Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot 15)

“He had a very pretty taste in objets de vertu and bric-à-brac—he should have been content with that. Instead, he collected other things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well—shall we say—sensations?”

“And don’t you think that was dans son caractère?”

Poirot shook his head gravely.

“He played the part of the devil too successfully. But he was not the devil. Au fond, he was a stupid man. And so—he died.”

“Because he was stupid?”

“It is the sin that is never forgiven and always punished, madame.”

There was a silence. Then Poirot said:

“I take my departure. A thousand thanks for your amiability, madame. I will not come again unless you send for me.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Dear me, M. Poirot, why should I send for you?”

“You might. It is just an idea. If so, I will come. Remember that.”

He bowed once more and left the room.

In the street he said to himself:

“I am right … I am sure I am right … It must be that!”

Twelve

ANNE MEREDITH

Mrs. Oliver extricated herself from the driving seat of her little two-seater with some difficulty. To begin with, the makers of modern motorcars assume that only a pair of sylphlike knees will ever be under the steering wheel. It is also the fashion to sit low. That being so, for a middle-aged woman of generous proportions it requires a good deal of superhuman wriggling to get out from under the steering wheel. In the second place, the seat next to the driving seat was encumbered by several maps, a handbag, three novels and a large bag of apples. Mrs. Oliver was partial to apples and had indeed been known to eat as many as five pounds straight off whilst composing the complicated plot of The Death in the Drain Pipe—coming to herself with a start and an incipient stomachache an hour and ten minutes after she was due at an important luncheon party given in her honour.

With a final determined heave and a sharp shove with a knee against a recalcitrant door, Mrs. Oliver arrived a little too suddenly on the sidewalk outside the gate of Wendon Cottage, showering apple cores freely round her as she did so.

She gave a deep sigh, pushed back her country hat to an unfashionable angle, looked down with approval at the tweeds she had remembered to put on, frowned a little when she saw that she had absentmindedly retained her London high-heeled patent leather shoes, and pushing open the gate of Wendon Cottage walked up the flagged path to the front door. She rang the bell and executed a cheerful little rat-a-tat-tat on the knocker—a quaint conceit in the form of a toad’s head.

As nothing happened she repeated the performance.

After a further pause of a minute and a half, Mrs. Oliver stepped briskly round the side of the house on a voyage of exploration.

There was a small old-fashioned garden with Michaelmas daisies and straggling chrysanthemums behind the cottage, and beyond it a field. Beyond the field was the river. For an October day the sun was warm.

Two girls were just crossing the field in the direction of the cottage. As they came through the gate into the garden, the foremost of the two stopped dead.

Mrs. Oliver came forward.

“How do you do, Miss Meredith? You remember me, don’t you?”

“Oh—oh, of course.” Anne Meredith extended her hand hurriedly. Her eyes looked wide and startled. Then she pulled herself together.

“This is my friend who lives with me—Miss Dawes. Rhoda, th

is is Mrs. Oliver.”