Agatha Christie: Cards on the Table

"My dear Monsieur Poirot!"

It was a soft purring voice – a voice used deliberately as an instrument – nothing impulsive or unpremeditated about it. Hercule Poirot swung round.

He bowed. He shook hands ceremoniously.

There was something in his eye that was unusual. One would have said that this chance encounter awakened in him an emotion that he seldom had occasion to feel.

"My dear Mr. Shaitana," he said.

They both paused. They were like duelists en garde.

Around them a well-dressed languid London crowd eddied mildly. Voices drawled or murmured.

"Darling – exquisite!"

"Simply divine, aren't they, my dear?"

It was the Exhibition of Snuffboxes at Wessex House. Admission one guinea in aid of the London hospitals.

"My dear man," said Mr. Shaitana, "how nice to see you! Not hanging or guillotining much just at present? Slack season in the criminal world? Or is there to be a robbery here this afternoon? That would be too delicious."

"Alas, monsieur," said Poirot, "I am here in a purely private capacity."

Mr. Shaitana was diverted for a moment by a Lovely Young Thing with tight poodle curls up one side of her head and three cornucopias in black straw on the other. He said, "My dear – why didn't you come to my party? It really was a marvelous party! Quite a lot of people actually spoke to me! One woman even said 'How do you do' and 'Good-by' and 'Thank you so much' – but of course she came from a Garden City, poor dear!"

While the Lovely Young Thing made a suitable reply, Poirot allowed himself a good study of the hirsute adornment on Mr. Shaitana's upper lip.

A fine mustache – a very fine mustache – the only mustache in London, perhaps, that could compete with that of Monsieur Hercule Poirot.

"But it is not so luxuriant," he murmured to himself. "No, decidedly it is inferior in every respect. Tout de même, it catches the eye."

The whole of Mr. Shaitana's person caught the eye – it was designed to do so. He deliberately attempted a Mephistophelean effect. He was tall and thin; his face was long and melancholy; his eyebrows were heavily accented and jet black; he wore a mustache with stiff waxed ends and a tiny black imperial. His clothes were works of art – of exquisite cut – but with a suggestion of the bizarre.

Every healthy Englishman who saw him longed earnestly and fervently to kick him! They said, with a singular lack of originality, "There's that damned Shaitana!" Their wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, and even grandmothers said, varying the idiom according to their generation, words to this effect – "I know, my dear. Of course he is too terrible. But so rich! And such marvelous parties! And he's always got something amusing and spiteful to tell you about people."

Whether Mr. Shaitana was an Argentine or a Portuguese or a Greek, or some other nationality, nobody knew.

But three facts were quite certain.

He existed richly and beautifully in a super flat in Park Lane. He gave wonderful parties – large parties, small parties, macabre parties, respectable parties, and definitely "queer" parties. He was a man of whom nearly everybody was a little afraid.

Why this last was so can hardly be stated in definite words. There was a feeling, perhaps, that he knew a little too much about everybody. And there was a feeling, too, that his sense of humor was a curious one.

People nearly always felt that it would be better not to risk offending Mr, Shaitana.

It was his humor this afternoon to bait that ridiculous looking little man, Hercule Poirot.

"So even a policeman needs recreation?" he said. "You study the arts in your old age, Monsieur Poirot."

Poirot smiled good-humoredly.

"I see," he said, "that you yourself have lent three snuff-boxes to the exhibition."

Mr. Shaitana waved a deprecating hand. "One picks up trifles here and there. You must come to my flat one day. I have some interesting pieces. I do not confine myself to any particular period or class of object."

"Your tastes are catholic," said Poirot, smiling.

"As you say."

Suddenly Mr. Shaitana's eyes danced, the corners of his lips curled up, his eyebrows assumed a fantastic tilt.

"I could even show you objects in your own line, Monsieur Poirot!"

"You have then a private ' Black Museum '?"

"Bah!" Mr. Shaitana snapped disdainful fingers. "The cup used by the Brighton murderer, the jimmy of a celebrated burglar – absurd childishness! I should never burden myself with rubbish like that. I collect only the best objects of their kind."

"And what do you consider the best objects, artistically speaking, in crime?" inquired Poirot.

Mr. Shaitana leaned forward and laid two fingers on Poirot's shoulder. He hissed his words dramatically.

"The human beings who commit them, Monsieur Poirot."

Poirot's eyebrows rose a trifle.

"Aha, I have startled you," said Mr. Shaitana. "My dear, dear man, you and I look on these things as from poles apart! For you crime is a matter of routine – a murder, an investigation, a due, and ultimately, for you are undoubtedly an able fellow, a conviction. Such banalities would not interest me! I am not interested in poor specimens of any kind. And the caught murderer is necessarily one of the failures. He is second rate. No, I look on the matter from the artistic point of view. I collect only the best!"

"The best being -" asked Poirot.

"My dear fellow – the ones who have got away with it! The successes! The criminals who lead an agreeable life which no breath of suspicion has ever touched. Admit that is an amusing hobby."

"It was another word I was thinking of – not amusing."

"An idea!" cried Shaitana, paying no attention to Poirot. "A little dinner! A dinner to meet my exhibits! Really that is a most amusing thought. I cannot think why it has never occurred to me before. Yes – yes, I see it all – I see it exactly. You must give me a little time – not next week – let us say the week after next. You are free? What day shall we say?"

"Any day of the week after next would suit me," said Poirot with a bow.

"Good; then let us say Friday. Friday the eighteenth, that will be. I will write it down at once in my little book. Really, the idea pleases me enormously."

"I am not quite sure if it pleases me," said Poirot slowly. "I do not mean that I am insensible to the kindness of your invitation – no – not that -"

Shaitana interrupted him. "But it shocks your bourgeois sensibilities? My dear fellow, you must free yourself from the limitations of the policeman mentality."

Poirot said slowly, "It is true that I have a thoroughly bourgeois attitude to murder."

"But, my dear, why? A stupid bungled butchering business – yes, I agree with you. But murder can be an art! A murderer can be an artist."

"Oh, I admit it."

"Well then?" Mr. Shaitana asked.

"But he is still a murderer'"

"Surely, my dear Monsieur Poirot, to do a thing supremely well is a justification! You want, very unimaginatively, to take every murderer, handcuff him, shut him up, and eventually break his neck for him in the early hours of the morning. In my opinion a really successful murderer should be granted a pension out of the public funds and asked out to dinner!"

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

"I am not as insensitive to art in crime as you think. I can admire the perfect murderer; I can also admire a tiger – that splended tawny striped beast. But I will admire him from outside his cage. I will not go inside. That is to say, not unless it is my duty to do so. For you see, Mr. Shaitana, the tiger might spring."

Mr. Shaitana laughed. "I see. And the murderer?"