Agatha Christie - The Labours of Hercules

"He went down in the funicular?"

She looked at him curiously.

"Naturally, Monsieur. What other way is there to go?"

Poirot asked: "Did anyone see him go?"

They both stared at him.

"Ah! do you think it likely that one goes to see off an animal like that – that one gives him the grand farewell? One has one's own affairs to occupy one."

"Precisely," said Hercule Poirot.

He walked slowly away, staring up as he did so at the building above him. A large hotel – with only one wing open at present. In the other wings were many rooms, closed and shuttered where no one was likely to enter.

He came round the corner of the hotel and nearly ran into one of the three card-playing men. It was the one with the pasty face and pale eyes. The eyes looked at Poirot without expression. Only the lips curled back a little showing the teeth like a vicious horse.

Poirot passed him and went on. There was a figure ahead of him – the tall graceful figure of Madame Grandier.

He hastened his pace a little and caught her up.

He said: "This accident to the funicular, it is distressing. I hope, Madame, that it has not inconvenienced you?"

She said: "It is a matter of indifference to me."

Her voice was very deep – a full contralto. She did not look at Poirot. She swerved aside and went into the hotel by a small side door.

Hercule Poirot went to bed early. He was awakened some time after midnight.

Someone was fumbling with the lock of the door.

He sat up, putting on the light. At the same moment the lock yielded to manipulation and the door swung open. Three men stood there, the three card-playing men. They were, Poirot thought, slightly drunk. Their faces were foolish and yet malevolent. He saw the gleam of a razor blade.

The big thickset man advanced. He spoke in a growling voice.

"Sacred pig of a detective! Bah!"

He burst into a torrent of profanity. The three of them advanced purposefully on the defenceless man in the bed.

"We'll carve him up, boys. Eh, little horses? We'll slash Monsieur Detective's face open for him. He won't be the first one tonight."

They came on, steady, purposeful – the razor blades flashed.

And then, startling in its crisp transatlantic tones, a voice said: "Stick'em up."

They swerved round. Schwartz, dressed in a peculiarly vivid set of striped pyjamas stood in the doorway. In his hand he held an automatic.

"Stick 'em up, guys. I'm pretty good at shooting."

He pressed the trigger – and a bullet sang past the big man's ear and buried itself in the woodwork of the window.

Three pairs of hands were raised rapidly.

Schwartz said: "Can I trouble you, M. Poirier?"

Hercule Poirot was out of bed in a flash. He collected the gleaming weapons and passed his hands over the three men's bodies to make sure they were not armed.

Schwartz said: "Now then, march! There's a big cupboard just along the corridor. No window in it. Just the thing."

He marched them into it and turned the key on them. He swung round to Poirot, his voice breaking with pleasurable emotion.

"If that doesn't just show? Do you know, M. Poirier, there were folks in Fountain Springs who laughed at me because I said I was going to take a gun abroad with me. 'Where do you think you're going?' they asked. 'Into the jungle?' Well, sir. I'd say the laugh is with me. Did you ever see such an ugly bunch of toughs?"

Poirot said: "My dear Mr Schwartz, you appeared in the nick of time. It might have been a drama on the stage! I am very much in your debt."

"That's nothing. Where do we go from here? We ought to turn these boys over to the police and that's just what we can't do! It's a knotty problem. Maybe we'd better consult the manager."

Hercule Poirot said: "Ah, the manager. I think first we will consult the waiter – Gustave – alias Inspector Drouet. But yes – the waiter Gustave is really a detective."

Schwartz stared at him.

"So that's why they did it!"

"That is why who did what?"

"This bunch of crooks got to you second on the list. They'd already carved up Gustave."

"What?"

"Come with me. The doc's busy on him now."

Drouet's room was a small one on the top floor. Dr Lutz, in a dressing-gown, was busy bandaging the injured man's face.

He turned his head as they entered.

"Ah! It is you, Mr Schwartz? A nasty business, this. What butchers! What inhuman monsters!"

Drouet lay still, moaning faintly.

Schwartz asked: "Is he in danger?"

"He will not die if that is what you mean. But he must not speak – there must be no excitement. I have dressed the wounds – there will be no risk of septicaemia."

The three men left the room together.

Schwartz said to Poirot: "Did you say Gustave was a police officer?"

Hercule Poirot nodded.

"But what was he doing up at Rochers Neiges?"

"He was engaged in tracking down a very dangerous criminal."

In a few words Poirot explained the situation.

Dr Lutz said: "Marrascaud? I read about the case in the paper. I should much like to meet that man. There is some deep abnormality there! I should like to know the particulars of his childhood."

"For myself," said Hercule Poirot, "I should like to know exactly where he is at this minute."

Schwartz said: "Isn't he one of the three we locked in the cupboard?"

Poirot said in a dissatisfied voice: "It is possible – yes, but me, I am not sure… I have an idea -"

He broke off, staring down at the carpet. It was of a light buff colour and there were marks on it of a deep rusty brown.

Hercule Poirot said: "Footsteps – footsteps that have trodden, I think, in blood and they lead from the unused wing of the hotel. Come – we must be quick!"

They followed him, through a swing door and along a dim, dusty corridor. They turned the corner of it, still following the marks on the carpet until the tracks led them to a half-open doorway.

Poirot pushed the door open and entered.

He uttered a sharp, horrified exclamation.

The room was a bedroom. The bed had been slept in and there was a tray of food on the table.

In the middle of the floor lay the body of a man. He was of just over middle height and he had been attacked with savage and unbelievable ferocity. There were a dozen wounds on his arms and chest and his head and face had been battered almost to a pulp.

Schwartz gave a half-stifled exclamation and turned away looking as though he might be sick.

Dr Lutz uttered a horrified exclamation in German.

Schwartz said faintly: "Who is this guy? Does anyone know?"

"I fancy," said Poirot, "that he was known here as Robert, a rather unskilful waiter."

Lutz had gone nearer, bending over the body. He pointed with a finger.

There was a paper pinned to the dead man's breast. It had some words scrawled on it in ink.

Marrascaud will kill no more – nor will he rob his friends!

Schwartz ejaculated: "Marrascaud? So this is Marrascaud! But what brought him up here to this out of the way spot? And why do you say his name is Robert?"

Poirot said: "He was here masquerading as a waiter – and by all accounts he was a very bad waiter. So bad that no one was surprised when he was given the sack. He left – presumably to return to Andermatt. But nobody saw him go."

Lutz said in his low rumbling voice: "So – and what do you think happened?"

Poirot replied: "I think we have here the explanation of a certain worried expression on the hotel manager's face. Marrascaud must have offered him a big bribe to allow him to remain hidden in the unused part of the hotel…"

He added thoughtfully: "But the manager was not happy about it. Oh no, he was not happy at all."

"And Marrascaud continued to live in this unused wing with no one but the manager knowing about it?"