Lady Chevenix-Gore at last took the initiative, if initiative it can be called. Certainly her manner was vague in the extreme.
“Snell,” she said, “is your master—?”
She did not finish the sentence, merely looked at the butler expectantly.
Snell, who was clearly used to his mistress’s methods of seeking information, replied promptly to the unspecified question:
“Sir Gervase came downstairs at five minutes to eight, m’lady, and went straight to the study.”
“Oh, I see—” Her mouth remained open, her eyes seemed far away. “You don’t think—I mean—he heard the gong?”
“I think he must have done so, m’lady, the gong being immediately outside the study door. I did not, of course, know that Sir Gervase was still in the study, otherwise I should have announced to him that dinner was ready. Shall I do so now, m’lady?”
Lady Cheven
ix-Gore seized on the suggestion with manifest relief.
“Oh, thank you, Snell. Yes, please do. Yes, certainly.”
She said, as the butler left the room:
“Snell is such a treasure. I rely on him absolutely. I really don’t know what I should do without Snell.”
Somebody murmured a sympathetic assent, but nobody spoke. Hercule Poirot, watching that room full of people with suddenly sharpened attention, had an idea that one and all were in a state of tension. His eyes ran quickly over them, tabulating them roughly. Two elderly men, the soldierly one who had spoken just now, and a thin, spare, grey-haired man with closely pinched legal lips. Two youngish men—very different in type from each other. One with a moustache and an air of modest arrogance, he guessed to be possibly Sir Gervase’s nephew, the one in the Blues. The other, with sleek brushed-back hair and a rather obvious style of good looks, he put down as of a definitely inferior social class. There was a small middle-aged woman with pince-nez and intelligent eyes, and there was a girl with flaming red hair.
Snell appeared at the door. His manner was perfect, but once again the veneer of the impersonal butler showed signs of the perturbed human being beneath the surface.
“Excuse me, m’lady, the study door is locked.”
“Locked?”
It was a man’s voice—young, alert, with a ring of excitement in it. It was the good-looking young man with the slicked-back hair who had spoken. He went on, hurrying forward:
“Shall I go and see—?”
But very quietly Hercule Poirot took command. He did it so naturally that no one thought it odd that this stranger, who had just arrived, should suddenly assume charge of the situation.
“Come,” he said. “Let us go to the study.”
He continued, speaking to Snell:
“Lead the way, if you please.”
Snell obeyed. Poirot followed close behind him, and, like a flock of sheep, everyone else followed.
Snell led the way through the big hall, past the great branching curve of the staircase, past an enormous grandfather clock and a recess in which stood a gong, along a narrow passage which ended in a door.
Here Poirot passed Snell and gently tried the handle. It turned, but the door did not open. Poirot rapped gently with his knuckles on the panel of the door. He rapped louder and louder. Then, suddenly desisting, he dropped to his knees and applied his eye to the keyhole.
Slowly he rose to his feet and looked round. His face was stern.
“Gentlemen!” he said. “This door must be broken open immediately!”
Under his direction the two young men, who were both tall and powerfully built, attacked the door. It was no easy matter. The doors of Hamborough Close were solidly built.
At last, however, the lock gave, and the door swung inwards with a noise of splintering, rending wood.
And then, for a moment, everyone stood still, huddled in the doorway looking at the scene inside. The lights were on. Along the left-hand wall was a big writing table, a massive affair of solid mahogany. Sitting, not at the table, but sideways to it, so that his back was directly towards them, was a big man slouched down in a chair. His head and the upper part of his body hung down over the right side of the chair, and his right hand and arm hung limply down. Just below it on the carpet was a small, gleaming pistol. . . .