Agatha Christie: Lord Edgware Dies

‘You will have to go to the inquest first, Madame.’

‘Why, I suppose that’s true.’ She considered for a moment or two. ‘I don’t like that Scotland Yard inspector at all. He just scared me to death. M. Poirot?’

‘Yes?’

‘Seems it’s kind of lucky I changed my mind and went to that party after all.’

Poirot had been going towards the door. Suddenly, at these words, he wheeled round.

‘What is that you say, Madame? You changed your mind?’

‘Yes. I meant to give it a miss. I had a frightful headache yesterday afternoon.’

Poirot swallowed once or twice. He seemed to have a difficulty in speaking.

‘Did you – say so to anyone?’ he asked at last.

‘Certainly I did. There was quite a crowd of us having tea and they wanted me to go on to a cocktail party and I said “No.” I said my head was aching fit to split and that I was going right home and that I was going to cut the dinner too.’

‘And what made you change your mind, Madame?’

‘Ellis went on at me. Said I couldn’t afford to turn it down. Old Sir Montagu pulls a lot of strings, you know, and he’s a crotchety creature – takes offence easily. Well, I didn’t care. Once I marry Merton I’m through with all this. But Ellis is always on the cautious side. She said there’s many a slip, etc., and after all I guess she’s right. Anyway, off I went.’

‘You owe Ellis a debt of gratitude, Madame,’ said Poirot seriously.

‘I suppose I do. That inspector had got it all taped out, hadn’t he?’

She laughed, Poirot did not. He said in a low voice:

‘All the same – this gives one furiously to think. Yes, furiously to think.’

‘Ellis,’ called Jane.

The maid came in from the next room.

‘M. Poirot says it’s very lucky you made me go to that party last night.’

Ellis barely cast a glance at Poirot. She was looking grim and disapproving.

‘It doesn’t do to break engagements, m’lady. You’re much too fond of doing it. People don’t always forgive it. They turn nasty.’

Jane picked up the hat she had been trying on when we came in. She tried it again.

‘I hate black,’ she said disconsolately. ‘I never wear it. But I suppose, as a correct widow I’ve just got to. All those hats are too frightful. Ring up the other hat place, Ellis. I’ve got to be fit to be seen.’

Poirot and I slipped quietly from the room.

We had not seen the last of Japp. He reappeared about an hour later, flung down his hat on the table and said he was eternally blasted.

‘You have made the inquiries?’ asked Poirot sympathetically.

Japp nodded gloomily.

‘And unless fourteen people are lying, she didn’t do it,’ he growled.

He went on:

‘I don’t mind telling you, M. Poirot, that I expected to find a put-up job. On the face of it, it didn’t seem likely that anyone else could have killed Lord Edgware. She’s the only person who’s got the ghost of a motive.’

‘I would not say that. Mais continuez.’

‘Well, as I say, I expected to find a put-up job. You know what these theatrical crowds are – they’d all hang together to screen a pal. But this is rather a different proposition. The people there last night were all big guns, they were none of them close friends of hers and some of them didn’t know each other. Their testimony is independent and reliable. I hoped then to find that she’d slipped away for half an hour or so. She could easily have done that – powdering her nose or some such excuse. But no, she did leave the dinner table as she told us to answer a telephone call, but the butler was with her – and, by the way, it was just as she told us. He heard what she said. “Yes, quite right. This is Lady Edgware.” And then the other side rang off. It’s curious, that, you know. Not that it’s got anything to do with it.’

‘Perhaps not – but it is interesting. Was it a man or a woman who rang up?’

‘A woman, I think she said.’

‘Curious,’ said Poirot thoughtfully.

‘Never mind that,’ said Japp impatiently. ‘Let’s get back to the important part. The whole evening went exactly as she said. She got there at a quarter to nine, left at half-past eleven and got back here at a quarter to twelve. I’ve seen the chauffeur who drove her – he’s one of Daimler’s regular people. And the people at the Savoy saw her come in and confirm the time.’

‘Eh bien, that seems very conclusive.’

‘Then what about those two in Regent Gate? It isn’t only the butler. Lord Edgware’s secretary saw her too. They both swear by all that’s holy that it was Lady Edgware who came here at ten o’clock.’

‘How long has the butler been there?’

‘Six months. Handsome chap, by the way.’

‘Yes, indeed. Eh bien, my friend, if he has only been there six months he cannot have recognized Lady Edgware since he had not seen her before.’

‘Well, he knew her from her pictures in the papers. And anyway the secretary knew her. She’s been with Lord Edgware five or six years, and she’s the only one who’s absolutely positive.’

‘Ah!’ said Poirot. ‘I should like to see the secretary.’

‘Well, why not come along with me now?’

‘Thank you, mon ami, I should be delighted to do so. You include Hastings in your invitation, I hope?’

Japp grinned.

‘What do you think? Where the master goes, there the dog follows,’ he added in what I could not think was the best of taste.

‘Reminds me of the Elizabeth Canning Case,’ said Japp. ‘You remember? How at least a score of witnesses on either side swore they had seen the gipsy, Mary Squires, in two different parts of England. Good reputable witnesses, too. And she with such a hideous face there couldn’t be two like it. That mystery was never cleared up. It’s very much the same here. Here’s a separate lot of people prepared to swear a woman was in two different places at the same time. Which of ’em is speaking the truth?’

‘That ought not to be difficult to find out.’

‘So you say – but this woman – Miss Carroll, really knew Lady Edgware. I mean she’d lived in the house with her day after day. She wouldn’t be likely to make a mistake.’

‘We shall soon see.’

‘Who comes into the title?’ I asked.

‘A nephew, Captain Ronald Marsh. Bit of a waster, I understand.’

‘What does the doctor say as to the time of death?’ asked Poirot.

‘We’ll have to wait for the autopsy to be exact, you know. See where the dinner had got to.’ Japp’s way of putting things was, I am sorry to say, far from refined. ‘But ten o’clock fits in well enough. He was last seen alive at a few minutes past nine when he left the dinner table and the butler took whisky and soda into the library. At eleven o’clock when the butler went up to bed the light was out – so he must have been dead then. He wouldn’t have been sitting in the dark.’

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. A moment or two later we drew up at the house, the blinds of which were now down.

The door was opened to us by the handsome butler.

Japp took the lead and went in first. Poirot and I followed. The door opened to the left, so that the butler stood against the wall on that side. Poirot was on my right and, being smaller than I was, it was only just as we stepped into the hall that the butler saw him. Being close to him, I heard the sudden intake of his breath and looked sharply at the man to find him staring at Poirot with a kind of startled fear visible on his face. I put the fact away in my mind for what it might be worth.

Japp marched into the dining-room, which lay on our right, and called the butler in after him.