Poirot's Early Cases (21 page)

‘Do you mean—Poirot, are you hinting—But that fellow in the brown suit—it was his own suitcase?’

Poirot frowned. ‘So it seems. All the same, it is curious, Hastings, that he should have not removed his suitcase before, when the car first arrived. He has not lunched here, you notice.’

‘If Miss Durrant hadn’t been sitting opposite the window, she wouldn’t have seen him,’ I said slowly.

‘And since it was his own suitcase, that would not
have mattered,’ said Poirot. ‘So let us dismiss it from our thoughts,
mon ami
.’

Nevertheless, when we had resumed our places and were speeding along once more, he took the opportunity of giving Mary Durrant a further lecture on the dangers of indiscretion which she received meekly enough but with the air of thinking it all rather a joke.

We arrived at Charlock Bay at four o’clock and were fortunate enough to be able to get rooms at the Anchor Hotel—a charming old-world inn in one of the side streets.

Poirot had just unpacked a few necessaries and was applying a little cosmetic to his moustache preparatory to going out to call upon Joseph Aarons when there came a frenzied knocking at the door. I called ‘Come in,’ and, to my utter amazement, Mary Durrant appeared, her face white and large tears standing in her eyes.

‘I do beg your pardon—but—but the most awful thing has happened. And you did say you were a detective?’ This to Poirot.

‘What has happened, mademoiselle?’

‘I opened my suitcase. The miniatures were in a crocodile despatch case—locked, of course. Now, look!’

She held out a small square crocodile-covered case. The lid hung loose. Poirot took it from her. The case
had been forced; great strength must have been used. The marks were plain enough. Poirot examined it and nodded.

‘The miniatures?’ he asked, though we both knew the answer well enough.

‘Gone. They’ve been stolen. Oh, what shall I do?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘My friend is Hercule Poirot. You must have heard of him. He’ll get them back for you if anyone can.’

‘Monsieur Poirot. The great Monsieur Poirot.’

Poirot was vain enough to be pleased at the obvious reverence in her voice. ‘Yes, my child,’ he said. ‘It is I, myself. And you can leave your little affair in my hands. I will do all that can be done. But I fear—I much fear—that it will be too late. Tell me, was the lock of your suitcase forced also?’

She shook her head.

‘Let me see it, please.’

We went together to her room, and Poirot examined the suitcase closely. It had obviously been opened with a key.

‘Which is simple enough. These suitcase locks are all much of the same pattern.
Eh bien
, we must ring up the police and we must also get in touch with Mr Baker Wood as soon as possible. I will attend to that myself.’

I went with him and asked what he meant by saying
it might be too late. ‘
Mon cher
, I said today that I was the opposite of the conjurer—that I make the disappearing things reappear—but suppose someone has been before hand with me. You do not understand? You will in a minute.’

He disappeared into the telephone box. He came out five minutes later looking very grave. ‘It is as I feared. A lady called upon Mr Wood with the miniatures half an hour ago. She represented herself as coming from Miss Elizabeth Penn. He was delighted with the miniatures and paid for them forthwith.’

‘Half an hour ago—before we arrived here.’

Poirot smiled rather enigmatically. ‘The Speedy cars are quite speedy, but a fast motor from, say, Monkhampton would get here a good hour ahead of them at least.’

‘And what do we do now?’

‘The good Hastings—always practical. We inform the police, do all we can for Miss Durrant, and—yes, I think decidedly, we have an interview with Mr J. Baker Wood.’

We carried out this programme. Poor Mary Durrant was terribly upset, fearing her aunt would blame her.

‘Which she probably will,’ observed Poirot, as we set out for the Seaside Hotel where Mr Wood was staying. ‘And with perfect justice. The idea of leaving five hundred pounds’ worth of valuables in a suitcase
and going to lunch! All the same,
mon ami
, there are one or two curious points about the case. That despatch box, for instance, why was it forced?’

‘To get out the miniatures.’

‘But was not that a foolishness? Say our thief is tampering with the luggage at lunch-time under the pretext of getting out his own. Surely it is much simpler to open the suitcase, transfer the despatch case unopened to his own suitcase, and get away, than to waste the time forcing the lock?’

‘He had to make sure the miniatures were inside.’

Poirot did not look convinced, but, as we were just being shown into Mr Wood’s suite, we had no time for more discussion.

I took an immediate dislike to Mr Baker Wood.

He was a large vulgar man, very much overdressed and wearing a diamond solitaire ring. He was blustering and noisy.

Of course, he’d not suspected anything amiss. Why should he? The woman said she had the miniatures all right. Very fine specimens, too! Had he the numbers of the notes? No, he hadn’t. And who was Mr—er—Poirot, anyway, to come asking him all these questions?

‘I will not ask you anything more, monsieur, except for one thing. A description of the woman who called upon you. Was she young and pretty?’

‘No, sir, she was not. Most emphatically not. A tall woman, middle-aged, grey hair, blotchy complexion and a budding moustache. A siren? Not on your life.’

‘Poirot,’ I cried, as we took our departure. ‘A moustache. Did you hear?’

‘I have the use of my ears, thank you, Hastings!’

‘But what a very unpleasant man.’

‘He has not the charming manner, no.’

‘Well, we ought to get the thief all right,’ I remarked. ‘We can identify him.’

‘You are of such a naïve simplicity, Hastings. Do you not know that there is such a thing as an alibi?’

‘You think he will have an alibi?’

Poirot replied unexpectedly: ‘I sincerely hope so.’

‘The trouble with you is,’ I said, ‘that you like a thing to be difficult.’

‘Quite right,
mon ami
. I do not like—how do you say it—the bird who sits!’

Poirot’s prophecy was fully justified. Our travelling companion in the brown suit turned out to be a Mr Norton Kane. He had gone straight to the George Hotel at Monkhampton and had been there during the afternoon. The only evidence against him was that of Miss Durrant who declared that she had seen him getting out his luggage from the car while we were at lunch.

‘Which in itself is not a suspicious act,’ said Poirot meditatively.

After that remark, he lapsed into silence and refused to discuss the matter any further, saying when I pressed him, that he was thinking of moustaches in general, and that I should be well advised to do the same.

I discovered, however, that he had asked Joseph Aarons—with whom he spent the evening—to give him every detail possible about Mr Baker Wood. As both men were staying at the same hotel, there was a chance of gleaning some stray crumbs of information. Whatever Poirot learned, he kept to himself, however.

Mary Durrant, after various interviews with the police, had returned to Ebermouth by an early morning train. We lunched with Joseph Aarons, and after lunch, Poirot announced to me that he had settled the theatrical agent’s problem satisfactorily, and that we could return to Ebermouth as soon as we liked. ‘But not by road,
mon ami
; we go by rail this time.’

‘Are you afraid of having your pocket picked, or of meeting another damsel in distress?’

‘Both those affairs, Hastings, might happen to me on the train. No, I am in haste to be back in Ebermouth, because I want to proceed with our case.’

‘Our case?’

‘But, yes, my friend. Mademoiselle Durrant appealed to me to help her. Because the matter is now in the
hands of the police, it does not follow that I am free to wash my hands of it. I came here to oblige an old friend, but it shall never be said of Hercule Poirot that he deserted a stranger in need!’ And he drew himself up grandiloquently.

‘I think you were interested before that,’ I said shrewdly. ‘In the office of cars, when you first caught sight of that young man, though what drew your attention to him I don’t know.’

‘Don’t you, Hastings? You should. Well, well, that must remain my little secret.’

We had a short conversation with the police inspector in charge of the case before leaving. He had interviewed Mr Norton Kane, and told Poirot in confidence that the young man’s manner had not impressed him favourably. He had blustered, denied, and contradicted himself.

‘But just how the trick was done, I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘He could have handed the stuff to a confederate who pushed off at once in a fast car. But that’s just theory. We’ve got to find the car and the confederate and pin the thing down.’

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

‘Do you think that was how it was done?’ I asked him, as we were seated in the train.

‘No, my friend, that was not how it was done. It was cleverer than that.’

‘Won’t you tell me?’

‘Not yet. You know—it is my weakness—I like to keep my little secrets till the end.’

‘Is the end going to be soon?’

‘Very soon now.’

We arrived in Ebermouth a little after six and Poirot drove at once to the shop which bore the name ‘Elizabeth Penn’. The establishment was closed, but Poirot rang the bell, and presently Mary herself opened the door, and expressed surprise and delight at seeing us.

‘Please come in and see my aunt,’ she said.

She led us into a back room. An elderly lady came forward to meet us; she had white hair and looked rather like a miniature herself with her pink-and-white skin and her blue eyes. Round her rather bent shoulders she wore a cape of priceless old lace.

‘Is this the great Monsieur Poirot?’ she asked in a low charming voice. ‘Mary has been telling me. I could hardly believe it. And you will really help us in our trouble. You will advise us?’

Poirot looked at her for a moment, then bowed.

‘Mademoiselle Penn—the effect is charming. But you should really grow a moustache.’

Miss Penn gave a gasp and drew back.

‘You were absent from business yesterday, were you not?’

‘I was here in the morning. Later I had a bad headache and went directly home.’

‘Not home, mademoiselle. For your headache you tried the change of air, did you not? The air of Charlock Bay is very bracing, I believe.’

He took me by the arm and drew me towards the door. He paused there and spoke over his shoulder.

‘You comprehend, I know everything. This little—farce—it must cease.’

There was a menace in his tone. Miss Penn, her face ghastly white, nodded mutely. Poirot turned to the girl.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he said gently, ‘you are young and charming. But participating in these little affairs will lead to that youth and charm being hidden behind prison walls—and I, Hercule Poirot, tell you that that will be a pity.’

Then he stepped out into the street and I followed him, bewildered.

‘From the first,
mon ami
, I was interested. When that young man booked his place as far as Monkhampton only, I saw the girl’s attention suddenly riveted on him. Now why? He was not of the type to make a woman look at him for himself alone. When we started on the coach, I had a feeling that something would happen. Who saw the young man tampering with the luggage? Mademoiselle and mademoiselle only, and remember
she chose that seat—a seat facing the window—a most unfeminine choice.

‘And then she comes to us with the tale of robbery—the despatch box forced which makes not the common sense, as I told you at the time.

‘And what is the result of it all? Mr Baker Wood has paid over good money for stolen goods. The miniatures will be returned to Miss Penn. She will sell them and will have made a thousand pounds instead of five hundred. I make the discreet inquiries and learn that her business is in a bad state—touch and go. I say to myself—the aunt and niece are in this together.’

‘Then you never suspected Norton Kane?’

‘
Mon ami
! With that moustache? A criminal is either clean shaven or he has a proper moustache that can be removed at will. But what an opportunity for the clever Miss Penn—a shrinking elderly lady with a pink-and-white complexion as we saw her. But if she holds herself erect, wears large boots, alters her complexion with a few unseemly blotches and—crowning touch—adds a few sparse hairs to her upper lip. What then? A masculine woman, says Mr Wood and “a man in disguise” say we at once.’

‘She really went to Charlock yesterday?’

‘Assuredly. The train, as you may remember telling me, left here at eleven and got to Charlock Bay at two o’clock. Then the return train is even quicker—the
one we came by. It leaves Charlock at four-five and gets here at six-fifteen. Naturally, the miniatures were never in the despatch case at all. That was artistically forced before being packed. Mademoiselle Mary has only to find a couple of mugs who will be sympathetic to her charm and champion beauty in distress. But one of the mugs was no mug—he was Hercule Poirot!’

I hardly liked the inference. I said hurriedly: ‘Then when you said you were helping a stranger, you were wilfully deceiving me. That’s exactly what you were doing.’

‘Never do I deceive you, Hastings. I only permit you to deceive yourself. I was referring to Mr Baker Wood—a stranger to these shores.’ His face darkened. ‘Ah! When I think of that imposition, that iniquitous over-charge, the same fare single to Charlock as return, my blood boils to protect the visitor! Not a pleasant man, Mr Baker Wood, not, as you would say, sympathetic. But a visitor! And we visitors, Hastings, must stand together. Me, I am all for the visitors!’

‘After all, there’s nothing like the country, is there?’ said Inspector Japp, breathing in heavily through his nose and out through his mouth in the most approved fashion.

Poirot and I applauded the sentiment heartily. It had been the Scotland Yard inspector’s idea that we should all go for the weekend to the little country town of Market Basing. When off duty, Japp was an ardent botanist, and discoursed upon minute flowers possessed of unbelievably lengthy Latin names (somewhat strangely pronounced) with an enthusiasm even greater than that he gave to his cases.

‘Nobody knows us, and we know nobody,’ explained Japp. ‘That’s the idea.’

This was not to prove quite the case, however, for the local constable happened to have been transferred from a village fifteen miles away where a case of
arsenical poisoning had brought him into contact with the Scotland Yard man. However, his delighted recognition of the great man only enhanced Japp’s sense of well-being, and as we sat down to breakfast on Sunday morning in the parlour of the village inn, with the sun shining, and tendrils of honeysuckle thrusting themselves in at the window, we were all in the best of spirits. The bacon and eggs were excellent, the coffee not so good, but passable and boiling hot.

‘This is the life,’ said Japp. ‘When I retire, I shall have a little place in the country. Far from crime, like this!’

‘
Le crime, il est partout
,’ remarked Poirot, helping himself to a neat square of bread, and frowning at a sparrow which had balanced itself impertinently on the windowsill.

I quoted lightly:

‘Lord,’ said Japp, stretching himself backward, ‘I believe I could manage another egg, and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon. What do you say, Captain?’

‘I’m with you,’ I returned heartily. ‘What about you, Poirot?’

Poirot shook his head.

‘One must not so replenish the stomach that the brain refuses to function,’ he remarked.

‘I’ll risk replenishing the stomach a bit more,’ laughed Japp. ‘I take a large size in stomachs; and by the way, you’re getting stout yourself, M. Poirot. Here, miss, eggs and bacon twice.’

At that moment, however, an imposing form blocked the doorway. It was Constable Pollard.

‘I hope you’ll excuse me troubling the inspector, gentlemen, but I’d be glad of his advice.’

‘I’m on holiday,’ said Japp hastily. ‘No work for me. What is the case?’

‘Gentleman up at Leigh House—shot himself—through the head.’

‘Well, they will do it,’ said Japp prosaically. ‘Debt, or a woman, I suppose. Sorry I can’t help you, Pollard.’

‘The point is,’ said the constable, ‘that he can’t have shot himself. Leastways, that’s what Dr Giles says.’

Japp put down his cup.

‘
Can’t
have shot himself? What do you mean?’

‘That’s what Dr Giles says,’ repeated Pollard. ‘He says it’s plumb impossible. He’s puzzled to death, the door being locked on the inside and the windows bolted; but he sticks to it that the man couldn’t have committed suicide.’

That settled it. The further supply of bacon and eggs
was waved aside, and a few minutes later we were all walking as fast as we could in the direction of Leigh House, Japp eagerly questioning the constable.

The name of the deceased was Walter Protheroe; he was a man of middle age and something of a recluse. He had come to Market Basing eight years ago and rented Leigh House, a rambling, dilapidated old mansion fast falling into ruin. He lived in a corner of it, his wants attended to by a housekeeper whom he had brought with him. Miss Clegg was her name, and she was a very superior woman and highly thought of in the village. Just lately Mr Protheroe had had visitors staying with him, a Mr and Mrs Parker from London. This morning, unable to get a reply when she went to call her master, and finding the door locked, Miss Clegg became alarmed, and telephoned for the police and the doctor. Constable Pollard and Dr Giles had arrived at the same moment. Their united efforts had succeeded in breaking down the oak door of his bedroom.

Mr Protheroe was lying on the floor, shot through the head, and the pistol was clasped in his right hand. It looked a clear case of suicide.

After examining the body, however, Dr Giles became clearly perplexed, and finally he drew the constable aside, and communicated his perplexities to him; whereupon Pollard had at once thought of Japp. Leaving the doctor in charge, he had hurried down to the inn.

By the time the constable’s recital was over, we had arrived at Leigh House, a big, desolate house surrounded by an unkempt, weed-ridden garden. The front door was open, and we passed at once into the hall and from there into a small morning-room whence proceeded the sound of voices. Four people were in the room: a somewhat flashily dressed man with a shifty, unpleasant face to whom I took an immediate dislike; a woman of much the same type, though handsome in a coarse fashion; another woman dressed in neat black who stood apart from the rest, and whom I took to be the housekeeper; and a tall man dressed in sporting tweeds, with a clever, capable face, and who was clearly in command of the situation.

‘Dr Giles,’ said the constable, ‘this is Detective-Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, and his two friends.’

The doctor greeted us and made us known to Mr and Mrs Parker. Then we accompanied them upstairs. Pollard, in obedience to a sign from Japp, remained below, as it were on guard over the household. The doctor led us upstairs and along a passage. A door was open at the end; splinters hung from the hinges, and the door itself had crashed to the floor inside the room.

We went in. The body was still lying on the floor. Mr Protheroe had been a man of middle age, bearded, with hair grey at the temples. Japp went and knelt by the body.

‘Why couldn’t you leave it as you found it?’ he grumbled.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

‘We thought it a clear case of suicide.’

‘H’m!’ said Japp. ‘Bullet entered the head behind the left ear.’

‘Exactly,’ said the doctor. ‘Clearly impossible for him to have fired it himself. He’d have had to twist his hand right round his head. It couldn’t have been done.’

‘Yet you found the pistol clasped in his hand? Where is it, by the way?’

The doctor nodded to the table.

‘But it wasn’t clasped in his hand,’ he said. ‘It was inside the hand, but the fingers weren’t closed over it.’

‘Put there afterwards,’ said Japp; ‘that’s clear enough.’ He was examining the weapon. ‘One cartridge fired. We’ll test it for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll find any but yours, Dr Giles. How long has he been dead?’

‘Some time last night. I can’t give the time to an hour or so, as those wonderful doctors in detective stories do. Roughly, he’s been dead about twelve hours.’

So far, Poirot had not made a move of any kind. He had remained by my side, watching Japp at work and listening to his questions. Only, from time to time, he had sniffed the air very delicately, and as if puzzled.
I too had sniffed, but could detect nothing to arouse interest. The air seemed perfectly fresh and devoid of odour. And yet, from time to time, Poirot continued to sniff it dubiously, as though his keener nose detected something I had missed.

Now, as Japp moved away from the body, Poirot knelt down by it. He took no interest in the wound. I thought at first that he was examining the fingers of the hand that had held the pistol, but in a minute I saw that it was a handkerchief carried in the coat-sleeve that interested him. Mr Protheroe was dressed in a dark grey lounge-suit. Finally Poirot got up from his knees, but his eyes still strayed back to the handkerchief as though puzzled.

Japp called to him to come and help to lift the door. Seizing my opportunity, I too knelt down, and taking the handkerchief from the sleeve, scrutinized it minutely. It was a perfectly plain handkerchief of white cambric; there was no mark or stain on it of any kind. I replaced it, shaking my head and confessing myself baffled.

The others had raised the door. I realized that they were hunting for the key. They looked in vain.

‘That settles it,’ said Japp. ‘The window’s shut and bolted. The murderer left by the door, locking it and taking the key with him. He thought it would be accepted that Protheroe had locked himself in and
shot himself, and that the absence of the key would not be noticed. You agree, M. Poirot?’

‘I agree, yes; but it would have been simpler and better to slip the key back inside the room under the door. Then it would look as though it had fallen from the lock.’

‘Ah, well, you can’t expect everybody to have the bright ideas that you have. You’d have been a holy terror if you’d taken to crime. Any remarks to make, M. Poirot?’

Poirot, it seemed to me, was somewhat at a loss. He looked round the room and remarked mildly and almost apologetically: ‘He smoked a lot, this monsieur.’

True enough, the grate was filled with cigarette-stubs, as was an ashtray that stood on a small table near the big armchair.

‘He must have got through about twenty cigarettes last night,’ remarked Japp. Stooping down, he examined the contents of the grate carefully, then transferred his attention to the ashtray. ‘They’re all the same kind,’ he announced, ‘and smoked by the same man. There’s nothing there, M. Poirot.’

‘I did not suggest that there was,’ murmured my friend.

‘Ha,’ cried Japp, ‘what’s this?’ He pounced on something bright and glittering that lay on the floor near
the dead man. ‘A broken cuff-link. I wonder who this belongs to. Dr Giles, I’d be obliged if you’d go down and send up the housekeeper.’

‘What about the Parkers? He’s very anxious to leave the house—says he’s got urgent business in London.’

‘I dare say. It’ll have to get on without him. By the way things are going, it’s likely that there’ll be some urgent business down here for him to attend to! Send up the housekeeper, and don’t let either of the Parkers give you and Pollard the slip. Did any of the household come in here this morning?’

The doctor reflected.

‘No, they stood outside in the corridor while Pollard and I came in.’

‘Sure of that?’

‘Absolutely certain.’

The doctor departed on his mission.

‘Good man, that,’ said Japp approvingly. ‘Some of these sporting doctors are first-class fellows. Well, I wonder who shot this chap. It looks like one of the three in the house. I hardly suspect the housekeeper. She’s had eight years to shoot him in if she wanted to. I wonder who these Parkers are? They’re not a prepossessing-looking couple.’

Miss Clegg appeared at this juncture. She was a thin, gaunt woman with neat grey hair parted in the middle, very staid and calm in manner. Nevertheless there
was an air of efficiency about her which commanded respect. In answer to Japp’s questions, she explained that she had been with the dead man for fourteen years. He had been a generous and considerate master. She had never seen Mr and Mrs Parker until three days ago, when they arrived unexpectedly to stay. She was of the opinion that they had asked themselves—the master had certainly not seemed pleased to see them. The cuff-links which Japp showed her had not belonged to Mr Protheroe—she was sure of that. Questioned about the pistol, she said that she believed her master had a weapon of that kind. He kept it locked up. She had seen it once some years ago, but could not say whether this was the same one. She had heard no shot last night, but that was not surprising, as it was a big, rambling house, and her rooms and those prepared for the Parkers were at the other end of the building. She did not know what time Mr Protheroe had gone to bed—he was still up when she retired at half past nine. It was not his habit to go at once to bed when he went to his room. Usually he would sit up half the night, reading and smoking. He was a great smoker.

Then Poirot interposed a question:

‘Did your master sleep with his window open or shut, as a rule?’

Miss Clegg considered.

‘It was usually open, at any rate at the top.’

‘Yet now it is closed. Can you explain that?’

‘No, unless he felt a draught and shut it.’

Japp asked her a few more questions and then dismissed her. Next he interviewed the Parkers separately. Mrs Parker was inclined to be hysterical and tearful; Mr Parker was full of bluster and abuse. He denied that the cuff-link was his, but as his wife had previously recognized it, this hardly improved matters for him; and as he had also denied ever having been in Protheroe’s room, Japp considered that he had sufficient evidence to apply for a warrant.

Leaving Pollard in charge, Japp bustled back to the village and got into telephonic communication with headquarters. Poirot and I strolled back to the inn.

‘You’re unusually quiet,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t the case interest you?’

‘
Au contraire
, it interests me enormously. But it puzzles me also.’

‘The motive is obscure,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘but I’m certain that Parker’s a bad lot. The case against him seems pretty clear but for the lack of motive, and that may come out later.’

‘Nothing struck you as being especially significant, although overlooked by Japp?’

I looked at him curiously.

‘What have you got up your sleeve, Poirot?’

‘What did the dead man have up his sleeve?’

‘Oh, that handkerchief!’

‘Exactly, that handkerchief.’

‘A sailor carries his handkerchief in his sleeve,’ I said thoughtfully.

‘An excellent point, Hastings, though not the one I had in mind.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, over and over again I go back to the smell of cigarette-smoke.’

‘I didn’t smell any,’ I cried wonderingly.

‘No more did I,
cher ami
.’

I looked earnestly at him. It is so difficult to know when Poirot is pulling one’s leg, but he seemed thoroughly in earnest and was frowning to himself.

The inquest took place two days later. In the meantime other evidence had come to light. A tramp had admitted that he had climbed over the wall into the Leigh House garden, where he often slept in a shed that was left unlocked. He declared that at twelve o’clock he had heard two men quarrelling loudly in a room on the first floor. One was demanding a sum of money; the other was angrily refusing. Concealed behind a bush, he had seen the two men as they passed and
repassed the lighted window. One he knew well as being Mr Protheroe, the owner of the house; the other he identified positively as Mr Parker.