Agatha Christie - The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

Miss Lemon seized the opportunity to hurry from the room.

The mystery of the Spanish chest was, strictly speaking, no business of Poirot's. He was engaged at the moment in a delicate mission for one of the large oil companies where one of the high ups was possibly involved in some questionable transaction. It was hush-hush, important, and exceedingly lucrative. It was sufficiently involved to command Poirot's attention, and had the great advantage that it required very little physical activity. It was sophisticated and bloodless. Crime at the highest levels.

The mystery of the Spanish chest was dramatic and emotional, two qualities which Poirot had often declared to Hastings could be much overrated - and indeed frequently were so by the latter. He had been severe with ce cher Hastings on this point, and now here he was, behaving much as his friend might have done, obsessed with beautiful women, crimes of passion, jealousy, hatred, and all the other romantic causes of murder! He wanted to know about it all. He wanted to know what Major Rich was like, and what his manservant, Burgess, was like, and what Margharita Clayton was like (though that, he thought, he knew) and what the late Arnold Clayton had been like (since he held that the character of the victim was of the first importance in a murder case), and even what Commander McLaren, the faithful friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Spence, the recently acquired acquaintances, were like.

And he did not see exactly how he was going to gratify his curiosity!

He reflected on the matter later in the day.

Why did the whole business intrigue him so much? He decided, after reflection, that it was because - as the facts were related - the whole thing was more or less impossible! Yes, there was a Euclidean flavor.

Starting from what one could accept, there had been a quarrel between two men. Cause, presumably, a woman. One man killed the other in the heat of rage. Yes, that happened - though it would be more acceptable if the husband had killed the lover. Still - the lover had killed the husband, stabbed him with a dagger(?), somehow a rather unlikely weapon. Perhaps Major Rich had had an Italian mother? Somewhere - surely - there should be something to explain the choice of a dagger as a weapon. Anyway, one must accept the dagger (some papers called it a stiletto!). It was to hand and was used. The body was concealed in the chest. That was common sense and inevitable. The crime had not been premeditated, and as the valet was returning at any moment, and four guests would be arriving before very long, it seemed the only course indicated.

The party is held, the guests depart, the manservant is already gone - and - Major Rich goes to bed!

To understand how that could happen, one must see Major Rich and find out what kind of a man acts in that way.

Could it be that, overcome with horror at what he had done and the long strain of an evening trying to appear his normal self, he had taken a sleeping pill of some kind or a tranquilizer which had put him into a heavy slumber which lasted long beyond his usual hour of waking? Possible. Or was it a case, rewarding to a psychologist, where Major Rich's feeling of subconscious guilt made him want the crime to be discovered?

To make up one's mind on that point one would have to see Major Rich. It all came back to -

The telephone rang. Poirot let it ring for some moments, until he realized that Miss Lemon after bringing him his letters to sign, had gone home some time ago, and that George had probably gone out.

He picked up the receiver.

"M. Poirot?"

"Speaking!"

"Oh how splendid." Poirot blinked slightly at the fervor of the charming female voice. "It's Abbie Chatterton."

"Ah, Lady Chatterton. How can I serve you?"

"By coming over as quickly as you can right away to a simply frightful cocktail party I an giving. Not just for the cocktail party - it's for something quite different really. I need you. It's absolutely vital. Please, please, please don't let me down! Don't say you can't manage it."

Poirot had not been going to say anything of the kind. Lord Chatterton, apart from being a peer of the realm and occasionally making a very dull speech in the House of Lords, was nobody in particular. But Lady Chatterton was one of the brightest jewels in what Poirot called le hauté monde. Everything she did or said was news. She had brains, beauty, originality, and enough vitality to activate a rocket to the moon.

She said again:

"I need you. Just give that wonderful moustache of yours a lovely twirl, and come!"

It was not quite so quick as that. Poirot had first to make a meticulous toilet. The twirl to the moustaches was added and he then set off.

The door of Lady Chatterton's delightful house in Cheriton Street was ajar and a noise as of animals mutinying at the zoo sounded from within. Lady Chatterton, who was holding two ambassadors, an international rugger player, and an American evangelist in play, neatly jettisoned them with the rapidity of sleight of hand and was at Poirot's side.

"M. Poirot, how wonderful to see you! No, don't have that nasty Martini. I've got something special for you - a kind of sirop that the sheikhs drink in Morocco. It's in my own little room upstairs."

She led the way upstairs and Poirot followed her. She paused to say over her shoulder:

"I didn't put these people off, because it's absolutely essential that no one should know there's anything special going on here, and I've promised the servants enormous bonuses if not a word leaks out. After all, one doesn't want one's house besieged by reporters. And, poor darling, she's been through so much already."

Lady Chatterton did not stop at the first-floor landing; instead she swept on up to the floor above.

Gasping for breath and somewhat bewildered, Hercule Poirot followed.

Lady Chatterton paused, gave a rapid glance downwards over the banisters, and then flung open a door, exclaiming as she did so:

"I've got him, Margharita! I've got him! Here he is!"

She stood aside in triumph to let Poirot enter, then performed a rapid introduction.

"This is Margharita Clayton. She's a very, very dear friend of mine. You'll help her, won't you? Margharita, this is that wonderful Hercule Poirot. He'll do just everything you want - you will, won't you, dear M. Poirot?"

And without waiting for the answer which she obviously took for granted (Lady Chatterton had not been a spoiled beauty all her life for nothing), she dashed out of the door and down the stairs, calling back rather indiscreetly, "I've got to go back to all these awful people."

The woman who had been sitting in a chair by the window rose and came towards him. He would have recognized her even if Lady Chatterton had not mentioned her name. Here was that wide, that very wide brow, the dark hair that sprang away from it like wings, the grey eyes set far apart. She wore a close-fitting high-necked gown of dull black that showed up the beauty of her body and the magnolia-whiteness of her skin. It was an unusual face rather than a beautiful one - one of those oddly proportioned faces that one sometimes sees in an Italian primitive. There was about her a kind of medieval simplicity - a strange innocence that could be, Poirot thought, more devastating than any voluptuous sophistication. When she spoke it was with a kind of childlike candor.

"Abbie says you will help me -"

She looked at him gravely and inquiringly.

For a moment he stood quite still, scrutinizing her closely. There was nothing ill-bred in his manner of doing it. It was more the kind but searching look that a famous consultant gives a new patient.

"Are you sure, madame," he said at last, "that I can help you?"

A little flush rose to her cheeks.

"I don't know what you mean."

"What is it, madame, that you want me to do?"