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

Anne stared at him suspiciously.

“I don’t understand?”

“But yes. The chairs, the tables, the ornaments, the wallpaper, the curtains, the fire irons. You saw them all. Can you not then describe them?”

“Oh, I see.” Anne hesitated, frowning. “It’s difficult. I don’t really think I remember. I couldn’t say what the wallpaper was like. I think the walls were painted—some inconspicuous colour. There were rugs on the floor. There was a piano.” She shook her head. “I really couldn’t tell you any more.”

“But you are not trying, mademoiselle. You must remember some object, some ornament, some piece of bric-à-brac?”

“There was a case of Egyptian jewellery, I remember,” said Anne slowly. “Over by the window.”

“Oh, yes, at the extreme other end of the room from the table on which lay the little dagger.”

Anne looked at him.

“I never heard which table that was on.”

“Pas si bête,” commented Poirot to himself. “But then, no more is Hercule Poirot! If she knew me better she would realize I would never lay a piège as gross as that!”

Aloud he said:

“A case of Egyptian jewellery, you say?”

Anne answered with some enthusiasm.

“Yes—some of it was lovely. Blues and red. Enamel. One or two lovely rings. And scarabs—but I don’t like them so much.”

“He was a great collector, Mr. Shaitana,” murmured Poirot.

“Yes, he must have been,” Anne agreed. “The room was full of stuff. One couldn’t begin to look at it all.”

“So that you cannot mention anything else that particularly struck your notice?”

Anne smiled a little as she said:

“Only a vase of chrysanthemums that badly wanted their water changed.”

“Ah, yes, servants are not always too particular about that.”

Poirot was silent for a moment or two.

Anne asked timidly:

“I’m afraid I didn’t notice—whatever it is you wanted me to notice.”

Poirot smiled kindly.

“It does not matter, mon enfant. It was, indeed, an outside chance. Tell me, have you seen the good Major Despard lately?”

He saw the delicate pink colour come up in the girl’s face. She replied:

“He said he would come and see us again quite soon.”

Rhoda said impetuously:

“He didn’t do it, anyway! Anne and I are quite sure of that.”

Poirot twinkled at them.

“How fortunate—to have convinced two such charming young ladies of one’s innocence.”

“Oh, dear,” thought Rhoda. “He’s going to be French, and it does embarrass me so.”

She got up and began examining some etchings on the wall.

“These are awfully good,” she said.

“They are not bad,” said Poirot.

He hesitated, looking at Anne.

“Mademoiselle,” he said at last. “I wonder if I might ask you to do me a great favour—oh, nothing to do with the murder. This is an entirely private and personal matter.”

Anne looked a little surprised. Poirot went on speaking in a slightly embarrassed manner.

“It is, you understand, that Christmas is coming on. I have to buy presents for many nieces and grandnieces. And it is a little difficult to choose what young ladies like in this present time. My tastes, alas, are rather old-fashioned.”

“Yes?” said Anne kindly.

“Silk stockings, now—are silk stockings a welcome present to receive?”

“Yes, indeed. It’s always nice to be given stockings.”

“You relieve my mind. I will ask my favour. I have obtained some different colours. There are, I think, about fifteen or sixteen pairs. Would you be so amiable as to look through them and set aside half a dozen pairs that seem to you the most desirable?”

“Certainly I will,” said Anne, rising, with a laugh.

Poirot directed her towards a table in an alcove—a table whose contents were strangely at variance, had she but known it, with the well-known order and neatness of Hercule Poirot. There were stockings piled up in untidy heaps—some fur-lined gloves—calendars and boxes of bonbons.

“I send off my parcels very much à l’avance,” Poirot explained. “See, mademoiselle, here are the stockings. Select me, I pray of you, six pairs.”

He turned, intercepting Rhoda, who was following him.

“As for mademoiselle here, I have a little treat for her—a treat that would be no treat to you, I fancy, Mademoiselle Meredith.”

“What is it?” cried Rhoda.

He lowered his voice.

“A knife, mademoiselle, with which twelve people once stabbed a man. It was given to me as a souvenir by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits.”

“Horrible,” cried Anne.

“Ooh! Let me see,” said Rhoda.

Poirot led her through into the other room, talking as he went.

“It was given me by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits because—”

They passed out of the room.

They returned three minutes later. Anne came towards them.

“I think these six are the nicest, M. Poirot. Both these are very good evening shades, and this lighter colour would be nice when summer comes and it’s daylight in the evening.”

“Mille remercîments, mademoiselle.”

He offered them more sirop, which they refused, and finally accompanied them to the door, still talking genially.

When they had finally departed he returned to the room and went straight to the littered table. The pile of stockings still lay in a confused heap. Poirot counted the six selected pairs and then went on to count the others.

He had bought nineteen pairs. There were now only seventeen.

He nodded his head slowly.

Twenty-four

ELIMINATION OF THREE MURDERERS?

On arrival in London, Superintendent Battle came straight to Poirot. Anne and Rhoda had then been gone an hour or more.

Without more ado, the superintendent recounted the result of his researches in Devonshire.

“We’re onto it—not a doubt of it,” he finished. “That’s what Shaitana was aiming at—with his ‘domestic accident’ business. But what gets me is the motive. Why did she want to kill the woman?”

“I think I can help you there, my friend.”

“Go ahead, M. Poirot.”

“This afternoon I conducted a little experiment. I induced mademoiselle and her friend to come here. I put to them my usual questions as to what there was in the room that night.”

Battle looked at him curiously.

“You’re very keen on th

at question.”

“Yes, it’s useful. It tells me a good deal. Mademoiselle Meredith was suspicious—very suspicious. She takes nothing for granted, that young lady. So that good dog, Hercule Poirot, he does one of his best tricks. He lays a clumsy amateurish trap. Mademoiselle mentions a case of jewellery. I say was not that at the opposite end of the room from the table with the dagger. Mademoiselle does not fall into the trap. She avoids it cleverly. And after that she is pleased with herself, and her vigilance relaxes. So that is the object of this visit—to get her to admit that she knew where the dagger was, and that she noticed it! Her spirits rise when she has, as she thinks, defeated me. She talked quite freely about the jewellery. She has noticed many details of it. There is nothing else in the room that she remembers—except that a vase of chrysanthemums needed its water changing.”

“Well?” said Battle.

“Well, it is significant, that. Suppose we knew nothing about this girl. Her word would give us a clue to her character. She notices flowers. She is, then, fond of flowers? No, since she does not mention a very big bowl of early tulips which would at once have attracted the attention of a flower lover. No, it is the paid companion who speaks—the girl whose duty it has been to put fresh water in the vases—and, allied to that, there is a girl who loves and notices jewellery. Is not that, at least, suggestive?”