Agatha Christie - Cards on the Table

Miss Meredith gave a little gasp as she said, "What a queer man he is!"

"Doctor Roberts?"

"No, Mr. Shaitana."

She shivered a little and said, "There's always something a little frightening about him, I think. You never know what would strike him as amusing. It might – it might be something cruel!"

"Such as fox hunting, eh?"

Miss Meredith threw him a reproachful glance.

"I meant – oh, something Oriental!"

"He has perhaps the tortuous mind," admitted Poirot.

"Torturer's?"

"No, no, tortuous, I said."

"I don't think I like him frightfully," confided Miss Meredith, her voice dropping.

"You will like his dinner, though," Poirot assured her. "He has a marvelous cook."

She looked at him doubtfully and then laughed. "Why," she exclaimed, "I believe you are quite human!"

"But certainly I am human!"

"You see," said Miss Meredith, "all these celebrities are rather intimidating."

"Mademoiselle, you should not be intimidated – you should be thrilled! You should have all ready your autograph book and your fountain pen."

"Well, you see, I'm not really terribly interested in crime. I don't think women are; it's always men who read detective stories."

Hercule Poirot sighed affectedly.

"Alas!" he murmured. "What would I not give at this minute to be even the most minor of film stars!"

The butler threw the door open.

"Dinner is served," he announced.

Poirot's prognostication was amply justified. The dinner was delicious and its serving perfection. Subdued light, polished wood, the blue gleam of Irish glass. In the dimness, at the head of the table Mr. Shaitana looked more than ever diabolical.

He apologized gracefully for the uneven number of the sexes. Mrs. Lorrimer was on his right hand, Mrs. Oliver on his left. Miss Meredith was between Superintendent Battle and Major Despard. Poirot was between Mrs. Lorrimer and Doctor Roberts.

The latter murmured facetiously to him, "You're not going to be allowed to monopolize the only pretty girl all the evening. You French fellows, you don't waste your time, do you?"

"I happen to be Belgian," murmured Poirot.

"Same thing where the ladies are concerned, I expect, my boy," said the doctor cheerfully.

Then, dropping the facetiousness, and adopting a professional tone he began to talk to Colonel Race on his other side about the latest developments in the treatment of sleeping sickness.

Mrs. Lorrimer turned to Poirot and began to talk of the latest plays. Her judgments were sound and her criticisms apt. They drifted on to books and then to world politics. He found her a well-informed and thoroughly intelligent woman.

On the opposite side of the table Mrs. Oliver was asking Major Despard if he knew of any unheard-of, out-of-the-way poisons.

"Well, there's curare."

"My dear man, vieux jeu! That's been done hundreds of times. I mean something new!"

Major Despard said dryly, "Primitive tribes are rather old fashioned. They stick to the good old stuff their grandfathers and great-grandfathers used before them."

"Very tiresome of them," said Mrs. Oliver. "I should have thought they were always experimenting with pounding up herbs and things. Such a chance for explorers, I always think. They could come home and kill off all their rich old uncles with some new drug that no one's ever heard of."

"You should go to civilization, not to the wilds for that," said Despard. "In the modern laboratory, for instance. Cultures of innocent looking germs that will produce bona fide diseases."

"That wouldn't do for my public," said Mrs. Oliver. "Besides one is so apt to get the names wrong – staphylococcus and streptococcus and all those things – so difficult for my secretary and anyway rather dull, don't you think so? What do you think, Superintendent Battle?"

"In real life people don't bother about being too subtle, Mrs. Oliver," said the superintendent. "They usually stick to arsenic because it's nice and handy to get hold of."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Oliver. "That's simply because there are lots of crimes you people at Scotland Yard never find out. Now if you had a woman there -"

"As a matter of fact we have -"

"Yes, those dreadful policewomen in funny hats who bother people in parks! I mean a woman at the head of things. Women know about crime."

"They're usually very successful criminals," said Superintendent Battle. "Keep their heads well. It's amazing how they'll brazen things out."

Mr. Shaitana laughed gently.

"Poison is a woman's weapon," he said. "There must be many secret woman poisoners – never found out."

"Of course there are," said Mrs. Oliver happily, helping herself lavishly to a mousse of foie gras.

"A doctor, too, has opportunities," went on Mr. Shaitana thoughtfully.

"I protest," cried Doctor Roberts. "When we poison our patients it's entirely by accident." He laughed heartily.

"But if I were to commit a crime," went on Mr. Shaitana. He stopped, and something in that pause compelled attention.

All faces were turned to him.

"I should make it very simple, I think. There's always accident – a shooting accident for instance – or the domestic kind of accident."

Then he shrugged his shoulders and picked up his wineglass. "But who am I to pronounce – with so many experts present?"

He drank. The candlelight threw a red shade from the wine onto his face with its waxed mustache, its little imperial, its fantastic eyebrows.

There was a momentary silence.

Mrs. Oliver said, "Is it twenty to or twenty past? An angel passing. My feet are crossed – it must be a black angel!"

When the company returned to the drawing-room a bridge table had been set out. Coffee was handed round.

"Who plays bridge?" asked Mr. Shaitana. "Mrs. Lorrimer, I know. And Doctor Roberts. Do you play, Miss Meredith?"

"Yes. I'm not frightfully good, though."

"Excellent. And Major Despard? Good. Supposing you four play here."

"Thank goodness there's to be bridge," said Mrs. Lorrimer in an aside to Poirot. "I'm one of the worst bridge fiends that ever lived. It's growing on me. I simply will not go out to dinner now if there's no bridge afterward! I just fall asleep. I'm ashamed of myself, but there it is."

They cut for partners. Mrs. Lorrimer was partnered with Anne Meredith against Major Despard and Doctor Roberts.

"Women against men," said Mrs. Lorrimer as she took her seat and began shuffling the cards in an expert manner. "The blue cards, don't you think, partner? I'm a forcing two."

"Mind you win," said Mrs. Oliver, her feminist feelings rising. "Show the men they can't have it all their own way."

"They haven't got a hope, the poor dears," said Doctor Roberts cheerfully as he started shuffling the other pack. "Your deal, I think, Mrs. Lorrimer."

Major Despard sat down rather slowly. He was looking at Anne Meredith as though he had just made the discovery that she was remarkably pretty.

"Cut please," said Mrs. Lorrimer impatiently. And with a start of apology he cut the pack she was presenting to him.

Mrs. Lorrimer began to deal with a practiced hand.

"There is another bridge table in the other room," said Mr. Shaitana.

He crossed to a second door and the other four followed him into a small, comfortably furnished smoking-room where a second bridge table was set ready.

"We must cut out," said Colonel Race.

Mr. Shaitana shook his head. "I do not play," he said. "Bridge is not one of the games that amuse me."

The others protested that they would much rather not play, but he overruled them firmly and in the end they sat down – Poirot and Mrs. Oliver against Battle and Race.

Mr. Shaitana watched them for a little while, smiled in a Mephistophelean manner as he observed on what hand Mrs. Oliver declared two no trumps, and then went noiselessly through into the other room.