Agatha Christie: The Dead Man’s Mirror: A Hercule Poirot Short Story

For a moment or two the group in the doorway stood motionless, staring at the scene. Then Poirot strode forward.

At the same moment Hugo Trent said crisply:

‘My God, the Old Man’s shot himself !’

And there was a long, shuddering moan from Lady Chevenix-Gore.

‘Oh, Gervase – Gervase!’

Over his shoulder Poirot said sharply:

‘Take Lady Chevenix-Gore away. She can do nothing here.’

The elderly soldierly man obeyed. He said:

‘Come, Vanda. Come, my dear. You can do nothing. It’s all over. Ruth, come and look after your mother.’

But Ruth Chevenix-Gore had pressed into the room and stood close by Poirot’s side as he bent over the dreadful sprawled figure in the chair – the figure of a man of Herculean build with a Viking beard.

She said in a low, tense voice, curiously restrained and muffled:

‘You’re quite sure he’s – dead?’

Poirot looked up.

The girl’s face was alive with some emotion – an emotion sternly checked and repressed – that he did not quite understand. It was not grief – it seemed more like a kind of half-fearful excitement.

The little woman in the pince-nez murmured:

‘Your mother, my dear – don’t you think –?’

In a high, hysterical voice the girl with the red hair cried out:

‘Then it wasn’t a car or a champagne cork! It was a shot we heard …’

Poirot turned and faced them all.

‘Somebody must communicate with the police –’

Ruth Chevenix-Gore cried out violently:

‘No!’

The elderly man with the legal face said:

‘Unavoidable, I am afraid. Will you see to that, Burrows? Hugo –’

Poirot said:

‘You are Mr Hugo Trent?’ to the tall young man with the moustache. ‘It would be well, I think, if everyone except you and I were to leave this room.’

Again his authority was not questioned. The lawyer shepherded the others away. Poirot and Hugo Trent were left alone.

The latter said, staring:

‘Look here – who are you? I mean, I haven’t the foggiest idea. What are you doing here?’

Poirot took a card-case from his pocket and selected a card.

Hugo Trent said, staring at it:

‘Private detective – eh? Of course, I’ve heard of you … But I still don’t see what you are doing here .’

‘You did not know that your uncle – he was your uncle, was he not –?’

Hugo’s eyes dropped for a fleeting moment to the dead man.

‘The Old Man? Yes, he was my uncle all right.’

‘You did not know that he had sent for me?’

Hugo shook his head. He said slowly:

‘I’d no idea of it.’

There was an emotion in his voice that was rather hard to classify. His face looked wooden and stupid – the kind of expression, Poirot thought, that made a useful mask in times of stress.

Poirot said quietly:

‘We are in Westshire, are we not? I know your Chief Constable, Major Riddle, very well.’

Hugo said:

‘Riddle lives about half a mile away. He’ll probably come over himself.’

‘That,’ said Poirot, ‘will be very convenient.’

He began prowling gently round the room. He twitched aside the window curtain and examined the french windows, trying them gently. They were closed.

On the wall behind the desk there hung a round mirror. The mirror was shivered. Poirot bent down and picked up a small object.

‘What’s that?’ asked Hugo Trent.

‘The bullet.’

‘It passed straight through his head and struck the mirror?’

‘It seems so.’

Poirot replaced the bullet meticulously where he had found it. He came up to the desk. Some papers were arranged neatly stacked in heaps. On the blotting-pad itself there was a loose sheet of paper with the word SORRY printed across it in large, shaky handwriting.

Hugo said: ‘He must have written that just before he – did it.’

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

He looked again at the smashed mirror, then at the dead man. His brow creased itself a little as though in perplexity. He went over to the door, where it hung crookedly with its splintered lock. There was no key in the door, as he knew – otherwise he would not have been able to see through the keyhole. There was no sign of it on the floor. Poirot leaned over the dead man and ran his fingers over him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The key is in his pocket.’

Hugo drew out a cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette. He spoke rather hoarsely.

‘It seems all quite clear,’ he said. ‘My uncle shut himself up in here, scrawled that message on a piece of paper, and then shot himself.’

Poirot nodded meditatively. Hugo went on:

‘But I don’t understand why he sent for you. What was it all about?’

‘That is rather more difficult to explain. While we are waiting, Mr Trent, for the authorities to take charge, perhaps you will tell me exactly who all the people are whom I saw tonight when I arrived?’

‘Who they are?’ Hugo spoke almost absently. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. Shall we sit down?’ He indicated a settee in the farthest corner of the room from the body. He went on, speaking jerkily: ‘Well, there’s Vanda – my aunt, you know. And Ruth, my cousin. But you know them. Then the other girl is Susan Cardwell. She’s just staying here. And there’s Colonel Bury. He’s an old friend of the family. And Mr Forbes. He’s an old friend, too, besides being the family lawyer and all that. Both the old boys had a passion for Vanda when she was young, and they still hang round in a faithful, devoted sort of way. Ridiculous, but rather touching. Then there’s Godfrey Burrows, the Old Man’s – I mean my uncle’s – secretary, and Miss Lingard, who’s here to help him write a history of the Chevenix-Gores. She mugs up historical stuff for writers. That’s the lot, I think.’

Poirot nodded. Then he said:

‘And I understand you actually heard the shot that killed your uncle?’

‘Yes, we did. Thought it was a champagne cork – at least, I did. Susan and Miss Lingard thought it was a car backfiring outside – the road runs quite near, you know.’

‘When was this?’

‘Oh, about ten past eight. Snell had just sounded the first gong.’

‘And where were you when you heard it?’

‘In the hall. We – we were laughing about it – arguing, you know, as to where the sound came from. I said it came from the dining-room, and Susan said it came from the direction of the drawing-room, and Miss Lingard said it sounded like upstairs, and Snell said it came from the road outside, only it came through the upstairs windows. And Susan said, “Any more theories?” And I laughed and said there was always murder! Seems pretty rotten to think of it now.’

His face twitched nervously.

‘It did not occur to anyone that Sir Gervase might have shot himself?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You have, in fact, no idea why he should have shot himself?’

Hugo said slowly:

‘Oh, well, I shouldn’t say that –’

‘You have an idea?’

‘Yes – well – it’s difficult to explain. Naturally I didn’t expect him to commit suicide, but all the same I’m not frightfully surprised. The truth of it is that my uncle was as mad as a hatter, M. Poirot. Everyone knew that.’

‘That strikes you as a sufficient explanation?’

‘Well, people do shoot themselves when they’re a bit barmy.’

‘An explanation of an admirable simplicity.’

Hugo stared.

Poirot got up again and wandered aimlessly round the room. It was comfortably furnished, mainly in a rather heavy Victorian style. There were massive bookcases, huge armchairs, and some upright chairs of genuine Chippendale. There were not many ornaments, but some bronzes on the mantelpiece attracted Poirot’s attention and apparently stirred his admiration. He picked them up one by one, carefully examining them before replacing them with care. From the one on the extreme left he detached something with a fingernail.