Murder in the Mews (Hercule Poirot 18)

“Were you in the drawing room, madame, when the first gong went?”

“No, I was in my room then.”

“Do you remember who was in the drawing room when you did come down?”

“Nearly everybody, I think,” said Lady Chevenix-Gore vaguely.

“Does it matter?”

“Possibly not,” admitted Poirot. “Then there is something else. Did your husband ever tell you that he suspected he was being robbed?”

Lady Chevenix-Gore did not seem much interested in the question.

“Robbed? No, I don’t think so.”

“Robbed, swindled—victimized in some way—?”

“No—no—I don’t think so . . . Gervase would have been very angry if anybody had dared to do anything like that.”

“At any rate he said nothing about it to you?”

“No—no.” Lady Chevenix-Gore shook her head, still without much real interest. “I should have remembered. . . .”

“When did you last see your husband alive?”

“He looked in, as usual, on his way downstairs before dinner. My maid was there. He just said he was going down.”

“What has he talked about most in the last few weeks?”

“Oh, the family history. He was getting on so well with it. He found that funny old thing, Miss Lingard, quite invaluable. She looked up things for him in the British Museum—all that sort of thing. She worked with Lord Mulcaster on his book, you know. And she was tactful—I mean, she didn’t look up the wrong things. After all, there are ancestors one doesn’t want raked up. Gervase was very sensitive. She helped me, too. She got a lot of information for me about Hatshepsut. I am a reincarnation of Hatshepsut, you know.”

Lady Chevenix-Gore made this announcement in a calm voice.

“Before that,” she went on, “I was a Priestess in Atlantis.”

Major Riddle shifted a little in his chair.

“Er—er—very interesting,” he said. “Well, really, Lady Chevenix-Gore, I think that will be all. Very kind of you.”

Lady Chevenix-Gore rose, clasping her oriental robes

about her.

“Goodnight,” she said. And then, her eyes shifting to a point behind Major Riddle. “Goodnight, Gervase dear. I wish you could come, but I know you have to stay here.” She added in an explanatory fashion, “You have to stay in the place where you’ve passed over for at least twenty-four hours. It’s some time before you can move about freely and communicate.”

She trailed out of the room.

Major Riddle wiped his brow.

“Phew,” he murmured. “She’s a great deal madder than I ever thought. Does she really believe all that nonsense?”

Poirot shook his head thoughtfully.

“It is possible that she finds it helpful,” he said. “She needs, at this moment, to create for herself a world of illusion so that she can escape the stark reality of her husband’s death.”

“She seems almost certifiable to me,” said Major Riddle. “A long farrago of nonsense without one word of sense in it.”

“No, no, my friend. The interesting thing is, as Mr. Hugo Trent casually remarked to me, that amidst all the vapouring there is an occasional shrewd thrust. She showed it by her remark about Miss Lingard’s tact in not stressing undesirable ancestors. Believe me, Lady Chevenix-Gore is no fool.”