Cards on the Table (SB) (Superintendent Battle 3)

There was silence for a minute or two, then Dr. Roberts shook his head.

“It’s no good. I can’t help you,” he said frankly. “I simply don’t remember. All I can tell you is what I told you before: Mrs. Lorrimer is a first-class player—she never made a slip that I noticed. She was brilliant from start to finish. Despard’s play was uniformly good too. Rather a conventional player—that is, his bidding is strictly conventional. He never steps outside the rules. Won’t take a long chance. Miss Meredith—” He hesitated.

“Yes? Miss Meredith?” Poirot prompted him.

“She did make mistakes—once or twice—I remember—towards the end of the evening, but that may simply have been because she was tired—not being a very experienced player. Her hand shook, too—”

He stopped.

“When did her hand shake?”

“When was it now? I can’t remember … I think she was just nervous. M. Poirot, you’re making me imagine things.”

“I apologize. There is another point on which I seek your help.”

“Yes?”

Poirot said slowly:

“It is difficult. I do not, you see, wish to ask you a leading question. If I say, did you notice so and so—well, I have put the thing into your head. Your answer will not be so valuable. Let me try to get at the matter another way. If you will be so kind, Dr. Roberts, describe to me the contents of the room in which you played.”

Roberts looked thoroughly astonished.

“The contents of the room?”

“If you will be so good.”

“My dear fellow, I simply don’t know where to begin.”

“Begin anywhere you choose.”

“Well, there was a good deal of furniture—”

“Non, non, non, be precise, I pray of you.”

Dr. Roberts sighed.

He began facetiously after the manner of an auctioneer.

“One large settee upholstered in ivory brocade—one ditto in green ditto—four or five large chairs. Eight or nine Persian rugs—a set of twelve small gilt Empire chairs. William and Mary bureau. (I feel just like an auctioneer’s clerk.) Very beautiful Chinese cabinet. Grand piano. There was other furniture but I’m afraid I didn’t notice it. Six first-class Japanese prints. Two Chinese pictures on looking glass. Five or six very beautiful snuffboxes. Some Japanese ivory netsuke figures on a table by themselves. Some old silver—Charles I tazzas, I think. One or two pieces of Battersea enamel—”

“Bravo, bravo!” Poirot applauded.

“A couple of old English slipware birds—and, I think, a Ralph Wood figure. Then there was some Eastern stuff—intricate silver work. Some jewellery, I don’t know much about that. Some Chelsea birds, I remember. Oh, and some miniatures in a case—pretty good ones, I fancy. That’s not all by a long way—but it’s all I can think of for the minute.”

“It is magnificent,” said Poirot with due appreciation. “You have the true observer’s eye.”

The doctor asked curiously:

“Have I included the object you had in mind?”

“That is the interesting thing about it,” said Poirot. “If you had mentioned the object I had in mind it would have been extremely surprising to me. As I thought, you could not mention it.”

“Why?”

Poirot twinkled.

“Perhaps—because it was not there to mention.”

Roberts stared.

“That seems to remind me of something.”

“It reminds you of Sherlock Holmes, does it not? The curious incident of the dog in the night. The dog did not howl in the night. That is the curious thing! Ah, well, I am not above stealing the tricks of others.”

“Do you know, M. Poirot, I am completely at sea as to what you are driving at.”

“That is excellent, that. In confidence, that is how I get my little effects.”

Then, as Dr. Roberts still looked rather dazed, Poirot said with a smile as he rose to his feet:

“You may at least comprehend this, what you have told me is going to be very helpful to me in my next interview.”

The doctor rose also.

“I can’t see how, but I’ll take your word for it,” he said.

They shook hands.

Poirot went down the steps of the doctor’s house, and hailed a passing taxi.

“111 Cheyne Lane, Chelsea,” he told the driver.

Eleven

MRS. LORRIMER

111 Cheyne Lane was a small house of very neat and trim appearance standing in a quiet street. The door was painted black and the steps were particularly well whitened, the brass of the knocker and handle gleamed in the afternoon sun.

The door was opened by an elderly parlourmaid with an immaculate white cap and apron.

In answer to Poirot’s inquiry she said that her mistress was at home.

She preceded him up the narrow staircase.

“What name, sir?”

“M. Hercule Poirot.”

He was ushered into a drawing room of the usual L shape. Poirot looked about him, noting details. Good furniture, well polished, of the old family type. Shiny chintz on the chairs and settees. A few silver photograph frames about in the old-fashioned manner. Otherwise an agreeable amount of space and light, and some really beautiful chrysanthemums arranged in a tall jar.

Mrs. Lorrimer came forward to meet him.

She shook hands without showing any particular surprise at seeing him, indicated a chair, took one herself and remarked favourably on the weather.

There was a pause.

“I hope, madame,” said Hercule Poirot, “that you will forgive this visit.”

Looking directly at him, Mrs. Lorrimer asked:

“Is this a professional visit?”

“I confess it.”

“You realize, I suppose, M. Poirot, that though I shall naturally give Superintendent Battle and the official police any information and help they may require, I am by no means bound to do the same for any unofficial investigator?”

“I am quite aware of that fact, madame. If you show me the door, me, I march to that door with complete submission.”

Mrs. Lorrimer smiled very slightly.

“I am not yet prepared to go to those extremes, M. Poirot. I can give you ten minutes. At the end of that time I have to go out to a bridge party.”

“Ten minutes will be ample for my purpose. I want you to describe to me, madame, the room in which you played bridge the other evening—the room in which Mr. Shaitana was killed.”

Mrs. Lorrimer’s eyebrows rose.

“What an extraordinary question! I d

o not see the point of it.”

“Madame, if when you were playing bridge, someone were to say to you—why do you play that ace or why do you put on the knave that is taken by the queen and not the king which would take the trick? If people were to ask you such questions, the answers would be rather long and tedious, would they not?”

Mrs. Lorrimer smiled slightly.

“Meaning that in this game you are the expert and I am the novice. Very well.” She reflected a minute. “It was a large room. There were a good many things in it.”

“Can you describe some of those things?”

“There were some glass flowers—modern—rather beautiful … And I think there were some Chinese or Japanese pictures. And there was a bowl of tiny red tulips—amazingly early for them.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t notice anything in detail.”

“The furniture—do you remember the colour of the upholstery?”

“Something silky, I think. That’s all I can say.”

“Did you notice any of the small objects?”

“I’m afraid not. There were so many. I know it struck me as quite a collector’s room.”

There was silence for a minute. Mrs. Lorrimer said with a faint smile:

“I’m afraid I have not been very helpful.”

“There is something else.” He produced the bridge scores. “Here are the first three rubbers played. I wondered if you could help me with the aid of these scores to reconstruct the hands.”

“Let me see.” Mrs. Lorrimer looked interested. She bent over the scores.

“That was the first rubber. Miss Meredith and I were playing against the two men. The first game was played in four spades. We made it and an over trick. Then the next hand was left at two diamonds and Dr. Roberts went down one trick on it. There was quite a lot of bidding on the third hand, I remember. Miss Meredith passed. Major Despard went a heart. I passed. Dr. Roberts gave a jump bid of three clubs. Miss Meredith went three spades. Major Despard bid four diamonds. I doubled. Dr. Roberts took it into four hearts. They went down one.”

“Epatant,” said Poirot. “What a memory!”

Mrs. Lorrimer went on, disregarding him: