“And lost this time for good,” the sheriff said. We were in the study again. Beyond the open side door fireflies winked and drifted across the summer night and the crickets and tree-frogs cheeped and whirred. “It was that insurance policy. If that adjustor hadn’t come to town and sent us back out there in time to watch him try to dissolve sugar in raw whiskey, he would have collected that check and taken that truck and got clean away. Instead, he sends for the adjustor, then he practically dares you and me to come out there and see past that wig and paint—”
“You said something the other day about his destroying his witness too soon,” Uncle Gavin said. “She wasn’t his witness. The witness he destroyed was the one we were supposed to find under that feed room.”
“Witness to what?” the sheriff said. “To the fact that Joel Flint no longer existed?”
“Partly. But mostly to the first crime, the old one: the one in which Signor Canova died. He intended for that witness to be found. That’s why he didn’t bury it, hide it better and deeper. As soon as somebody found it, he would be at once and forever not only rich but free, free not only of Signor Canova who had betrayed him by dying eight years ago, but of Joel Flint too. Even if we had found it before he had a chance to leave, what would he have said?”
“He ought to have battered the face a little more,” the sheriff said.
“I doubt it,” Uncle Gavin said. “What would he have said?”
“All right,” the sheriff said. “What?”
“ ‘Yes, I killed him. He murdered my daughter.’ And what would you have said, being, as you are, the Law?”
“Nothing,” the sheriff said after a time.
“Nothing,” Uncle Gavin said. A dog was barking somewhere, not a big dog, and then a screech-owl flew into the mulberry tree in the back yard and began to cry, plaintive and tremulous, and all the little furred creatures would be moving now — the field mice, the possums and rabbits and foxes and the legless vertebrates — creeping or scurrying about the dark land which beneath the rainless summer stars was just dark: not desolate. “That’s one reason he did it,” Uncle Gavin said.
“One reason?” the sheriff said. “What’s the other?”
“The other is the real one. It had nothing to do with the money; he probably could not have helped obeying it if he had wanted to. That gift he had. His first regret right now is probably not that he was caught, but that he was caught too soon, before the body was found and he had the chance to identify it as his own; before Signor Canova had had time to toss his gleaming tophat vanishing behind him and bow to the amazed and stormlike staccato of adulant palms and turn and stride once or twice and then himself vanish from the pacing spotlight — gone, to be seen no more. Think what he did: he convicted himself of murder when he could very likely have escaped by flight; he acquitted himself of it after he was already free again. Then he dared you and me to come out there and actually be his witnesses and guarantors in the consummation of the very act which he knew we had been trying to prevent. What else could the possession of such a gift as his have engendered, and the successful practising of it have increased, but a supreme contempt for mankind? You told me yourself that he had never been afraid in his life.”
“Yes,” the sheriff said. “The Book itself says somewhere, Know thyself. Ain’t there another book somewhere that says, Man, fear thyself thine arrogance and vanity and pride? You ought to know; you claim to be a book man. Didn’t you tell me that’s what that luck-charm on your watch chain means? What book is that in?”
“It’s in all of them,” Uncle Gavin said. “The good ones, I mean. It’s said in a lot of different ways, but it’s there.”
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
by Agatha Christie
Here is a modern version of Mother Goose:
As a nursery rhyme it doesn’t seem to make much sense, but attributed to Mother Agatha the quatrain has an unusual detective-story significance. Each line, believe it or not, is the title of a short story by Agatha Christie!
“Sing a Song of Sixpence” is included in THE LISTERDALE MYSTERY. “The Gentleman Dressed in News” (poetic license: the full title is “The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper”) is one of the stories in PARTNERS IN CRIME. “Murder in the Mews” comes from the English book of the same name, published in the United States as DEAD MAN’S MIRROR.
That leaves the third line — “Four and Twenty Blackbirds.” This story cannot be found in any of Miss Christie’s published books, but it exists none the less — as the text that follows proves beyond question.
Join Hercule Poirot, the man with the egg-shaped head, in a restaurant mystery. The magnificent Poirot, so fastidious, 50 precise, has a nice taste when it comes to food, but no sauce, however appetizing, can fool those little grey cells. If the fish underneath is bad, Poirot’s nose knows — he can smell a red herring in any culinary disguise!
Hercule Poirot was dining with his friend, Henry Bonnington, at the Gallant Endeavour in the King’s Road, Chelsea.
Mr. Bonnington was fond of the Gallant Endeavour. He liked the leisurely atmosphere, he liked the food which was “plain” and “English” and “not a lot of made-up messes.”
Molly, the sympathetic waitress, greeted him as an old friend. She prided herself on remembering her customers’ likes and dislikes in food.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, as the two men took their seats at a corner table. “You’re in luck today — turkey stuffed with chestnuts — that’s your favorite, isn’t it? And ever such a nice Stilton we’ve got! Will you have soup first or fish?”
The question of food and wine settled, Mr. Bonnington unfolded his napkin with a sigh as Molly sped away.
“Good girl, that!” he said approvingly. “Was quite a beauty once — artists used to paint her. She knows about food, too — and that’s a great deal more important. Women are very unsound on food as a rule. There’s many a woman, if she goes out with a fellow she fancies, won’t even notice what she eats. She’ll just order the first thing she sees.”
Hercule Poirot shook his head.
“C’est terrible.”
“Men aren’t like that, thank goodness!” said Mr. Bonnington complacently.
“Never?” There was a twinkle in Hercule Poirot’s eye.
“Well, perhaps when they’re very young,” conceded Mr. Bonnington. “Young puppies! Young fellows nowadays are all the same — no guts — no stamina. I’ve no use for the young — and they,” he added with strict impartiality, “have no use for me. Perhaps they’re right! But to hear some of these young fellows talk you’d think no man had a right to be alive after sixty! From the way they go on, you’d wonder more of them didn’t help their elderly relations out of the world.”