Agatha Christie: Cards on the Table

Doctor Roberts left the room, his bearing springy once more. Mrs. Oliver said bitterly as the door closed behind him, "Copy! Copy indeed! People are so unintelligent. I could invent a better murder any day than anything real. I'm never at a loss for a plot. And the people who read my books like untraceable poisons!"

Mrs. Lorrimer came into the dining-room like a gentlewoman. She looked a little pale, but composed.

"I'm sorry to have to bother you," Superintendent Battle began.

"You must do your duty, of course," said Mrs. Lorrimer quietly. "It is, I agree, an unpleasant position in which to be placed, but there is no good shirking it. I quite realize that one of the four people in that room must be guilty. Naturally I can't expect you to take my word that I am not the person."

She accepted the chair that Colonel Race offered her and sat down opposite the superintendent. Her intelligent gray eyes met his. She waited attentively.

"You knew Mr. Shaitana well?" began the superintendent.

"Not very well. I have known him over a period of some years, but never intimately."

"Where did you meet him?"

"At a hotel in Egypt – the Winter Palace at Luxor, I think."

"What did you think of him?"

Mrs. Lorrimer shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"I thought him – I may as well say so – rather a charlatan."

"You had – excuse me for asking – no motive for wishing him out of the way?"

Mrs. Lorrimer looked slightly amused.

"Really, Superintendent Battle, do you think I should admit it if I had?"

"You might," said Battle. "A really intelligent person might know that a thing was bound to come out."

Mrs. Lorrimer inclined her head thoughtfully.

"There is that, of course. No, Superintendent Battle, I had no motive for wishing Mr. Shaitana out of the way. It is really a matter of indifference to me whether he is alive or dead. I thought him a poser and rather theatrical, and sometimes he irritated me. That is – or rather was – my attitude toward him."

"That is that, then. Now, Mrs. Lorrimer, can you tell me anything about your three companions?"

"I'm afraid not. Major Despard and Miss Meredith I met for the first time tonight. Both of them seem charming people. Doctor Roberts I know slightly. He's a very popular doctor, I believe."

"He is not your own doctor?"

"Oh, no."

"Now, Mrs. Lorrimer, can you tell me how often you got up from your seat tonight, and will you also describe the movements of the other three?"

Mrs. Lorrimer did not take any time to think.

"I thought you would probably ask me that. I have been trying to think it out. I got up once myself when I was dummy. I went over to the fire. Mr. Shaitana was alive then. I mentioned to him how nice it was to see a wood fire."

"And he answered?"

"That he hated radiators."

"Did anyone overhear your conversation?"

"I don't think so. I lowered my voice not to interrupt the players." She added dryly, "In fact you have only my word for it that Mr. Shaitana was alive and spoke to me."

Superintendent Battle made no protest. He went on with his quiet methodical questioning.

"What time was that?"

"I should think we had been playing a little over an hour."

"What about the others?"

"Doctor Roberts got me a drink. He also got himself one – that was later. Major Despard also went to get a drink – at about eleven-fifteen, I should say."

"Only once?"

"No – twice, I think. The men moved about a fair amount, but I didn't notice what they did. Miss Meredith left her seat once only I think. She went round to look at her partner's hand."

"But she remained near the bridge table?"

"I couldn't say at all. She may have moved away."

Battle nodded. "It's all very vague," he grumbled.

"I am sorry."

Once again Battle did his conjuring trick and produced the long, delicate stiletto.

"Will you look at this, Mrs. Lorrimer?"

Mrs. Lorrimer took it without emotion.

"Have you ever seen that before?"

"Never."

"Yet it was lying on a table in the drawing-room."

"I didn't notice it."

"You realize, perhaps, Mrs. Lorrimer, that with a weapon like that a woman could do the trick just as easily as a man."

"I suppose she could," said Mrs. Lorrimer quietly.

She leaned forward and handed the dainty little thing back to him.

"But all the same," said Superintendent Battle, "the woman would have to be pretty desperate. It was a long chance to take."

He waited a minute but Mrs. Lorrimer did not speak.

"Do you know anything of the relations between the other three and Mr. Shaitana?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing at all."

"Would you care to give me an opinion as to which of them you consider the most likely person?"

Mrs. Lorrimer drew herself up stiffly.

"I should not care to do anything of the kind. I consider that a most improper question."

The superintendent looked like an abashed little boy who has been reprimanded by his grandmother.

"Address, please," he mumbled, drawing his notebook toward him.

" One eleven Cheyne Lane, Chelsea."

"Telephone number?"

" Chelsea four-five-six-three-two." Mrs. Lorrimer rose.

"Anything you want to ask, Monsieur Poirot?" said Battle hurriedly.

Mrs. Lorrimer paused, her head slightly inclined.

"Would it be a proper question, madame, to ask you your opinion of your companions not as potential murderers but as bridge players?"

Mrs. Lorrimer answered coldly, "I have no objection to answering that – if it bears upon the matter at issue in any way, though I fail to see how it can."

"I will be the judge of that. Your answer, if you please, madame."

In the tone of an impatient adult humoring an idiot child Mrs. Lorrimer replied, "Major Despard is a good sound player. Doctor Roberts overbids but plays his hand brilliantly. Miss Meredith is quite a nice little player but a bit too cautious. Anything more?"

In his turn doing a conjuring trick, Poirot produced four crumpled bridge scores.

"These scores, madame, is one of these yours?"

She examined them. "This is my writing. It is the score of the third rubber."

"And this score?"

"That must be Major Despard's. He cancels as he goes."

"And this one?"

"Miss Meredith's. The first rubber."

"So this unfinished one is Doctor Roberts's?"

"Yes. "

"Thank you, madame. I think that is all."

Mrs. Lorrimer turned to Mrs. Oliver.

"Good night, Mrs. Oliver. Good night, Colonel Race."

Then, having shaken hands with all four of them, she went out.

"Didn't get any extra change out of her," commented Battle. "Put me in my place, too. She's the old-fashioned kind, full of consideration for others but arrogant as the devil! I can't believe she did it, but you never know! She's got plenty of resolution. What's the idea of the bridge scores, Monsieur Poirot?"

Poirot spread them out on the table.

"They are illuminating, do you not think? What do we want in this case? A clue to character. And a clue not to one character, but to four characters. And this is where we are most likely to find it – in these scribbled figures. Here is the first rubber, you see – a tame business, soon over. Small neat figures – careful addition and subtraction – that is Miss Meredith's score. She was playing with Mrs. Lorrimer. They had the cards and they won.

"In this next one it is not so easy to follow the play, since it is kept in the cancellation style. But it tells us perhaps something about Major Despard – a man who likes the whole time to know at a glance where he stands. The figures are small and full of character.