Agatha Christie - Peril at End House

With the discovery of the missing pistol, however, the affair took on a new phase. Nick ceased to treat it as a mildly amusing joke. She still treated the matter lightly, because it was her habit and her creed to treat all occurrences lightly, but there was a distinct difference in her manner.

She came back and sat down on the arm of a chair, frowning thoughtfully. 'That's odd,' she said. Poirot whirled round on me.

'You remember, Hastings, the little idea I mentioned? Well, it was correct, my little idea! Supposing Mademoiselle had been found shot lying in the hotel garden? She might not have been found for some hours-few people pass that way. And beside her hand – just fallen from it – is her own pistol. Doubtless the good Madame Ellen would identify it. There would be suggestions, no doubt, of worry or of sleeplessness-'

Nick moved uneasily.

'That's true. I have been worried to death. Everybody's been telling me I'm nervy. Yes-they'd say all that…'

'And bring in a verdict of suicide. Mademoiselle's fingerprints conveniently on the pistol and nobody else's-but yes, it would be very simple and convincing.'

'How terribly amusing!' said Nick, but not, I was glad to note, as though she were terribly amused.

Poirot accepted her words in the conventional sense in which they were uttered.

'N'est ce pas? But you understand, Mademoiselle, there must be no more of this. Four failures-yes-but the fifth time there may be a success.'

'Bring out your rubber-tyred hearses,' murmured Nick.

'But we are here, my friend and I, to obviate all that!' I felt grateful for the 'we'. Poirot has a habit of sometimes ignoring my existence.

'Yes,' I put in. 'You mustn't be alarmed, Miss Buckley. We will protect you.'

'How frightfully nice of you,' said Nick. 'I think the whole thing is perfectly marvellous. Too, too thrilling.'

She still preserved her airy detached manner, but her eyes, I thought, looked troubled.

'And the first thing to do,' said Poirot, 'is to have the consultation.' He sat down and beamed upon her in a friendly manner.

'To begin with, Mademoiselle, a conventional question-but-have you any enemies?'

Nick shook her head rather regretfully. 'I'm afraid not,' she said apologetically.

'Bon. We will dismiss that possibility then. And now we ask the question of the cinema, of the detective novel-Who profits by your death, Mademoiselle?'

'I can't imagine,' said Nick. 'That's why it all seems such nonsense. There's this beastly old barn, of course, but it's mortgaged up to the hilt, the roof leaks and there can't be a coal mine or anything exciting like that hidden in the cliff.'

'It is mortgaged-hein?'

'Yes. I had to mortgage it. You see there were two lots of death duties-quite soon after each other. First my grandfather died-just six years ago, and then my brother. That just about put the lid on the financial position.'

'And your father?'

'He was invalided home from the War, then got pneumonia and died in 1919. My mother died when I was a baby. I lived here with grandfather. He and Dad didn't get on (I don't wonder), so Dad found it convenient to park me and go roaming the world on his own account. Gerald-that was my brother-didn't get on with grandfather either. I dare say I shouldn't have got on with him if I'd been a boy. Being a girl saved me. Grandfather used to say I was a chip off the old block and had inherited his spirit.' She laughed. 'He was an awful old rip, I believe. But frightfully lucky. There was a saying round here that everything he touched turned to gold. He was a gambler, though, and gambled it away again. When he died he left hardly anything beside the house and land. I was sixteen when he died and Gerald was twenty-two. Gerald was killed in a motor accident just three years ago and the place came to me.'

'And after you, Mademoiselle? Who is your nearest relation?'

'My cousin, Charles. Charles Vyse. He's a lawyer down here. Quite good and worthy but very dull. He gives me good advice and tries to restrain my extravagant tastes.'

'He manages your affairs for you-eh?'

'Well-yes, if you like to put it that way. I haven't many affairs to manage. He arranged the mortgage for me and made me let the lodge.'

'Ah!-the lodge. I was going to ask you about that. It is let?'

'Yes-to some Australians. Croft their name is. Very hearty, you know-and all that sort of thing. Simply oppressively kind. Always bringing up sticks of celery and early peas and things like that. They're shocked at the way I let the garden go. They're rather a nuisance, really-at least he is. Too terribly friendly for words. She's a cripple, poor thing, and lies on a sofa all day. Anyway they pay the rent and that's the great thing.'

'How long have they been here?'

'Oh! about six months.'

'I see. Now, beyond this cousin of yours-on your father's side or your mother's, by the way?'

'Mother's. My mother was Amy Vyse.'

'Bien! Now, beyond this cousin, as I was saying, have you any other relatives?'

'Some very distant cousins in Yorkshire-Buckleys.'

'No one else?'

'No.'

'That is lonely.'

Nick stared at him.

'Lonely? What a funny idea. I'm not down here much, you know. I'm usually in London. Relations are too devastating as a rule. They fuss and interfere. It's much more fun to be on one's own.'

'I will not waste the sympathy. You are a modern, I see, Mademoiselle. Now-your household.'

'How grand that sounds! Ellen's the household. And her husband, who's a sort of gardener-not a very good one. I pay them frightfully little because I let them have the child here. Ellen does for me when I'm down here and if I have a party we get in who and what we can to help. I'm giving a party on Monday. It's Regatta week, you know.'

'Monday-and today is Saturday. Yes. Yes. And now, Mademoiselle, your friends-the ones with whom you were lunching today, for instance?'

'Well, Freddie Rice-the fair girl-is practically my greatest friend. She's had a rotten life. Married to a beast-a man who drank and drugged and was altogether a queer of the worst description. She had to leave him a year or two ago. Since then she's drifted round. I wish to goodness she'd get a divorce and marry Jim Lazarus.'

'Lazarus? The art dealer in Bond Street?'

'Yes. Jim's the only son. Rolling in money, of course. Did you see that car of his? He's a Jew, of course, but a frightfully decent one. And he's devoted to Freddie. They go about everywhere together. They are staying at the Majestic over the week-end and are coming to me on Monday.'

'And Mrs Rice's husband?'

'The mess? Oh! he's dropped out of everything. Nobody knows where he is. It makes it horribly awkward for Freddie. You can't divorce a man when you don't know where he is.'

'Evidemment!'

'Poor Freddie,' said Nick, pensively. 'She's had rotten luck. The thing was all fixed once. She got hold of him and put it to him, and he said he was perfectly willing, but he simply hadn't got the cash to take a woman to a hotel. So the end of it all was she forked out-and he took it and off he went and has never been heard of from that day to this. Pretty mean, I call it.'

'Good heavens,' I exclaimed.

'My friend Hastings is shocked,' remarked Poirot. 'You must be more careful, Mademoiselle. He is out of date, you comprehend. He has just returned from those great clear open spaces, etc., and he has yet to learn the language of nowadays.'

'Well, there's nothing to get shocked about,' said Nick, opening her eyes very wide. 'I mean, everybody knows, don't they, that there are such people. But I call it a low-down trick all the same. Poor old Freddie was so damned hard up at the time that she didn't know where to turn.'

'Yes, yes, not a very pretty affair. And your other friend, Mademoiselle. The good Commander Challenger?'