The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories Part 18

The valet was waiting for him at Major Rich's flat, apprised of his arrival by a telephone call from Commander McLaren.

"I am M. Hercule Poirot."

"Yes, sir, I was expecting you."

Burgess held back the door with a deferential hand and Poirot entered. A small square entrance hall, a door on the left, open, leading into the sitting room. Burgess relieved Poirot of his hat and coat, and followed him into the sitting room.

"Ah," said Poirot looking round. "It was here, then, that it happened?"

"Yes, sir."

A quiet fellow, Burgess, white faced, a little weedy. Awkward shoulders and elbows. A flat voice with a provincial accent that Poirot did not know. From the east coast, perhaps. Rather a nervous man, perhaps - but otherwise no definite characteristics. It was hard to a.s.sociate him with positive action of any kind. Could one postulate a negative killer?

He had those pale blue, rather shifty eyes that observant people often equate with dishonesty. Yet a liar can look you in the face with a bold and confident eye.

"What is happening to the flat?" Poirot inquired.

"I'm still looking after it, sir. Major Rich arranged for my pay and to keep it nice until - until -"

The eyes shifted uncomfortably.

"Until -" agreed Poirot.

He added in a matter-of-fact manner: "I should say that Major Rich will almost certainly be committed for trial. The case will come up probably within three months."

Burgess shook his head, not in denial, simply in perplexity.

"It really doesn't seem possible," he said.

"That Major Rich should be a murderer?"

"The whole thing. That chest -"

His eyes went across the room.

"Ah, so that is the famous chest?"

It was a mammoth piece of furniture of very dark polished wood, studded with bra.s.s, with a great bra.s.s hasp and antique lock.

"A handsome affair." Poirot went over to it.

It stood against the wall near the window, next to a modern cabinet for holding records. On the other side of it was a door, half ajar. The door was partly masked by a big painted leather screen.

"That leads into Major Rich's bedroom," said Burgess.

Poirot nodded. His eyes traveled to the other side of the room. There were two stereophonic record players, each on a low table, trailing snake-like electrical cord. There were easy chairs - a big table. On the walls were a set of j.a.panese prints. It was a handsome room, comfortable, but not luxurious.

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. Gla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage 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 o the table in here. Of course I took it that Mr. Clayton had left by then to get his train."

"And n.o.body 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 Oth.e.l.lo, Miller. Consider the characters in Oth.e.l.lo. We've missed out one of them."