Agatha Christie: Lord Edgware Dies

The house was an imposing one – well-built, handsome and slightly gloomy. There were no window-boxes or such frivolities.

The door was opened to us promptly, and by no aged white-haired butler such as would have been in keeping with the exterior of the house. On the contrary, it was opened by one of the handsomest young men I have ever seen. Tall, fair, he might have posed to a sculptor for Hermes or Apollo. Despite his good looks there was something vaguely effeminate that I disliked about the softness of his voice. Also, in a curious way, he reminded me of someone – someone, too, whom I had met quite lately – but who it was I could not for the life of me remember.

We asked for Lord Edgware.

‘This way, sir.’

He led us along the hall, past the staircase, to a door at the rear of the hall.

Opening it, he announced us in that same soft voice which I instinctively distrusted.

The room into which we were shown was a kind of library. The walls were lined with books, the furnishings were dark and sombre but handsome, the chairs were formal and not too comfortable.

Lord Edgware, who rose to receive us, was a tall man of about fifty. He had dark hair streaked with grey, a thin face and a sneering mouth. He looked bad-tempered and bitter. His eyes had a queer secretive look about them. There was something, I thought, distinctly odd about those eyes.

His manner was stiff and formal.

‘M. Hercule Poirot? Captain Hastings? Please be seated.’

We sat down. The room felt chilly. There was little light coming in from the one window and the dimness contributed to the cold atmosphere.

Lord Edgware had taken up a letter which I saw to be in my friend’s handwriting.

‘I am familiar, of course, with your name, M. Poirot. Who is not?’ Poirot bowed at the compliment. ‘But I cannot quite understand your position in this matter. You say that you wish to see me on behalf of ’ – he paused – ‘my wife.’

He said the last two words in a peculiar way – as though it were an effort to get them out.

‘That is so,’ said my friend.

‘I understood that you were an investigator of – crime, M. Poirot?’

‘Of problems, Lord Edgware. There are problems of crime, certainly. There are other problems.’

‘Indeed. And what may this one be?’

The sneer in his words was palpable by now. Poirot took no notice of it.

‘I have the honour to approach you on behalf of Lady Edgware,’ he said. ‘Lady Edgware, as you may know, desires – a divorce.’

‘I am quite aware of that,’ said Lord Edgware coldly.

‘Her suggestion was that you and I should discuss the matter.’

‘There is nothing to discuss.’

‘You refuse, then?’

‘Refuse? Certainly not.’

Whatever else Poirot had expected, he had not expected this. It is seldom that I have seen my friend utterly taken aback, but I did on this occasion. His appearance was ludicrous. His mouth fell open, his hands flew out, his eyebrows rose. He looked like a cartoon in a comic paper.

‘Comment?’ he cried. ‘What is this? You do not refuse?’

‘I am at a loss to understand your astonishment, M. Poirot.’

‘Ecoutez, you are willing to divorce your wife?’

‘Certainly I am willing. She knows that perfectly well. I wrote and told her so.’

‘You wrote and told her so?’

‘Yes. Six months ago.’

‘But I do not understand. I do not understand at all.’

Lord Edgware said nothing.

‘I understood that you were opposed to the principle of divorce.’

‘I do not see that my principles are your business, M. Poirot. It is true that I did not divorce my first wife. My conscience would not allow me to do so. My second marriage, I will admit frankly, was a mistake. When my wife suggested a divorce, I refused point blank. Six months ago she wrote to me again urging the point. I have an idea she wanted to marry again – some film actor or fellow of that kind. My views had, by this time, undergone modification. I wrote to her at Hollywood telling her so. Why she has sent you to me I cannot imagine. I suppose it is a question of money.’

His lips sneered again as he said the last words.

‘Extremely curious,’ muttered Poirot. ‘Extremely curious. There is something here I do not understand at all.’

‘As regards money,’ went on Lord Edgware. ‘My wife deserted me of her own accord. If she wishes to marry another man, I can set her free to do so, but there is no reason why she should receive a penny from me and she will not do so.’

‘There is no question of any financial arrangement.’

Lord Edgware raised his eyebrows.

‘Jane must be marrying a rich man,’ he murmured cynically.

‘There is something here that I do not understand,’ said Poirot. His face was perplexed and wrinkled with the effort of thought. ‘I understood from Lady Edgware that she had approached you repeatedly through lawyers?’

‘She did,’ replied Lord Edgware dryly. ‘English lawyers, American lawyers, every kind of lawyer, down to the lowest kind of scallywag. Finally, as I say, she wrote to me herself.’

‘You have previously refused?’

‘That is so.’

‘But on receiving her letter, you changed your mind. Why did you change your mind, Lord Edgware?’

‘Not on account of anything in that letter,’ he said sharply. ‘My views happened to have changed, that is all.’

‘The change was somewhat sudden.’

Lord Edgware did not reply.

‘What special circumstances brought about your change of mind, Lord Edgware?’

‘That, really, is my own business M. Poirot. I cannot enter into the subject. Shall we say that gradually I had perceived the advantages of severing what – you will forgive my plain speaking – I considered a degrading association. My second marriage was a mistake.’

‘Your wife says the same,’ said Poirot softly.

‘Does she?’

There was a queer flicker for a moment in his eyes, but it was gone almost at once.

He rose with an air of finality and as we said goodbye his manner became less unbending.

‘You must forgive my altering the appointment. I have to go over to Paris tomorrow.’

‘Perfectly – perfectly.’

‘A sale of works of art as a matter of fact. I have my eye on a little statuette – a perfect thing in its way – a macabre way, perhaps. But I enjoy the macabre. I always have. My taste is peculiar.’

Again that queer smile. I had been looking at the books in the shelves near. There were the memoirs of Casanova, also a volume on the Comte de Sade, another on mediaeval tortures.

I remembered Jane Wilkinson’s little shudder as she spoke of her husband. That had not been acting. That had been real enough. I wondered exactly what kind of a man George Alfred St Vincent Marsh, fourth Baron Edgware, was.

Very suavely he bid us farewell, touching the bell as he did so. We went out of the door. The Greek god of a butler was waiting in the hall. As I closed the library door behind me, I glanced back into the room. I almost uttered an exclamation as I did so.

That suave smiling face was transformed. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarl, the eyes were alive with fury and an almost insane rage.

I wondered no longer that two wives had left Lord Edgware. What I did marvel at was the iron self-control of the man. To have gone through that interview with such frozen self-control, such aloof politeness!

Just as we reached the front door, a door on the right opened. A girl stood at the doorway of the room, shrinking back a little as she saw us.

She was a tall slender girl, with dark hair and a white face. Her eyes, dark and startled, looked for a moment into mine. Then, like a shadow, she shrank back into the room again, closing the door.