Black Coffee (Hercule Poirot 7)

Richard sprang to his feet. ‘Surely you don’t think –’ he began, but then broke off.

‘It seems highly unlikely,’ Graham told him, ‘that the poison could have been administered at dinner. The most likely explanation is that the hyoscine was added to Sir Claud’s coffee.’

‘I – I –’ Richard tried to utter as he rose and took a step towards the doctor, but then broke off with a despairing gesture, and left the room abruptly through the french windows into the garden.

Dr Graham took a small cardboard box of cotton wool from his bag, and carefully packed the cup in it, talking to Poirot as he did so. ‘A nasty business,’ he confided. ‘I’m not at all surprised that Richard Amory is upset. The newspapers will make the most of this Italian doctor’s friendship with his wife. And mud tends to stick, Monsieur Poirot. Mud tends to stick. Poor lady! She was probably wholly innocent. The man obviously made her acquaintance in some plausible way. They’re astonishingly clever, these foreigners. Of course, I suppose I shouldn’t be talking this way, as though the thing were a foregone conclusion, but what else is one to imagine?’

‘You think it leaps to the eye, yes?’ Poirot asked him, exchanging glances with Hastings.

‘Well, after all,’ Dr Graham explained, ‘Sir Claud’s invention was valuable. This foreigner comes along, of whom nobody knows anything. An Italian. Sir Claud is mysteriously poisoned –’

‘Ah, yes! The Borgias,’ exclaimed Poirot.

‘I beg your pardon?’ asked the doctor.

‘Nothing, nothing.’

Dr Graham picked up his bag and prepared to leave, holding out his hand to Poirot. ‘Well, I’d best be off.’

‘Goodbye – for the present, Monsieur le docteur,’ said Poirot as they shook hands.

At the door, Graham paused and looked back. ‘Goodbye, Monsieur Poirot. You will see that nobody disturbs anything in this room until the police arrive, won’t you? That’s extremely important.’

‘Most certainly, I shall make myself responsible for it,’ Poirot assured him.

As Graham left, closing the door behind him, Hastings observed dryly, ‘You know, Poirot, I shouldn’t like to be ill in this house. For one thing, there appears to be a poisoner at loose in the place – and, for another, I’m not at all sure I trust that young doctor.’

Poirot gave Hastings a quizzical look. ‘Let us hope that we will not be in this house long enough to become ill,’ he said, moving to the fireplace and pressing the bell. ‘And now, my dear Hastings, to work,’ he announced as he rejoined his colleague who was contemplating the coffee table with a puzzled expression.

‘What are you going to do?’ Hastings asked.

‘You and I, my friend,’ replied Poirot with a twinkle in his eye, ‘are going to interview Cesare Borgia.’

Tredwell entered in response to Poirot’s call. ‘You rang, sir?’ the butler asked.

‘Yes, Tredwell. Will you please ask the Italian gentleman, Dr Carelli, if he would be kind enough to come here?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ Tredwell replied. He left the room, and Poirot went to the table to pick up the case of drugs. ‘It would be well, I think,’ he confided to Hastings, ‘if we were to put this box of so very dangerous drugs back in its proper place. Let us, above all things, be neat and orderly.’

Handing the tin box to Hastings, Poirot took a chair to the bookcase and climbed onto it. ‘The old cry for neatness and symmetry, eh?’ Hastings exclaimed. ‘But there’s more to it than that, I imagine.’

‘What do you mean, my friend?’ asked Poirot.

‘I know what it is. You don’t want to scare Carelli. After all, who handled those drugs last night? Amongst others, he did. If he saw them down on the table, it might put him on his guard, eh, Poirot?’

Poirot tapped Hastings on the head. ‘How astute is my friend Hastings,’ he declared, taking the case from him.

‘I know you too well,’ Hastings insisted. ‘You can’t throw dust in my eyes.’

As Hastings spoke, Poirot drew a finger along the top of the bookshelf, sweeping dust down into his friend’s upturned face. ‘It seems to me, my dear Hastings, that that is precisely what I have done,’ Poirot exclaimed as he gingerly drew a finger along the shelf again, making a grimace as he did so. ‘It appears that I have praised the domestics too soon. This shelf is thick with dust. I wish I had a good wet duster in my hand to clean it up!’

‘My dear Poirot,’ Hastings laughed, ‘you’re not a housemaid.’

‘Alas, no,’ observed Poirot sadly. ‘I am only a detective!’

‘Well, there’s nothing to detect up there,’ Hastings declared, ‘so get down.’

‘As you say, there is nothing –’ Poirot began, and then stopped dead, standing quite still on the chair as though turned to stone.

‘What is it?’ Hastings asked him impatiently, adding, ‘Do get down, Poirot. Dr Carelli will be here at any minute. You don’t want him to find you up there, do you?’

‘You are right, my friend,’ Poirot agreed as he got down slowly from the chair. His face wore a solemn expression.

‘What on earth is the matter?’ asked Hastings.

‘It is that I am thinking of something,’ Poirot replied with a faraway look in his eyes.

‘What are you thinking of ?’

‘Dust, Hastings. Dust,’ said Poirot in an odd voice.

The door opened, and Dr Carelli entered the room. He and Poirot greeted each other with the greatest of ceremony, each politely speaking the other’s native tongue. ‘Ah, Monsieur Poirot,’ Carelli began. ‘Vous voulez me questionner?’

‘Si, signor dottore, si lei permette,’ Poirot replied.

‘Ah, lei parla Italiano?’

‘Si, ma preferisco parlare in Francese.’

‘Alors,’ said Carelli, ‘qu’est-ce que vous voulez me demander? ’

‘I say,’ Hastings interjected with a certain irritation in his voice. ‘What the devil is all this?’

‘Ah, the poor Hastings is not a linguist. I had forgotten,’ Poirot smiled. ‘We had better speak English.’

‘I beg your pardon. Of course,’ Carelli agreed. He addressed Poirot with an air of great frankness. ‘I am glad that you have sent for me, Monsieur Poirot,’ he declared. ‘Had you not done so, I should myself have requested an interview.’

‘Indeed?’ remarked Poirot, indicating a chair by the table.

Carelli sat, while Poirot seated himself in the armchair, and Hastings made himself comfortable on the settee. ‘Yes,’ the Italian doctor continued. ‘As it happens, I have business in London of an urgent nature.’

‘Pray, continue,’ Poirot encouraged him.

‘Yes. Of course, I quite appreciated the position last night. A valuable document had been stolen. I was the only stranger present. Naturally, I was only too willing to remain, to permit myself to be searched, in fact to insist on being searched. As a man of honour, I could do nothing else.’

‘Quite so,’ Poirot agreed. ‘But today?’

‘Today is different,’ replied Carelli. ‘I have, as I say, urgent business in London.’

‘And you wish to take your departure?’

‘Exactly.’

‘It seems most reasonable,’ Poirot declared. ‘Do you not think so, Hastings?’

Hastings made no reply, but looked as though he did not think it at all reasonable.

‘Perhaps a word from you, Monsieur Poirot, to Mr Amory, would be in order,’ Carelli suggested. ‘I should like to avoid any unpleasantness.’

‘My good offices are at your disposal, Monsieur le docteur,’ Poirot assured him. ‘And now, perhaps you can assist me with one or two details.’

‘I should be only too happy to do so,’ Carelli replied.

Poirot considered for a moment, before asking, ‘Is Madame Richard Amory an old friend of yours?’

‘A very old friend,’ said Carelli. He sighed. ‘It was a delightful surprise, running across her so unexpectedly in this out-of-the-way spo

t.’

‘Unexpectedly, you say?’ Poirot asked.

‘Quite unexpectedly,’ Carelli replied, with a quick glance at the detective.