Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot 15)

FIRST MURDERER?

Hercule Poirot, Mrs. Oliver, Colonel Race and Superintendent Battle sat round the dining room table.

It was an hour later. The body had been examined, photographed and removed. A fingerprint expert had been and gone.

Superintendent Battle looked at Poirot.

“Before I have those four in, I want to hear what you’ve got to tell me. According to you there was something behind this party tonight?”

Very deliberately and carefully Poirot retold the conversation he had held with Shaitana at Wessex House.

Superintendent Battle pursed his lips. He very nearly whistled.

“Exhibits—eh? Murderers all alive oh! And you think he meant it? You don’t think he was pulling your leg?”

Poirot shook his head.

“Oh, no, he meant it. Shaitana was a man who prided himself on his Mephistophelian attitude to life. He was a man of great vanity. He was also a stupid man—that is why he is dead.”

“I get you,” said Superintendent Battle, following things out in his mind. “A party of eight and himself. Four ‘sleuths,’ so to speak—and four murderers!”

“It’s impossible!” cried Mrs. Oliver. “Absolutely impossible. None of those people can be criminals.”

Superintendent Battle shook his head thoughtfully.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Mrs. Oliver. Murderers look and behave very much like everybody else. Nice, quiet, well-behaved, reasonable folk very often.”

“In that case, it’s Dr. Roberts,” said Mrs. Oliver firmly. “I felt instinctively that there was something wrong with that man as soon as I saw him. My instincts never lie.”

Battle turned to Colonel Race.

Race shrugged his shoulders. He took the question as referring to Poirot’s statment and not to Mrs. Oliver’s suspicions.

“It could be,” he said. “It could be. It shows that Shaitana was right in one case at least! After all, he can only have suspected that these people were murderers—he can’t have been sure. He may have been right in all four cases, he may have been right in only one case—but he was right in one case; his death proved that.”

“One of them got the wind up. Think that’s it, M. Poirot?”

Poirot nodded.

“The late Mr. Shaitana had a reputation,” he said. “He had a dangerous sense of humour, and was reputed to be merciless. The victim thought that Shaitana was giving himself an evening’s amusement, leading up to a moment when he’d hand the victim over to the police—you! He (or she) must have thought that Shaitana had definite evidence.”

“Had he?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“That we shall never know.”

“Dr. Roberts!” repeated Mrs. Oliver firmly. “Such a hearty man. Murderers are often hearty—as a disguise! If I were you, Superintendent Battle, I should arrest him at once.”

“I daresay we would if there was a Woman at the Head of Scotland Yard,” said Superintendent Battle, a momentary twinkle showing in his unemotional eye. “But, you see, mere men being in charge, we’ve got to be careful. We’ve got to get there slowly.”

“Oh, men—men,” sighed Mrs. Oliver, and began to compose newspaper articles in her head.

“Better have them in now,” said Superintendent Battle. “It won’t do to keep them hanging about too long.”

Colonel Race half rose.

“If you’d like us to go—”