Agatha Christie - The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

"I can't imagine. I simply can't see it. Oh, I've followed the same line of reasoning as you have. Yes, Burgess had opportunity - the only person who had except myself. The trouble is, I just can't believe it. Burgess is not the sort of man you can imagine murdering anybody."

"What do your legal advisers think?"

Rich's lips set in a grim line.

"My legal advisers spend their time asking me, in a persuasive way, if it isn't true that I have suffered all my life from blackouts when I don't really know what I am doing!"

"As bad as that," said Poirot. "Well, perhaps we shall find it is Burgess who is subject to blackouts. It is always an idea. The weapon now. They showed it to you and asked you if it was yours?"

"It was not mine. I had never seen it before."

"It was not yours, no. But are you quite sure you had never seen it before?"

"No." Was there a faint hesitation. "It's a kind of ornamental toy - really - One sees things like that lying about in people's houses."

"In a woman's drawing room, perhaps. Perhaps in Mrs. Clayton's drawing room?"

"Certainly not!"

The last word came out loudly and the warder looked up.

"Trés bien. Certainly not - and there is no need to shout. But somewhere, at some time, you have seen something very like it. Eh? I am right?"

"I do not think so. In some curio shop... perhaps."

"Ah, very likely." Poirot rose. "I take my leave."

"And now," said Hercule Poirot, "for Burgess. Yes, at long last, for Burgess."

He had learned something about the people in the case, from themselves and from each other. But nobody had given him any knowledge of Burgess. No clue, no hint, of what kind of a man he was.

When he saw Burgess he realized why.

The valet was waiting for him at Major Rich's flat, apprised of his arrival by a telephone call from Commander McLaren.

"I am M. Hercule Poirot."

"Yes, sir, I was expecting you."

Burgess held back the door with a deferential hand and Poirot entered. A small square entrance hall, a door on the left, open, leading into the sitting room. Burgess relieved Poirot of his hat and coat, and followed him into the sitting room.

"Ah," said Poirot looking round. "It was here, then, that it happened?"

"Yes, sir."

A quiet fellow, Burgess, white faced, a little weedy. Awkward shoulders and elbows. A flat voice with a provincial accent that Poirot did not know. From the east coast, perhaps. Rather a nervous man, perhaps - but otherwise no definite characteristics. It was hard to associate him with positive action of any kind. Could one postulate a negative killer?

He had those pale blue, rather shifty eyes that observant people often equate with dishonesty. Yet a liar can look you in the face with a bold and confident eye.

"What is happening to the flat?" Poirot inquired.

"I'm still looking after it, sir. Major Rich arranged for my pay and to keep it nice until - until -"

The eyes shifted uncomfortably.

"Until -" agreed Poirot.

He added in a matter-of-fact manner: "I should say that Major Rich will almost certainly be committed for trial. The case will come up probably within three months."

Burgess shook his head, not in denial, simply in perplexity.

"It really doesn't seem possible," he said.

"That Major Rich should be a murderer?"

"The whole thing. That chest -"

His eyes went across the room.

"Ah, so that is the famous chest?"

It was a mammoth piece of furniture of very dark polished wood, studded with brass, with a great brass hasp and antique lock.

"A handsome affair." Poirot went over to it.

It stood against the wall near the window, next to a modern cabinet for holding records. On the other side of it was a door, half ajar. The door was partly masked by a big painted leather screen.

"That leads into Major Rich's bedroom," said Burgess.

Poirot nodded. His eyes traveled to the other side of the room. There were two stereophonic record players, each on a low table, trailing snake-like electrical cord. There were easy chairs - a big table. On the walls were a set of Japanese prints. It was a handsome room, comfortable, but not luxurious.

He looked back at William Burgess.

"The discovery," he said kindly, "must have been a great shock to you."

"Oh it was, sir. I'll never forget it." The valet rushed into speech. Words poured from him. He felt, perhaps, that by telling the story often enough, he might at last expunge it from his mind.

"I'd gone round the room, sir. Clearing up. Glasses and so on. I'd just stooped to pick up a couple of olives off the floor - and I saw it - on the rug, a rusty dark stain. No, the rug's gone now. To the cleaners. The police had done with it. Whatever's that? I thought. Saying to myself, almost in joke like: 'Really it might be blood! But where does it come from? What got spilled?' And then I saw it was from the chest - down the side, here, where there's a crack. And I said, still not thinking anything, 'Well whatever -?' And I lifted up the lid like this -" (he suited the action to the word) "and there it was the body of a man lying on his side doubled up - like he might be asleep. And that nasty foreign knife or dagger thing sticking up out of his neck. I'll never forget it - never! Not as long as I live! The shock - not expecting it, you understand "

He breathed deeply.

"I let the lid fall and I ran out of the flat and down to the street. Looking for a policeman - and lucky, I found one - just round the corner."

Poirot regarded him reflectively. The performance, if it was a performance, was very good. He began to be afraid that it was not a performance - that it was just how things had happened.

"You did not think of awakening first Major Rich?" he asked.

"It never occurred to me, sir. What with the shock, I - I just wanted to get out of here -" he swallowed - "and - and get help."

Poirot nodded.

"Did you realize that it was Mr. Clayton?" he asked.

"I ought to have, sir, but you know, I don't believe I did. Of course, as soon as I got back with the police officer, I said 'Why, it's Mr. Clayton!' And he says 'Who's Mr. Clayton?' And I says: 'He was here last night.'"

"Ah," said Poirot, "last night. Do you remember exactly when it was Mr. Clayton arrived here?"

"Not to the minute. But as near as not a quarter to eight, I'd say."

"You knew him well?"

"He and Mrs. Clayton had been here quite frequently during the year and a half I've been employed here."

"Did he seem quite as usual?"

"I think so. A little out of breath - but I took it he'd been hurrying. He was catching a train, or so he said."

"He had a bag with him, I suppose, as he was going to Scotland?"

"No, sir. I imagine he was keeping a taxi down below."

"Was he disappointed to find that Major Rich was out?"

"Not to notice. Just said he'd scribble a note. He came in here and went over to the desk and I went back to the kitchen. I was a little behindhand with the anchovy eggs. The kitchen's at the end of the passage and you don't hear very well from there. I didn't hear him go out or the master come in - but then I wouldn't expect to."

"And the next thing..."

"Major Rich called me. He was standing in the door here. He said he'd forgotten Mrs. Spence's Turkish cigarettes. I was to hurry out and get them. So I did. I brought them back and put them o the table in here. Of course I took it that Mr. Clayton had left by then to get his train."

"And nobody else came to the flat during the time Major Rich was out and you were in the kitchen?"

"No, sir - no one."

"Can you be sure of that?"

"How could anyone, sir? They'd have had to ring the bell."

Poirot shook his head. How could anyone? The Spences and McLaren and also Mrs. Clayton could, he already knew, account for every minute of their time. McLaren had been with acquaintances at the club, the Spences had had a couple of friends in for a drink before starting. Margharita Clayton had talked to a friend on the telephone at just that period. Not that he thought of any of them as possibilities. There would have been better ways of killing Arnold Clayton than following him to a flat with a manservant there and the host returning any moment. No, he had had a last minute hope of a "mysterious stranger"! Someone out of Clayton's apparently impeccable past, recognizing him in the street, following him here. Attacking him with the stiletto, thrusting the body into the chest, and fleeing. Pure melodrama, unrelated to reason or to probabilities! In tune with romantic historical fictions - matching the Spanish chest.