"I must get unpacked, and I might have a bath before dinner."
Poirot pressed a little bell within reach of his hand and a minute or two later his valet attendant entered. I was surprised to find that the man was a stranger.
"Why! Where's Georges?"
Poirot's valet, Georges, had been with him for many years.
"Georges has returned to his family. His father is ill. I hope he will come back to me sometime. In the meantime," he smiled at the new valet, "Curtiss looks after me."
Curtiss smiled back respectfully. He was a big man with a bovine rather stupid face.
As I went out of the door, I noted that Poirot was carefully locking up the dispatch case with the papers inside it.
My mind in a whirl, I crossed the passage to my own room.
Chapter 4
I went down to dinner that night feeling that the whole of life had become suddenly unreal.
Once or twice, while dressing, I had asked myself if possibly Poirot had imagined the whole thing. After all, the dear old chap was an old man now and sadly broken in health. He himself might declare his brain was as sound as ever – but in point of fact, was it? His whole life had been spent in tracking down crime. Would it really be surprising if, in the end, he was to fancy crimes where no crimes were? His enforced inaction must have fretted him sorely. What more likely than that he should ninvent for himself a new manhunt? Wishful thinking – a perfectly reasonable neurosis. He had selected a number of publicly reported happenings, and had read into them something that was not there – a shadowy figure behind them – a mad mass murderer. In all probability Mrs Etherington had really killed her husband, the labourer had shot his wife, a young woman had given her old aunt an overdose of morphia, a jealous wife had polished off her husband as she had threatened to do, and a crazy spinster had really committed the murder for which she had subsequently given herself up. In fact these crimes were exactly what they seemed!
Against that view (surely the common-sense one) I could only set my own inherent belief in Poirot's acumen.
Poirot said that a murder had been arranged. For the second time Styles was to house a crime.
Time would prove or disprove that assertion, but if it were true, it behooved us to forestall that happening.
And Poirot knew the identity of the murderer, which I did not.
The more I thought about that, the more annoyed I became! Really, frankly, it was damned cheek of Poirot! He wanted my cooperation and yet he refused to take me into his confidence!
Why? There was the reason he gave – surely a most inadequate one! I was tired of this silly joking about my "speaking countenance." I could keep a secret as well as anyone. Poirot has always persisted in the humiliating belief that I am a transparent character and that anyone can read what is passing in my mind. He tries to soften the blow sometimes by attributing it to my beautiful and honest character, which abhors all form of deceit! Of course, I reflected, if the whole thing was a chimera of Poirot's imagination, his reticence was easily explained.
I had come to no conclusion by the time the gong sounded, and I went down to dinner with an open mind, but with an alert eye, for the detection of Poirot's mythical X.
For the moment I would accept everything that Poirot had said as gospel truth. There was a person under this roof who had already killed five times and who was preparing to kill again. Who was it?
In the drawing room before we went in to dinner I was introduced to Miss Cole and Major Allerton. The former was a tall, still handsome woman of thirty-three or -four. Major Allerton I instinctively disliked. He was a good-looking man in the early forties, broad-shouldered, bronzed of face, with an easy way of talking, most of what he said holding a double implication. He had the pouches under his eyes that come with a dissipated way of life. I suspected him of racketing around, of gambling, of drinking hard, and of being first and last a womanizer.
Old Colonel Luttrell, I saw, did not much like him either, and Boyd Carrington was also rather stiff in his manner towards him. Allerton's success was with the women of the party. Mrs Luttrell twittered to him delightedly, while he flattered her lazily and with a hardly concealed impertinence. I was also annoyed to see that Judith, too, seemed to enjoy his company and was exerting herself far more than usual to talk to him. Why the worst type of man can always be relied upon to please and interest the nicest of women has long been a problem beyond me. I knew instinctively that Allerton was a rotter – and nine men out of ten would have agreed with me. Whereas nine women or possibly the whole ten would have fallen for him immediately.
As we sat down at the dinner table and plates of white gluey liquid were set before us, I let my eyes rove round the table while I summed up the possibilities.
If Poirot were right and retained his clearness of brain unimpaired, one of these people was a dangerous murderer – and probably a lunatic as well.
Poirot had not actually said so, but I presumed that X was probably a man. Which of these men was it likely to be?
Surely not old Colonel Luttrell, with his indecision and his general air of feebleness. Norton, the man whom I had met rushing out of the house with field glasses? It seemed unlikely. He appeared to be a pleasant fellow, rather ineffective and lacking in vitality. Of course, I told myself, many murderers have been small insignificant men – driven to assert themselves by crime for that very reason. They resented being passed over and ignored. Norton might be a murderer of this type. But there was his fondness for birds. I have always believed that a love of nature was essentially a healthy sign in a man.
Boyd Carrington? Out of the question. A man with a name known all over the world. A fine sportsman, an administrator, a man universally liked and looked up to. Franklin I also dismissed. I knew how Judith respected and admired him.
Major Allerton now. I dwelt on him appraisingly. A nasty fellow if I ever saw one! The sort of fellow who would skin his grandmother. And all glossed over with this superficial charm of manner. He was talking now – telling a story of his own discomfiture and making everybody laugh with his rueful appreciation of a joke at his expense.
If Allerton was X, I decided, his crimes had been committed for profit in some way.
It was true that Poirot had not definitely said that X was a man. I considered Miss Cole as a possibility. Her movements were restless and jerky – obviously a woman of nerves. Handsome in a hag-ridden kind of way. Still, she looked normal enough. She, Mrs Luttrell and Judith were the only women at the dinner table. Mrs Franklin was having dinner upstairs in her room, and the nurse who attended to her had her meals after us.
After dinner I was standing by the drawing-room window looking out into the garden and thinking back to the time when I had seen Cynthia Murdoch, a young girl with auburn hair, run across that lawn. How charming she had looked in her white overall…
Lost in thoughts of the past, I started when Judith passed her arm through mine and impelled me with her out of the window onto the terrace.
She said abruptly, "What's the matter?"
I was startled. "The matter? What do you mean?"
"You've been so queer all through the evening. Why were you staring at everyone at dinner?"
I was annoyed. I had had no idea I had allowed my thoughts so much sway over me.
"Was I? I suppose I was thinking of the past. Seeing ghosts perhaps."
"Oh yes, of course you stayed here, didn't you, when you were a young man? An old lady was murdered here, or something?"
"Poisoned with strychnine."
"What was she like? Nice or nasty?"
I considered the question.
"She was a very kind woman," I said slowly. "Generous. Gave a lot to charity."