Agatha Christie - Poirot's Early Cases

It was Colonel Clapperton.

Poirot and the ship's doctor rose from their knees by the prostrate figure.

'All over, I'm afraid. Heart,' said the doctor briefly.

Poirot nodded. 'The shock of having his trick seen through,' he said.

He turned to General Forbes. 'It was you, General, who gave me a valuable hint with your mention of the music hall stage. I puzzle - I think - and then it comes to me. Supposing that before the war Clapperton was a ventriloquist. In that case, it would be perfectly possible for three people to hear Mrs Clapperton speak from inside her cabin when she was already dead…' Ellie Henderson was beside him. Her eyes were dark and full of pain. 'Did you know his heart was weak?' she asked.

'I guessed it… Mrs Clapperton talked of her own heart being affected, but she struck me as the type of woman who likes to be thought ill. Then I picked up a torn prescription with a very strong dose of digitalin in it. Digitalin is a heart medicine but it couldn't be Mrs Clapperton's because digitalin dilates the pupils of the eyes. I had never noticed such a phenomenon with her but when I looked at his eyes I saw the signs at once.' Ellie murmured: 'So you thought - it might end - this way?' 'The best way, don't you think, mademoiselle?' he said gently.

He saw the tears rise in her eys. She said: 'You've known. You've known all along… That I cared… But he didn't do it for me… It was those girls - youth - it made him feel his slavery. He wanted to be free before it was too late… Yes, I'm sure that's how it was ·… When did you guess - that it was he?' 'His self-control was too perfect,' said Poirot simply. 'No matter how galling his wife's conduct, it never seemed to touch him.

That meant either that he was so used to it that it no longer stung him, or else - eh b/eh - I decided on the latter alternative… And I was right…

'And then there was his insistence on his conjuring ability - the evening before the crime he pretended to give himself away. But a man like Clapperton doesn't give himself away. There must be a reason. So long as people thought he had been a conjuror they weren't likely to think of his having been a ventriloquist.'

'And the voice we heard - Mrs Clapperton's voice?'

'One of the stewardesses had a voice not unlike hers. I induced her to hide behind the stage and taught her the words to say.' 'It was a trick - a cruel trick,' cried out Ellie.

'I do not approve of murder,' said-Hercule Poirot.

Hercule Poirot arranged his letters in a neat pile in front of him.

He picked up the topmost letter, studied the address for a moment, then neatly slit the back of the envelope with a little paperknife that he kept on the breakfast table for that express purpose and extracted the contents. Inside was yet another envelope, carefully sealed with purple wax and marked 'Private and Confidential'.

Hercule Poirot's eyebrows rose a little on his egg-shaped head.

He murmured, 'Patience! Nous allons arriver!' and once more brought the little paper-knife into play. This time the envelope yielded a letter - written in a rather shaky and spiky handwriting.

Several words were heavily underlined.

Hercule Poirot unfolded it and read. The letter was headed once again 'Private and Confidential'. On the right-hand side was the address - Rosebank, Charman's Green, Bucks - and the date-March twenty-first.

Dear M. Poirot, I have been recommended to you by an old and valued friend of mine who knows the worry and distress I have been in lately. Not that this friend knows the actual circumstances those I have kept entirely to myself- the matter being strictly private. My friend assures me that you are discretion itself and that there will be no fear of my being involved in a police matter which, if my suspicions should prove correct, I should very much dislike. But it is of course possible that I am entirely mistaken. I do not feel myself clear-headed enough nowadays suffering as I do from insomnia and the result of a severe illness last winter - to investigate things for myself. I have neither the means nor the ability. On the other hand, I must reiterate once more that this is a very delicate family matter and that for many reasons I may want the whole thing hushed up. If I am once assured of the facts, I can deal with the matter myself and should prefer to do so. I hope that I have made myself clear on this point. If you will undertake this investigation, perhaps you will let me know to the above address?

Yours very truly,

AMELIA BARROWBY

Poirot read the letter through twice. Again his eyebrows rose slightly. Then he placed it on one side and proceeded to the next envelope in the pile.

At ten o'clock precisely he entered the room where Miss Lemon, his confidential secretary, sat awaiting her instructions for the day.

Miss Lemon was forty-eight and of unprepossessing appearance.

Her general effect was that of a lot of bones flung together at random. She had a passion for order almost equalling that of Poirot himself; and though capable of thinking, she never thought unless told to do so.

Poirot handed her the morning correspondence. 'Have the goodness, mademoiselle, to write refusals couched in correct terms to all of these.'

Miss Lemon ran an eye over the various letters, scribbling in turn a hieroglyphic on each of them. These marks were legible to her alone and were in a code of her own: 'Soft soap'; 'slap in the face'; 'purr purr'; 'curt'; and so on. Having done this, she nodded and looked up for further instructions.

Poirot handed her Amelia Barrowby's letter. She extracted it from its double envelope, read it through and looked up inquiringly.

'Yes, M. Poirot?' Her pencil hovered - ready - over her short-hand pad.

'What is your opinion of that letter, Miss Lemon?'

With a slight frown Miss Lemon put down the pencil and read through the letter again.

The contents of a letter meant nothing to Miss Lemon except from the point of view of composing an adequate reply. Very occasionally her employer appealed to her human, as opposed to her official, capacities. It slightly annoyed Miss Lemon when he did so - she was very nearly the perfect machine, completely and gloriously uninterested in all human affairs. Her real passion in life was the perfection of a filing system beside which all other filing systems should sink into oblivion. She dreamed of such a system at night. Nevertheless, Miss Lemon was perfectly capable of intelligence on purely human matters, as Hercule Poirot well knew.

'Well?' he demanded.

'Old lady,' said Miss Lemon. 'Got the wind up pretty badly.' 'Ah! The wind rises in her, you think?' Miss Lemon, who considered that Poirot had been long enough in Great Britain to understand its slang terms, did not reply. She took a brief look at the double envelope.

'Very hush-hush,' she said. 'And tells you nothing at all.' 'Yes,' said Hercule Poirot. 'I observed that.' Miss Lemon's hand hung once more hopefully over the shorthand pad. This time Hercule Poirot responded.

'Tell her I will do myself the honour to call upon her at any time she suggests, unless she prefers to consult me here. Do not type the letter - write it by hand.' 'Yes, M. Poirot.' Poirot produced more correspondence. 'These are bills.' Miss Lemon's efficient hands sorted them quickly. 'I'll pay all but these two.' 'Why those two? There is no error in them.' 'They are firms you've only just begun to deal with. It looks bad to pay too promptly when you've just opened an account looks as though you were working up to get some credit later on.' 'Ahl' murmured Poirot. 'I bow to your superior knowledge of the British tradesman.' 'There' nothing much I don't know about them,' said Mis: Lemon grimly.