Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot 15)

One

MR. SHAITANA

“My dear M. Poirot!”

It was a soft purring voice—a voice used deliberately as an instrument—nothing impulsive or premeditated about it.

Hercule Poirot swung round.

He bowed.

He shook hands ceremoniously.

There was something in his eye that was unusual. One would have said that this chance encounter awakened in him an emotion that he seldom had occasion to feel.

“My dear Mr. Shaitana,” he said.

They both paused. They were like duellists en garde.

Around them a well-dressed languid London crowd eddied mildly. Voices drawled or murmured.

“Darling—exquisite!”

“Simply divine, aren’t they, my dear?”

It was the Exhibition of Snuffboxes at Wessex House. Admission one guinea, in aid of the London hospitals.

“My dear man,” said Mr. Shaitana, “how nice to see you! Not hanging or guillotining much just at present? Slack season in the criminal world? Or is there to be a robbery here this afternoon—that would be too delicious.”

“Alas, Monsieur,” said Poirot. “I came here in a purely private capacity.”

Mr. Shaitana was diverted for a moment by a Lovely Young Thing with tight poodle curls up one side of her head and three cornucopias in black straw on the other.

He said:

“My dear—why didn’t you come to my party? It really was a marvellous party! Quite a lot of people actually spoke to me! One woman even said, ‘How do you do,’ and ‘Good-bye’ and ‘Thank you so much’—but of course she came from a Garden City, poor dear!”

While the Lovely Young Thing made a suitable reply, Poirot allowed himself a good study of the hirsute adornment on Mr. Shaitana’s upper lip.

A fine moustache—a very fine moustache—the only moustache in London, perhaps, that could compete with that of M. Hercule Poirot.

“But it is not so luxuriant,” he murmured to himself. “No, decidedly it is inferior in every respect. Tout de même, it catches the eye.”

The whole of Mr. Shaitana’s person caught the eye—it was designed to do so. He deliberately attempted a Mephistophelian effect. He was tall and thin, his face was long and melancholy, his eyebrows were heavily accented and jet black, he wore a moustache with stiff waxed ends and a tiny black imperial. His clothes were works of art—of exquisite cut—but with a suggestion of bizarre.

Every healthy Englishman who saw him longed earnestly and fervently to kick him! They said, with a singular lack of originality, “There’s that damned Dago, Shaitana!”

Their wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, and even grandmothers said, varying the idiom according to their generation, words to this effect: “I know, my dear. Of course, he is too terrible. But so rich! And such marvellous parties! And he’s always got something amusing and spiteful to tell you about people.”

Whether Mr. Shaitana was an Argentine, or a Portuguese, or a Greek, or some other nationality rightly despised by the insular Briton, nobody knew.

But three facts were quite certain:

He existed richly and beautifully in a super flat in Park Lane.

He gave wonderful parties—large parties, small parties, macabre parties, respectable parties and definitely “queer” parties.

He was a man of whom nearly everybody was a little afraid.

Why this last was so can hardly be stated in definite words. There was a feeling, perhaps, that he knew a little too much about everybody. And there was a feeling, too, that his sense of humour was a curious one.

People nearly always felt that it would be better not to risk offending Mr. Shaitana.

It was his humour this afternoon to bait that ridiculous-looking little man, Hercule Poirot.

“So even a policeman needs recreation?” he said. “You study the arts in your old age, M. Poirot?”

Poirot smiled good-humouredly.

“I see,” he said, “that you yourself have lent three snuffboxes to the Exhibition.”

Mr. Shaitana waved a deprecating hand.

“One picks up trifles here and there. You must come to my flat one day. I have some interesting pieces. I do not confine myself to any particular period or class of object.”

“Your tastes are catholic,” said Poirot smiling.

“As you say.”

Suddenly Mr. Shaitana’s eyes danced, the corners of his lips curled up, his eyebrows assumed a fantastic tilt.

“I could even show you objects in your own line, M. Poirot!”

“You have then a private ‘Black Museum.’”

“Bah!” Mr. Shaitana snapped disdainful fingers. “The cup used by the Brighton murderer, the jemmy of a celebrated burglar—absurd childishness! I should never burden myself with rubbish like that. I collect only the best objects of their kind