

  “Seems very sensible to me,” said the General. “Seems a nice, sensible little woman altogether.”

  “You’ve hit it exactly, General,” said Sarah. “But you know there’s a limit to the sensibleness of sensible women. I have a feeling she won’t be so sensible when it’s a case of Valentine Chantry.”

  She turned her head and exclaimed in a low, excited whisper:

  “Look at him now. Just like thunder. That man looks as though he had got the most frightful temper. . . .”

  Commander Chantry was indeed scowling after the retreating husband and wife in a singularly unpleasant fashion.

  Sarah looked up at Poirot.

  “Well?” she said. “What do you make of all this?”

  Hercule Poirot did not reply in words, but once again his forefinger traced a design in the sand. The same design—a triangle.

  “The eternal triangle,” mused Sarah. “Perhaps you’re right. If so, we’re in for an exciting time in the next few weeks.”

  II

  M. Hercule Poirot was disappointed with Rhodes. He had come to Rhodes for a rest and for a holiday. A holiday, especially, from crime. In late October, so he had been told, Rhodes would be nearly empty. A peaceful, secluded spot.

  That, in itself, was true enough. The Chantrys, the Golds, Pamela and Sarah, the General and himself and two Italian couples were the only guests. But within that restricted circle the intelligent brain of M. Poirot perceived the inevitable shaping of events to come.

  “It is that I am criminal-minded,” he told himself reproachfully. “I have the indigestion! I imagine things.”

  But still he worried.

  One morning he came down to find Mrs. Gold sitting on the terrace doing needlework.

  As he came up to her he had the impression that there was the flicker of a cambric handkerchief swiftly whisked out of sight.

  Mrs. Gold’s eyes were dry, but they were suspiciously bright. Her manner, too, struck him as being a shade too cheerful. The brightness of it was a shade overdone.

  She said:

  “Good morning, M. Poirot,” with such enthusiasm as to arouse his doubts.

  He felt that she could not possibly be quite as pleased to see him as she appeared to be. For she did not, after all, know him very well. And though Hercule Poirot was a conceited little man where his profession was concerned, he was quite modest in his estimate of his personal attractions.

  “Good m
orning, madame,” he responded. “Another beautiful day.”

  “Yes, isn’t it fortunate? But Douglas and I are always lucky in our weather.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. We’re really very lucky altogether. You know, M. Poirot, when one sees so much trouble and unhappiness, and so many couples divorcing each other and all that sort of thing, well, one does feel very grateful for one’s own happiness.”

  “It is pleasant to hear you say so, madame.”

  “Yes. Douglas and I are so wonderfully happy together. We’ve been married five years, you know, and after all, five years is quite a long time nowadays—”

  “I have no doubt that in some cases it can seem an eternity, madame,” said Poirot dryly.

  “—but I really believe that we’re happier now than when we were first married. You see, we’re so absolutely suited to each other.”

  “That, of course, is everything.”

  “That’s why I feel so sorry for people who aren’t happy.”

  “You mean—”

  “Oh! I was speaking generally, M. Poirot.”

  “I see. I see.”

  Mrs. Gold picked up a strand of silk, held it to the light, approved of it, and went on:

  “Mrs. Chantry, for instance—”

  “Yes, Mrs. Chantry?”

  “I don’t think she’s at all a nice woman.”

  “No. No, perhaps not.”

  “In fact, I’m quite sure she’s not a nice woman. But in a way one feels sorry for her. Because in spite of her money and her good looks and all that”—Mrs. Gold’s fingers were trembling and she was quite unable to thread her needle—“she’s not the sort of woman men really stick to. She’s the sort of woman, I think, that men would get tired of very easily. Don’t you think so?”

  “I myself should certainly get tired of her conversation before any great space of time had passed,” said Poirot cautiously.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. She has, of course, a kind of appeal . . .” Mrs. Gold hesitated, her lips trembled, she stabbed uncertainly at her work. A less acute observer than Hercule Poirot could not have failed to notice her distress. She went on inconsequently:

  “Men are just like children! They believe anything. . . .”

  She bent over her work. The tiny wisp of cambric came out again unobtrusively.

  Perhaps Hercule Poirot thought it well to change the subject.

  He said:

  “You do not bathe this morning? And monsieur your husband, is he down on the beach?”

  Mrs. Gold looked up, blinked, resumed her almost defiantly bright manner and replied:

  “No, not this morning. We arranged to go round the walls of the old city. But somehow or other we—we missed each other. They started without me.”

  The pronoun was revealing, but before Poirot could say anything, General Barnes came up from the beach below and dropped into a chair beside them.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Gold. Good morning, Poirot. Both deserters this morning? A lot of absentees. You two, and your husband, Mrs. Gold—and Mrs. Chantry.”

  “And Commander Chantry?” inquired Poirot casually.

  “Oh, no, he’s down there. Miss Pamela’s got him in hand.” The General chuckled. “She’s finding him a little bit difficult! One of the strong, silent men you hear about in books.”

  Marjorie Gold said with a little shiver:

  “He frightens me a little, that man. He—he looks so black sometimes. As though he might do—anything!”

  She shivered.

  “Just indigestion, I expect,” said the General cheerfully. “Dyspepsia is responsible for many a reputation for romantic melancholy or ungovernable rages.”

  Marjorie Gold smiled a polite little smile.

  “And where’s your good man?” inquired the General.

  Her reply came without hesitation—in a natural, cheerful voice.

  “Douglas? Oh, he and Mrs. Chantry have gone into the town. I believe they’ve gone to have a look at the walls of the old city.”

  “Ha, yes—very interesting. Time of the knights and all that. You ought to have gone too, little lady.”

  Mrs. Gold said:

  “I’m afraid I came down rather late.”

  She got up suddenly with a murmured excuse and went into the hotel.

  General Barnes looked after her with a concerned expression, shaking his head gently.

  “Nice little woman, that. Worth a dozen painted trollops like someone whose name we won’t mention! Ha! Husband’s a fool! Doesn’t know when he’s well-off.”

  He shook his head again. Then, rising, he went indoors.

  Sarah Blake had just come up from the beach and had heard the General’s last speech.

  Making a face at the departing warrior’s back, she remarked as she flung herself into a chair:

  “Nice little woman—nice little woman! Men always approve of dowdy women—but when it comes to brass tacks the dress-up trollops win hands down! Sad, but there it is.”

  “Mademoiselle,” said Poirot, and his voice was abrupt. “I do not like all this!”

  “Don’t you? Nor do I. No, let’s be honest, I suppose I do like it really. There is a horrid side of one that enjoys accidents and public calamities and unpleasant things that happen to one’s friends.”

  Poirot asked:

  “Where is Commander Chantry?”

  “On the beach being dissected by Pamela (she’s enjoying herself if you like!) and not being improved in temper by the proceeding. He was looking like a thunder cloud when I came up. There are squalls ahead, believe me.”

  Poirot murmured:

  “There is something I do not understand—”

  “It’s not easy to understand,” said Sarah. “But what’s going to happen that’s the question.”

  Poirot shook his head and murmured:

  “As you say, mademoiselle—it is the future that causes one inquietude.”

  “What a nice way of putting it,” said Sarah and went into the hotel.

  In the doorway she almost collided with Douglas Gold. The young man came out looking rather pleased with himself but at the same time slightly guilty. He said:

  “Hallo, M. Poirot,” and added rather self-consciously, “Been showing Mrs. Chantry the Crusaders’ walls. Marjorie didn’t feel up to going.”

  Poirot’s eyebrows rose slightly, but even had he wished he would have had no time to make a comment for Valentine Chantry came sweeping out, crying in her high voice:

  “Douglas—a pink gin—positively I must have a pink gin.”

  Douglas Gold went off to order the drink. Valentine sank into a chair by Poirot. She was looking radiant this morning.

  She saw her husband and Pamela coming up towards them and waved a hand, crying out:

  “Have a nice bathe, Tony darling? Isn’t it a divine morning?”

  Commander Chantry did not answer. He swung up the steps, passed her without a word or a look and vanished into the bar.

  His hands were clenched by his sides and that faint likeness to a gorilla was accentuated.

  Valentine Chantry’s perfect but rather foolish mouth fell open.

  She said, “Oh,” rather blankly.

  Pamela Lyall’s face expressed keen enjoyment of the situation. Masking it as far as was possible to one of her ingenuous disposition she sat down by Valentine Chantry and inquired:

  “Have you had a nice morning?”

  As Valentine began, “Simply marvellous. We—” Poirot got up and in his turn strolled gently towards the bar. He found young Gold waiting for the pink gin with a flushed face. He looked disturbed and angry.

  He said to Poirot, “That man’s a brute!” And he nodded his head in the direction of the retreating figure of Commander Chantry.

  “It is possible,” said Poirot. “Yes, it is quite possible. But les femmes, they like brutes, remember that!”

  Douglas muttered:

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if he ill-treats her!”

/>   “She probably likes that too.”

  Douglas Gold looked at him in a puzzled way, took up the pink gin and went out with it.

  Hercule Poirot sat on a stool and ordered a sirop de cassis. Whilst he was sipping it with long sighs of enjoyment, Chantry came in and drank several pink gins in rapid succession.

  He said suddenly and violently to the world at large rather than to Poirot:

  “If Valentine thinks she can get rid of me like she’s got rid of a lot of other damned fools, she’s mistaken! I’ve got her and I mean to keep her. No other fellow’s going to get her except over my dead body.”

  He flung down some money, turned on his heel and went out.

  III

  It was three days later that Hercule Poirot went to the Mount of the Prophet. It was a cool, agreeable drive through the golden green fir trees, winding higher and higher, far above the petty wrangling and squabbling of human beings. The car stopped at the restaurant. Poirot got out and wandered into the woods. He came out at last on a spot that seemed truly on top of the world. Far below, deeply and dazzlingly blue, was the sea.

  Here at last he was at peace—removed from cares—above the world. Carefully placing his folded overcoat on a tree stump, Hercule Poirot sat down.

  “Doubtless le bon Dieu knows what he does. But it is odd that he should have permitted himself to fashion certain human beings. Eh bien, here for a while at least I am away from these vexing problems.” Thus he mused.

  He looked up with a start. A little woman in a brown coat and skirt was hurrying towards him. It was Marjorie Gold and this time she had abandoned all pretence. Her face was wet with tears.

  Poirot could not escape. She was upon him.

  “M. Poirot. You’ve got to help me. I’m so miserable I don’t know what to do! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”

  She looked up at him with a distracted face. Her fingers fastened on his coat sleeve. Then, as something she saw in his face alarmed her, she drew back a little.

  “What—what is it?” she faltered.

  “You want my advice, madame? It is that you ask?”

  She stammered, “Yes . . . Yes. . . .”

  “Eh bien—here it is.” He spoke curtly—trenchantly. “Leave this place at once—before it is too late.”

  “What?” She stared at him.

  “You heard me. Leave this island.”