Agatha Christie - The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

Poirot sighed.

He spoke in matter-of-fact tones. "This evening," he said, "I pay you a visit."

Inspector Miller was not an easy man to persuade. But equally Hercule Poirot was not an easy man to shake off until he had got his way. Inspector Miller grumbled, but capitulated.

"- though what Lady Chatterton's got to do with this -"

"Nothing, really. She has provided asylum for a friend, that is all."

"About those Spences - how did you know?"

"That stiletto came from there? It was a mere guess. Something Jeremy Spence said gave me the idea. I suggested that the stiletto belonged to Margharita Clayton. He showed that he knew positively that it did not." He paused. "What did they say?" he asked with some curiosity.

"Admitted that it was very like a toy dagger they'd once had. But it had been mislaid some weeks ago, and they had really forgotten about it. I suppose Rich pinched it from there."

"A man who likes to play safe, Mr. Jeremy Spence," said Hercule Poirot. He muttered to himself: "Some weeks ago. Oh yes, the planning began a long time ago."

"Eh, what's that?"

"We arrive," said Poirot. The taxi drew up at Lady Chatterton's house in Cheriton Street. Poirot paid the fare.

Margharita Clayton was waiting for them in the room upstairs. Her face hardened when she saw Miller.

"I didn't know -"

"You did not know who the friend was I proposed to bring?"

"Inspector Miller is not a friend of mine."

"That rather depends on whether you want to see justice done or not, Mrs. Clayton. Your husband was murdered -"

"And now we have to talk of who killed him," said Poirot quickly. "May we sit down, madame?"

Slowly Margharita sat down in a high-backed chair facing the two men.

"I ask," said Poirot, addressing both his hearers, "to listen to me patiently. I think I now know what happened on that fatal evening at Major Rich's flat. We started, all of us, by an assumption that was not true - the assumption that there were only two persons who had the opportunity of putting the body in the chest - that is to say, Major Rich or William Burgess. But we were wrong - there was a third person at the flat that evening who had an equally good opportunity to do so."

"And who was that?" demanded Miller sceptically. "The lift boy?"

"No. Arnold Clayton."

"What? Concealed his own dead body? You're crazy."

"Naturally not a dead body - a live one. In simple terms, he hid himself in the chest. A thing that has often been done throughout the course of history. The dead bride in the Mistletoe Bough, Iachimo with designs on the virtue of Imogen, and so on. I thought of it as soon as I saw that there had been holes bored in the chest quite recently. Why? They were made so that there might be a sufficiency of air in the chest. Why was the screen moved from its usual position that evening? So as to hide the chest from the people in the room. So that the hidden man could lift the lid from time to time and relieve his cramp, and hear better what went on."

"But why," demanded Margharita wide-eyed with astonishment. "Why should Arnold want to hide in the chest?"

"Is it you who ask that, madame? Your husband was a jealous man. He was also an inarticulate man. 'Bottled up,' as your friend Mrs. Spence put it. His jealousy mounted. It tortured him! Were you or were you not Rich's mistress? He did not know! He had to know! So - a 'telegram from Scotland,' the telegram that was never sent and that no one ever saw! The overnight bag is packed and conveniently forgotten at the club. He goes to the flat at a time when he has probably ascertained Rich will be out. He tells the valet he will write a note. As soon as he is left alone, he bores the holes in the chest, moves the screen, and climbs inside the chest. Tonight he will know the truth. Perhaps his wife will stay behind the others, perhaps she will go but come back again. That night the desperate, jealousy racked man will know "

"You're not saying he stabbed himself?" Miller's voice was incredulous. "Nonsense!"

"Oh no, someone else stabbed him. Somebody who knew he was there. It was murder all right. Carefully planned, long premeditated murder. Think of the other characters in Othello. It is Iago we should have remembered. Subtle poisoning of Arnold Clayton's mind; hints, suspicions. Honest Iago, the faithful friend, the man you always believe! Arnold Clayton believed him. Arnold Clayton let his jealousy be played upon, be roused to fever pitch. Was the plan of hiding in the chest Arnold's own idea? He may have thought it was - probably he did think so! And so the scene is set. The stiletto, quietly abstracted some weeks earlier, is ready. The evening comes. The lights are low, the gramophone is playing, two couples dance, the odd man out is busy at the record cabinet, close to the Spanish chest and its masking screen. To slip behind the screen, lift

the lid and strike - Audacious, but quiet easy!"

"Clayton would have cried out!"

"Not if he were drugged," said Poirot. "According to the valet, the body was 'lying like a man asleep.' Clayton was asleep, drugged by the only man who could have drugged him, the man he had had a drink with at the club."

"Jock?" Margharita's voice rose high in childlike surprise. "Jock? Not dear old Jock. Why, I've known Jock all my life! Why on earth should Jock...?"

Poirot turned on her.

"Why did two Italians fight a duel? Why did a young man shoot himself? Jock McLaren is an inarticulate man. He has resigned himself, perhaps, to being the faithful friend to you and your husband, but then comes Major Rich as well. It is too much! In the darkness of hate and desire, he plans what is well nigh the perfect murder - a double murder, for he is almost certain to be found guilty of it. And with Rich and your husband both out of the way - he thinks that at last you may turn to him. And perhaps, madame, you would have done... Eh?"

She was staring at him, wide-eyed, horror-struck. Almost unconsciously she breathed:

"Perhaps... I don't know..."

Inspector Miller spoke with sudden authority.

"This is all very well, Poirot. It's a theory, nothing more. There's not a shred of evidence, probably not a word of it is true."

"It is all true."

"But there's no evidence. There's nothing we can act on."

"You are wrong. I think that McLaren, if this is put to him, will admit it. That is, if it is made clear to him that Margharita Clayton knows... "

Poirot paused and added:

"Because, once he knows that, he has lost. The perfect murder has been in vain."

Mr. Satterthwaite clucked twice in vexation. Whether right in his assumption or not, he was more and more convinced that cars nowadays broke down far more frequently than they used to do. The only cars he trusted were old friends who had survived the test of time. They had their little idiosyncrasies, but you knew about those, provided for them, fulfilled their wants before the demand became too acute. But new cars! Full of new gadgets, different kinds of windows, an instrument panel newly and differently arranged, handsome in its glistening wood, but being unfamiliar, your groping hand hovered uneasily over fog lights, windshield wipers, the choke, etcetera. All these things with knobs in a place where you didn't expect them. And when your gleaming new purchase failed in performance, your local garage uttered the intensely irritating words: "Teething troubles. Splendid car, sir, these roadsters Super Superbos. All the latest accessories. But bound to have their teething troubles, you know. Ha, ha." Just as though a car was a baby.

But Mr. Satterthwaite, being now of an advanced age, was strongly of the opinion that a new car ought to be fully adult. Tested, inspected, and its teething troubles already dealt with before it came into its purchaser's possession.