Black Coffee (Hercule Poirot 7)

‘I mean,’ said her husband, ‘that when a man cares about a woman as much as I care about you, he’ll do anything. Anything!’

‘It does not flatter me to hear you say that,’ Lucia responded. ‘It only tells me that you still do not trust me – that you think you must buy my love with –’

She broke off, and looked around as the door to the study opened and Edward Raynor returned. Raynor walked over to the coffee table and picked up a cup of coffee, as Lucia changed her position on the settee, moving down to one end of it. Richard had wandered moodily across to the fireplace, and was staring into the unlit fire.

Barbara, beginning a tentative foxtrot alone, looked at her cousin Richard as though considering whether to invite him to dance. But, apparently put off by his stony countenance, she turned to Raynor. ‘Care to dance, Mr Raynor?’ she asked.

‘I’d love to, Miss Amory,’ the secretary replied. ‘Just a moment, while I take Sir Claud his coffee.’

Lucia suddenly rose from the settee. ‘Mr Raynor,’ she said hurriedly, ‘that isn’t Sir Claud’s coffee. You’ve taken the wrong cup.’

‘Have I?’ said Raynor. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Lucia picked up another cup from the coffee table, and held it out to Raynor. They exchanged cups. ‘That,’ said Lucia, as she handed her cup to Raynor, ‘is Sir Claud’s coffee.’ She smiled enigmatically to herself, placed the cup Raynor had given her on the coffee table, and returned to the settee.

Turning his back to Lucia, the secretary took some tablets from his pocket and dropped them into the cup he was holding. As he was walking with it towards the study door, Barbara intercepted him. ‘Do come and dance with me, Mr Raynor,’ she pleaded, with one of her most engaging smiles. ‘I’d force Dr Carelli to, except that I can tell he’s simply dying to dance with Lucia.’

As Raynor hovered indecisively, Richard Amory approached. ‘You may as well give in to her, Raynor,’ he advised. ‘Everyone does, eventually. Here, give the coffee to me. I’ll take it to my father.’

Reluctantly, Raynor allowed the coffee cup to be taken from him. Turning away, Richard paused momentarily and then went through into Sir Claud’s study. Barbara and Edward Raynor, having first turned over the gramophone record on the machine, were now slowly waltzing in each other’s arms. Dr Carelli watched them for a moment or two with an indulgent smile, before approaching Lucia who, wearing a look of utter dejection, was still seated on the settee.

Carelli addressed her. ‘It was most kind of Miss Amory to allow me to join you for the weekend,’ he said.

Lucia looked up at him. For a few seconds she did not speak, but then said, finally, ‘She is the kindest of people.’

‘And this is such a charming house,’ continued Carelli, moving behind the settee. ‘You must show me over it some time. I am extremely interested in the domestic architecture of this period.’

While he was speaking, Richard Amory had returned from the study. Ignoring his wife and Carelli, he went across to the box of drugs on the centre table, and began to tidy its contents.

‘Miss Amory can tell you much more about this house than I can,’ Lucia told Dr Carelli. ‘I know very little of these things.’

Looking around first, to confirm that Richard Amory was busying himself with the drugs, that Edward Raynor and Barbara Amory were still waltzing at the far end of the room, and that Caroline Amory appeared to be dozing, Carelli moved to the front of the settee, and sat next to Lucia. In low, urgent tones, he muttered, ‘Have you done what I asked?’

Her voice even lower, almost a whisper, Lucia said desperately, ‘Have you no pity?’

‘Have you done what I told you to?’ Carelli asked more insistently.

‘I – I –’ Lucia began, but then, faltering, rose, turned abruptly, and walked swiftly to the door which led into the hall. Turning the handle, she discovered that the door would not open.

‘There’s something wrong with this door,’ she exclaimed, turning to face the others. ‘I can’t get it open.’

‘What’s that?’ called Barbara, still waltzing with Raynor.

‘I can’t get this door open,’ Lucia repeated.

Barbara and Raynor stopped dancing and went across to Lucia at the door. Richard Amory moved to the gramophone to switch it off before joining them. They took it in turns to attempt to get the door open, but without success, observed by Miss Amory, who was awake but still seated, and by Dr Carelli, who stood by the bookcase.

Unnoticed by any of the company, Sir Claud emerged from his study, coffee cup in hand, and stood for a moment or two observing the group clustered around the door to the hall.

‘What an extraordinary thing,’ Raynor exclaimed, abandoning his attempt to open the door, and turning to face the others. ‘It seems to have got stuck, somehow.’

Sir Claud’s voice rang across the room, startling them all. ‘Oh, no, it’s not stuck. It’s locked. Locked from the outside.’

His sister rose and approached Sir Claud. She was about to speak, but he forestalled her. ‘It was locked by my orders, Caroline,’ he told her.

With all eyes upon him, Sir Claud walked across to the coffee table, took a lump of sugar from the bowl, and dropped it into his cup. ‘I have something to say to you all,’ he announced to the assembled company. ‘Richard, would you be so kind as to ring for Tredwell?’

His son looked as though he were about to make some reply. However, after a pause he went to the fireplace and pressed a bell in the wall nearby.

‘I suggest that you all sit down,’ Sir Claud continued, with a gesture towards the chairs.

Dr Carelli, with raised eyebrows, crossed the room to sit on the stool. Edward Raynor and Lucia Amory found chairs for themselves, while Richard Amory chose to stand in front of the fireplace, looking puzzled. Caroline Amory and her niece Barbara occupied the settee.

When all were comfortably seated, Sir Claud moved the arm-chair to a position where he could most easily observe all the others. He sat.

The door on the left opened, and Tredwell entered.

‘You rang, Sir Claud?’

‘Yes, Tredwell. Did you call the number I gave you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Was the answer satisfactory?’

‘Perfectly satisfactory, sir.’

‘And a car has gone to the station?’

‘Yes, sir. A car has been ordered to meet the train.’ ‘Very well, Tredwell,’ said Sir Claud. ‘You may lock up now.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Tredwell, as he withdrew.

After the butler had closed the door behind him, the sound of a key turning in the lock could be heard.

‘Claud,’ Miss Amory exclaimed, ‘what on earth does Tredwell think –?’

‘Tredwell is acting on my instructions, Caroline,’ Sir Claud interrupted sharply.

Richard Amory addressed his father. ‘May we ask the meaning of all this?’ he enquired, coldly.

‘I am about to explain,’ replied Sir Claud. ‘Please listen to me calmly, all of you. To begin with, as you now realize, those two doors’ – he gestured towards the two doors on the hall side of the library – ‘are locked on the outside. From my study next door, there is no way out except through this room. The french windows in this room are locked.’ Swivelling around in his seat to Carelli, he explained, as though in parenthesis, ‘Locked, in fact, by a patent device of my own, which my family knows of, but which they do not know how to immobilize.’ Again addressing everyone, Sir Claud continued, ‘This place is a rat-trap.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It is now ten minutes to nine. At a few minutes past nine, the rat-catcher will arrive.’

‘The rat-catcher?’ Richard Amory’s face was a study in perplexity. ‘What rat-catcher?’

‘A detective,’ explained the famous scientist dryly, as he sipped his coffee.

Chapter 5

Consternation greeted Sir Claud’s announcement. Lucia uttered a low cry, and her husband stared at her intently. Miss Amory gave a shriek, B

arbara exclaimed, ‘Crikey!’ and Edward Raynor contributed an ineffectual, ‘Oh, I say, Sir Claud!’ Only Dr Carelli seemed unaffected.

Sir Claud settled in his arm-chair, holding his coffee cup in his right hand and the saucer in his left. ‘I seem to have achieved my little effect,’ he observed with satisfaction. Finishing his coffee, he set the cup and saucer down on the table with a grimace. ‘The coffee is unusually bitter this evening,’ he complained.