‘It is true that you do not look quite happy yet, my child,’ Poirot observed.
‘Shall I ever be happy again, I wonder?’
‘I think so,’ said Poirot with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Trust in your old Poirot.’ Guiding Lucia to the chair by the table in the centre of the room, he picked up the spills from the coffee table, went across to Richard, and handed them to him. ‘Monsieur,’ he declared, ‘I have pleasure in restoring to you Sir Claud’s formula! It can be pieced together – what is the expression you use? – it will be as good as new.’
‘My God, the formula!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘I’d almost forgotten it. I can hardly bear to look at it again. Think what it has done to us all. It’s cost my father his life, and it’s all but ruined the lives of all of us as well.’
‘What are you going to do with it, Richard?’ Lucia asked him.
‘I don’t know. What would you do with it?’
Rising and moving to him, Lucia whispered, ‘Would you let me?’
‘It’s yours,’ her husband told her, handing her the spills. ‘Do as you like with the wretched thing.’
‘Thank you, Richard,’ murmured Lucia. She went to the fireplace, took a match from the box on the mantelpiece, and set fire to the spills, dropping the pieces one by one into the fireplace. ‘There is so much suffering already in the world. I cannot bear to think of any more.’
‘Madame,’ said Poirot, ‘I admire the manner in which you burn many thousands of pounds with as little emotion as though they were just a few pence.’
‘They are nothing but ashes,’ Lucia sighed. ‘Like my life.’
Poirot gave a snort. ‘Oh, là, là! Let us all order our coffins,’ he remarked in a tone of mock gloom. ‘No! Me, I like to be happy, to rejoice, to dance, to sing. See you, my children,’ he continued, turning to address Richard as well, ‘I am about to take a liberty with you both. Madame looks down her nose and thinks, “I have deceived my husband.” Monsieur looks down his nose and thinks, “I have suspected my wife.” And yet what you really want, both of you, is to be in each other’s arms, is it not?’
Lucia took a step towards her husband. ‘Richard –’ she began in a low voice.
‘Madame,’ Poirot interrupted her, ‘I fear that Sir Claud may have suspected you of planning to steal his formula because, a few weeks ago, someone – no doubt an ex-colleague of Carelli, for people of that kind are continually falling out with one another – someone, I say, sent Sir Claud an anonymous letter about your mother. But, do you know, my foolish child, that your husband tried to accuse himself to Inspector Japp – that he actually confessed to the murder of Sir Claud – in order to save you?’
Lucia gave a little cry, and looked adoringly at Richard.
‘And you, monsieur,’ Poirot continued. ‘Figure to yourself that, not more than half an hour ago, your wife was shouting in my ear that she had killed your father, all because she feared that you might have done so.’
‘Lucia,’ Richard murmured tenderly, going to her.
‘Being English,’ Poirot remarked as he moved away from them, ‘you will not embrace in my presence, I suppose?’
Lucia went to him, and took his hand. ‘Monsieur Poirot, I do not think I shall ever forget you – ever.’
‘Neither shall I forget you, madame,’ Poirot declared gallantly as he kissed her hand.
‘Poirot,’ Richard Amory declared, ‘I don’t know what to say, except that you’ve saved my life and my marriage. I can’t express what I feel –’
‘Do not derange yourself, my friend,’ replied Poirot. ‘I am happy to have been of service to you.’
Lucia and Richard went out into the garden together, looking into each other’s eyes, his arm around her shoulders. Following them to the window, Poirot called after them, ‘Bless you, mes enfants! Oh, and if you encounter Miss Barbara in the garden, please ask her to return Captain Hastings to me. We must shortly begin our journey to London.’ Turning back into the room, his glance fell on the fireplace.
‘Ah!’ he exclaimed as he went to the mantelpiece over the fireplace and straightened the spill vase. ‘Voilà! Now, order and neatness are restored.’ With that, Poirot walked towards the door with an air of immense satisfaction.
E-Book Extras
The Poirots
Essay by Charles Osborne
The Poirots
The Mysterious Affair at Styles; The Murder on the Links; Poirot Investigates; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; The Big Four; The Mystery of the Blue Train; Black Coffee; Peril at End House; Lord Edgware Dies; Murder on the Orient Express; Three-Act Tragedy; Death in the Clouds; The ABC Murders; Murder in Mesopotamia; Cards on the Table; Murder in the Mews; Dumb Witness; Death on the Nile; Appointment with Death; Hercule Poirot’s Christmas; Sad Cypress; One, Two, Buckle My Shoe; Evil Under the Sun; Five Little Pigs; The Hollow; The Labours of Hercules; Taken at the Flood; Mrs McGinty’s Dead; After the Funeral; Hickory Dickory Dock; Dead Man’s Folly; Cat Among the Pigeons; The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding; The Clocks; Third Girl; Hallowe’en Party; Elephants Can Remember; Poirot’s Early Cases; Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the ‘country-place’ of John’s autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe — she of a sizeable fortune, and so recently remarried to a man twenty years her junior. When Emily’s sudden heart attack is found to be attributable to strychnine, Hastings recruits an old friend, now retired, to aid in the local investigation. With impeccable timing, Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance into the pages of crime literature.
Of note: Written in 1916, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first published work. Six houses rejected the novel before it was finally published — after puzzling over it for eighteen months before deciding to go ahead — by The Bodley Head.
Times Literary Supplement: ‘Almost too ingenious ... very clearly and brightly told.’
2. The Murder on the Links (1923)
“For God’s sake, come!” But by the time Hercule Poirot can respond to Monsieur Renauld’s plea, the millionaire is already dead — stabbed in the back, and lying in a freshly dug grave on the golf course adjoining his estate. There is no lack of suspects: his wife, whose dagger did the deed; his embittered son; Renauld’s mistress — and each feels deserving of the dead man’s fortune. The police think they’ve found the culprit. Poirot has his doubts. And the discovery o
f a second, identically murdered corpse complicates matters considerably. (However, on a bright note, Captain Arthur Hastings does meet his future wife.)
The New York Times: ‘A remarkably good detective story ... warmly recommended.’
Literary Review: ‘Really clever.’
Sketch: ‘Agatha Christie never lets you down.’
3. Poirot Investigates (1924)
A movie star, a diamond; a murderous ‘suicide’; a pharaoh’s curse upon his tomb; a prime minister abducted...What links these fascinating cases? The brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot in... ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’; ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’; ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’; ‘The Mystery of the Hunter’s Lodge’; ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’; ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’; ‘The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’; ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’; ‘The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim’; ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’; ‘The Case of the Missing Will.’
Of note: The stories collected here were first published in Sketch, beginning on March 7, 1923. Sketch also featured the first illustration of the foppish, egg-headed, elaborately moustachioed Belgian detective.
Literary Review: ‘A capital collection ... ingeniously constructed and told with an engaging lightness of style.’
Irish Times: ‘In straight detective fiction there is still no one to touch [Christie].’
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
In the quiet village of King’s Abbot a widow’s suicide has stirred suspicion — and dreadful gossip. There are rumours that she murdered her first husband, that she was being blackmailed, and that her secret lover was Roger Ackroyd. Then, on the verge of discovering the blackmailer’s identity, Ackroyd himself is murdered. Hercule Poirot, who has settled in King’s Abbot for some peace and quiet and a little gardening, finds himself at the centre of the case — and up against a diabolically clever and devious killer.