Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and other stories Read online

  He looked back at William Burgess.

  "The discovery," he said kindly, "must have been a great shock to you."

  "Oh it was, sir. I'll never forget it." The valet rushed into speech. Words poured from him. He felt, perhaps, that by telling the story often enough, he might at last expunge it from his mind.

  "I'd gone round the room, sir. Clearing up. Glasses and so on. I'd just stooped to pick up a couple of olives off the floor - and I saw it - on the rug, a rusty dark stain. No, the rug's gone now. To the cleaners. The police had done with it. Whatever's that? I thought. Saying to myself, almost in joke like: 'Really it might be blood! But where does it come from? What got spilled?' And then I saw it was from the chest - down the side, here, where there's a crack. And I said, still not thinking anything, 'Well whatever -?' And I lifted up the lid like this -" (he suited the action to the word) "and there it was the body of a man lying on his side doubled up - like he might be asleep. And that nasty foreign knife or dagger thing sticking up out of his neck. I'll never forget it - never! Not as long as I live! The shock - not expecting it, you understand…"

  He breathed deeply.

  "I let the lid fall and I ran out of the flat and down to the street. Looking for a policeman - and lucky, I found one - just round the corner."

  Poirot regarded him reflectively. The performance, if it was a performance, was very good. He began to be afraid that it was not a performance - that it was just how things had happened.

  "You did not think of awakening first Major Rich?" he asked.

  "It never occurred to me, sir. What with the shock, I - I just wanted to get out of here -" he swallowed - "and - and get help."

  Poirot nodded.

  "Did you realize that it was Mr. Clayton?" he asked.

  "I ought to have, sir, but you know, I don't believe I did. Of course, as soon as I got back with the police officer, I said 'Why, it's Mr. Clayton!' And he says 'Who's Mr. Clayton?' And I says: 'He was here last night.'"

  "Ah," said Poirot, "last night. Do you remember exactly when it was Mr. Clayton arrived here?"

  "Not to the minute. But as near as not a quarter to eight, I'd say."

  "You knew him well?"

  "He and Mrs. Clayton had been here quite frequently during the year and a half I've been employed here."

  "Did he seem quite as usual?"

  "I think so. A little out of breath - but I took it he'd been hurrying. He was catching a train, or so he said."

  "He had a bag with him, I suppose, as he was going to Scotland?"

  "No, sir. I imagine he was keeping a taxi down below."

  "Was he disappointed to find that Major Rich was out?"

  "Not to notice. Just said he'd scribble a note. He came in here and went over to the desk and I went back to the kitchen. I was a little behindhand with the anchovy eggs. The kitchen's at the end of the passage and you don't hear very well from there. I didn't hear him go out or the master come in - but then I wouldn't expect to."

  "And the next thing -"

  "Major Rich called me. He was standing in the door here. He said he'd forgotten Mrs. Spence's Turkish cigarettes. I was to hurry out and get them. So I did. I brought them back and put them on the table in here. Of course I took it that Mr. Clayton had left by then to get his train."

  "And nobody else came to the flat during the time Major Rich was out and you were in the kitchen?"

  "No, sir - no one."

  "Can you be sure of that?"

  "How could anyone, sir? They'd have had to ring the bell."

  Poirot shook his head. How could anyone? The Spences and McLaren and also Mrs. Clayton could, he already knew, account for every minute of their time. McLaren had been with acquaintances at the club, the Spences had had a couple of friends in for a drink before starting. Margharita Clayton had talked to a friend on the telephone at just that period. Not that he thought of any of them as possibilities. There would have been better ways of killing Arnold Clayton than following him to a flat with a manservant there and the host returning any moment. No, he had had a last minute hope of a "mysterious stranger"! Someone out of Clayton's apparently impeccable past, recognizing him in the street, following him here. Attacking him with the stiletto, thrusting the body into the chest, and fleeing. Pure melodrama, unrelated to reason or to probabilities! In tune with romantic historical fictions - matching the Spanish chest.

  He went back across the room to the chest. He raised the lid. It came up easily, noiselessly. In a faint voice, Burgess said: "It's been scrubbed out, sir, I saw to that."

  Poirot bent over it. With a faint exclamation he bent lower. He explored with his fingers.

  "These holes - at the back and one side - they look - they feel, as though they had been made quite recently."

  "Holes, sir?" The valet bent to see. "I really couldn't say. I've never noticed them particularly."

  "They are not very obvious. But they are there. What is their purpose, would you say?"

  "I really wouldn't know, sir. Some animal, perhaps - I mean a beetle, something of that kind. Something that gnaws wood?"

  "Some animal?" said Poirot. "I wonder."

  He stepped back across the room.

  "When you came in here with the cigarettes, was there anything at all about this room that looked different? Anything at all? Chairs moved, table, something of that kind?"

  "It's odd your saying that, sir... Now you come to mention it, there was. That screen there that cuts off the draft from the bedroom door, it was moved over a bit more to the left."

  "Like this?" Poirot moved swiftly.

  "A little more still... That's right."

  The screen had already masked about half of the chest. The way it was now arranged, it almost hid the chest altogether.

  "Why did you think it had been moved?"

  "I didn't think, sir."

  (Another Miss Lemon!)

  Burgess added doubtfully:

  "I suppose it leaves the way into the bedroom clearer - if the ladies wanted to leave their wraps."

  "Perhaps. But there might be another reason." Burgess looked inquiring. "The screen hides the chest now, and it hides the rug below the chest. If Major Rich stabbed Mr. Clayton, blood would presently start dripping through the cracks at the base of the chest. Someone might notice - as you noticed the next morning. So - the screen was moved."

  "I never thought of that, sir."

  "What are the lights like here, strong or dim?"

  "I'll show you, sir."

  Quickly, the valet drew the curtains and switched on a couple of lamps. They gave a soft mellow light, hardly strong enough even to read by. Poirot glanced up at a ceiling light.

  "That wasn't on, sir. It's very little used."

  Poirot looked round in the soft glow. The valet said:

  "I don't believe you'd see any bloodstains, sir, it's too dim."

  "I think you are right. So, then, why was the screen moved?"

  Burgess shivered.

  "It's awful to think of - a nice gentleman like Major Rich doing a thing like that."

  "You've no doubt that he did do it? Why did he do it, Burgess?"

  "Well, he'd been through the war, of course. He might have had a head wound, mightn't he? They do say as sometimes it all flares up years afterwards. They suddenly go all queer and don't know what they're doing. And they say as often as not, it's their nearest and dearest as they goes for. Do you think it could have been like that?"

  Poirot gazed at him. He sighed. He turned away. "No," he said, "it was not like that."

  With the air of a conjuror, a piece of crisp paper was insinuated into Burgess's hand.

  "Oh thank you, sir, but really I don't -"

  "You have helped me," said Poirot. "By showing me this room. By showing me what is in the room. By showing me what took place that evening. The impossible is never impossible! Remember that. I said that there were only two possibilities - I was wrong. There is a third possibility." He looked round the room again and
gave a little shiver. "Pull back the curtains. Let in the light and the air. This room needs it. It needs cleansing. It will be a long time, I think, before it is purified from what afflicts it - the lingering memory of hate."

  Burgess, his mouth open, handed Poirot his hat and coat. He seemed bewildered. Poirot, who enjoyed making incomprehensible statements, went down to the street with a brisk step.

  When Poirot got home, he made a telephone call to Inspector Miller.

  "What happened to Clayton's bag? His wife said he had packed one."

  "It was at the club. He left it with the porter. Then he must have forgotten it and gone off without it."

  "What was in it?"

  "What you'd expect. Pyjamas, extra shirt, washing things."

  "Very thorough."

  "What did you expect would be in it?"

  Poirot ignored that question. He said:

  "About the stiletto. I suggest that you get hold of whatever cleaning woman attends Mrs. Spence's house. Find out if she ever saw anything like it lying about there."

  "Mrs. Spence?" Miller whistled. "Is that the way your mind is working? The Spences were shown the stiletto. They didn't recognize it."

  "Ask them again."

  "Do you mean -"

  "And then let me know what they say."

  "I can't imagine what you think you have got hold of."

  "Read Othello, Miller. Consider the characters in Othello. We've missed out one of them."

  He rang off. Next he dialed Lady Chatterton. The number was engaged.

  He tried again a little later. Still no success. He called for George, his valet, and instructed him to continue ringing the number until he got a reply. Lady Chatterton, he knew, was an incorrigible telephoner.

  He sat down in a chair, carefully eased off his patent leather shoes, stretched his toes, and leaned back.

  "I am old," said Hercule Poirot. "I tire easily..." He brightened. "But the cells - they still function. Slowly - but they function. Othello, yes. Who was it said that to me? Ah yes, Mrs. Spence. The bag... the screen... the body, lying there like a man asleep. A clever murder. Premeditated, planned... I think, enjoyed!.."

  George announced to him that Lady Chatterton was on the line.

  "Hercule Poirot here, madame. May I speak to your guest?"

  "Why, of course! Oh M. Poirot, have you done something wonderful?"

  "Not yet," said Poirot. "But possibly, it marches."

  Presently Margharita's voice - quiet, gentle.

  "Madame, when I asked you if you noticed anything out of place that evening at the party, you frowned, as though you remembered something - and then it escaped you. Would it have been the position of the screen that night?"

  "The screen? Why, of course, yes. It was not quite in its usual place."

  "Did you dance that night?"

  "Part of the time."

  "Who did you dance with mostly?"

  "Jeremy Spence. He's a wonderful dancer. Charles is good but not spectacular. He and Linda danced, and now and then we changed. Jock McLaren doesn't dance. He got out the records and sorted them and arranged what we'd have."

  "You had serious music later?"

  "Yes."

  There was a pause. Then Margharita said:

  "M. Poirot, what is - all this? Have you - is there - hope?"

  "Do you ever know, madame, what the people around you are feeling?"

  Her voice, faintly surprised, said:

  "I - suppose so."

  "I suppose not. I think you have no idea. I think that is the tragedy of your life. But the tragedy is for other people - not for you.

  "Someone today mentioned to me Othello. I asked you if your husband was jealous, and you said you thought he must be. But you said it quite lightly. You said it as Desdemona might have said it, not realizing danger. She, too, recognized jealousy, but she did not understand it, because she herself never had, and never could, experience jealousy. She was, I think, quite unaware of the force of acute physical passion. She loved her husband with the romantic fervor of hero worship, she loved her friend Cassio, quite innocently, as a close companion. I think that because of her immunity to passion, she herself drove men mad. Am I making sense to you, madame?"

  There was a pause - and then Margharita's voice answered. Cool, sweet, a little bewildered:

  "I don't - I don't really understand what you are saying -"

  Poirot sighed.

  He spoke in matter-of-fact tones. "This evening," he said, "I pay you a visit."

  Inspector Miller was not an easy man to persuade. But equally Hercule Poirot was not an easy man to shake off until he had got his way. Inspector Miller grumbled, but capitulated.

  "- though what Lady Chatterton's got to do with this -"

  "Nothing, really. She has provided asylum for a friend, that is all."

  "About those Spences - how did you know?"

  "That stiletto came from there? It was a mere guess. Something Jeremy Spence said gave me the idea. I suggested that the stiletto belonged to Margharita Clayton. He showed that he knew positively that it did not." He paused. "What did they say?" he asked with some curiosity.

  "Admitted that it was very like a toy dagger they'd once had. But it had been mislaid some weeks ago, and they had really forgotten about it. I suppose Rich pinched it from there."

  "A man who likes to play safe, Mr. Jeremy Spence," said Hercule Poirot. He muttered to himself: "Some weeks ago. Oh yes, the planning began a long time ago."

  "Eh, what's that?"

  "We arrive," said Poirot. The taxi drew up at Lady Chatterton's house in Cheriton Street. Poirot paid the fare.

  Margharita Clayton was waiting for them in the room upstairs. Her face hardened when she saw Miller.

  "I didn't know -"

  "You did not know who the friend was I proposed to bring?"

  "Inspector Miller is not a friend of mine."

  "That rather depends on whether you want to see justice done or not, Mrs. Clayton. Your husband was murdered -"

  "And now we have to talk of who killed him," said Poirot quickly. "May we sit down, madame?"

  Slowly Margharita sat down in a high-backed chair facing the two men.

  "I ask," said Poirot, addressing both his hearers, "to listen to me patiently. I think I now know what happened on that fatal evening at Major Rich's flat. We started, all of us, by an assumption that was not true - the assumption that there were only two persons who had the opportunity of putting the body in the chest - that is to say, Major Rich or William Burgess. But we were wrong - there was a third person at the flat that evening who had an equally good opportunity to do so."

  "And who was that?" demanded Miller sceptically. "The lift boy?"

  "No. Arnold Clayton."

  "What? Concealed his own dead body? You're crazy."

  "Naturally not a dead body - a live one. In simple terms, he hid himself in the chest. A thing that has often been done throughout the course of history. The dead bride in the Mistletoe Bough, Iachimo with designs on the virtue of Imogen, and so on. I thought of it as soon as I saw that there had been holes bored in the chest quite recently. Why? They were made so that there might be a sufficiency of air in the chest. Why was the screen moved from its usual position that evening? So as to hide the chest from the people in the room. So that the hidden man could lift the lid from time to time and relieve his cramp, and hear better what went on."

  "But why," demanded Margharita wide-eyed with astonishment. "Why should Arnold want to hide in the chest?"

  "Is it you who ask that, madame? Your husband was a jealous man. He was also an inarticulate man. 'Bottled up,' as your friend Mrs. Spence put it. His jealousy mounted. It tortured him! Were you or were you not Rich's mistress? He did not know! He had to know! So - a 'telegram from Scotland,' the telegram that was never sent and that no one ever saw! The overnight bag is packed and conveniently forgotten at the club. He goes to the flat at a time when he has probably ascertained Rich will be out. He tel
ls the valet he will write a note. As soon as he is left alone, he bores the holes in the chest, moves the screen, and climbs inside the chest. Tonight he will know the truth. Perhaps his wife will stay behind the others, perhaps she will go but come back again. That night the desperate, jealousy racked man will know…"

  "You're not saying he stabbed himself?" Miller's voice was incredulous. "Nonsense!"

  "Oh no, someone else stabbed him. Somebody who knew he was there. It was murder all right. Carefully planned, long premeditated murder. Think of the other characters in Othello. It is Iago we should have remembered. Subtle poisoning of Arnold Clayton's mind; hints, suspicions. Honest Iago, the faithful friend, the man you always believe! Arnold Clayton believed him. Arnold Clayton let his jealousy be played upon, be roused to fever pitch. Was the plan of hiding in the chest Arnold's own idea? He may have thought it was - probably he did think so! And so the scene is set. The stiletto, quietly abstracted some weeks earlier, is ready. The evening comes. The lights are low, the gramophone is playing, two couples dance, the odd man out is busy at the record cabinet, close to the Spanish chest and its masking screen. To slip behind the screen, lift the lid and strike - Audacious, but quiet easy!"

  "Clayton would have cried out!"

  "Not if he were drugged," said Poirot. "According to the valet, the body was 'lying like a man asleep.' Clayton was asleep, drugged by the only man who could have drugged him, the man he had had a drink with at the club."

  "Jock?" Margharita's voice rose high in childlike surprise. "Jock? Not dear old Jock. Why, I've known Jock all my life! Why on earth should Jock...?"

  Poirot turned on her.

  "Why did two Italians fight a duel? Why did a young man shoot himself? Jock McLaren is an inarticulate man. He has resigned himself, perhaps, to being the faithful friend to you and your husband, but then comes Major Rich as well. It is too much! In the darkness of hate and desire, he plans what is well nigh the perfect murder - a double murder, for he is almost certain to be found guilty of it. And with Rich and your husband both out of the way - he thinks that at last you may turn to him. And perhaps, madame, you would have done... Eh?"