Midsummer Mysteries

by Agatha Christie

Reggie Carrington entered the room at that minute, and a four was arranged. Lady Julia, Mrs Vanderlyn, Sir George and young Reggie sat down to the card-table. Lord Mayfield devoted himself to the task of entertaining Mrs Macatta.

  When two rubbers had been played, Sir George looked ostentatiously at the clock on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Hardly worth while beginning another,’ he remarked.

  His wife looked annoyed.

  ‘It’s only a quarter to eleven. A short one.’

  ‘They never are, my dear,’ said Sir George good-temperedly. ‘Anyway, Charles and I have some work to do.’

  Mrs Vanderlyn murmured:

  ‘How important that sounds! I suppose you clever men who are at the top of things never get a real rest.’

  ‘No forty-eight hour week for us,’ said Sir George.

  Mrs Vanderlyn murmured:

  ‘You know, I feel rather ashamed of myself as a raw American, but I do get so thrilled at meeting people who control the destinies of a country. I expect that seems a very crude point of view to you, Sir George.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Vanderlyn, I should never think of you as “crude” or “raw”.’

  He smiled into her eyes. There was, perhaps, a hint of irony in the voice which she did not miss. Adroitly she turned to Reggie, smiling sweetly into his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry we’re not continuing our partnership. That was a frightfully clever four no-trump call of yours.’

  Flushed and pleased, Reggie mumbled:

  ‘Bit of a fluke that it came off.’

  ‘Oh, no, it was really a clever bit of deduction on your part. You’d deduced from the bidding exactly where the cards must be, and you played accordingly. I thought it was brilliant.’

  Lady Julia rose abruptly.

  ‘The woman lays it on with a palette-knife,’ she thought disgustedly.

  Then her eyes softened as they rested on her son. He believed it all. How pathetically young and pleased he looked. How incredibly naïve he was. No wonder he got into scrapes. He was too trusting. The truth of it was he had too sweet a nature. George didn’t understand him in the least. Men were so unsympathetic in their judgements. They forgot that they had ever been young themselves. George was much too harsh with Reggie.

  Mrs Macatta had risen. Goodnights were said.

  The three women went out of the room. Lord Mayfield helped himself to a drink after giving one to Sir George, then he looked up as Mr Carlile appeared at the door.

  ‘Get out the files and all the papers, will you, Carlile? Including the plans and the prints. The Air Marshal and I will be along shortly. We’ll just take a turn outside first, eh, George? It’s stopped raining.’

  Mr Carlile, turning to depart, murmured an apology as he almost collided with Mrs Vanderlyn.

  She drifted towards them, murmuring:

  ‘My book, I was reading it before dinner.’

  Reggie sprang forward and held up a book.

  ‘Is this it? On the sofa?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thank you so much.’

  She smiled sweetly, said goodnight again and went out of the room.

  Sir George had opened one of the french windows.

  ‘Beautiful night now,’ he announced. ‘Good idea of yours to take a turn.’

  Reggie said:

  ‘Well, goodnight, sir. I’ll be toddling off to bed.’

  ‘Goodnight, my boy,’ said Lord Mayfield.

  Reggie picked up a detective story which he had begun earlier in the evening and left the room.

  Lord Mayfield and Sir George stepped out upon the terrace.

  It was a beautiful night, with a clear sky studded with stars.

  Sir George drew a deep breath.

  ‘Phew, that woman uses a lot of scent,’ he remarked.

  Lord Mayfield laughed.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not cheap scent. One of the most expensive brands on the market, I should say.’

  Sir George gave a grimace.

  ‘I suppose one should be thankful for that.’

  ‘You should, indeed. I think a woman smothered in cheap scent is one of the greatest abominations known to mankind.’

  Sir George glanced up at the sky.

  ‘Extraordinary the way it’s cleared. I heard the rain beating down when we were at dinner.’

  The two men strolled gently along the terrace.

  The terrace ran the whole length of the house. Below it the ground sloped gently away, permitting a magnificent view over the Sussex weald.

  Sir George lit a cigar.

  ‘About this metal alloy—’ he began.

  The talk became technical.

  As they approached the far end of the terrace for the fifth time, Lord Mayfield said with a sigh:

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose we’d better get down to it.’

  ‘Yes, good bit of work to get through.’

  The two men turned, and Lord Mayfield uttered a surprised ejaculation.

  ‘Hallo! See that?’

  ‘See what?’ asked Sir George.

  ‘Thought I saw someone slip across the terrace from my study window.’

  ‘Nonsense, old boy. I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Well, I did—or I thought I did.’

  ‘Your eyes are playing tricks on you. I was looking straight down the terrace, and I’d have seen anything there was to be seen. There’s precious little I don’t see—even if I do have to hold a newspaper at arm’s length.’

  Lord Mayfield chuckled.

  ‘I can put one over on you there, George. I read easily without glasses.’

  ‘But you can’t always distinguish the fellow on the other side of the House. Or is that eyeglass of yours sheer intimidation?’

  Laughing, the two men entered Lord Mayfield’s study, the french window of which was open.

  Mr Carlile was busy arranging some papers in a file by the safe.

  He looked up as they entered.

  ‘Ha, Carlile, everything ready?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Mayfield, all the papers are on your desk.’

  The desk in question was a big important-looking writing-table of mahogany set across a corner by the window. Lord Mayfield went over to it, and began sorting through the various documents laid out.

  ‘Lovely night now,’ said Sir George.

  Mr Carlile agreed.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Remarkable the way it’s cleared up after the rain.’

  Putting away his file, Mr Carlile asked:

  ‘Will you want me any more tonight, Lord Mayfield?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, Carlile. I’ll put all these away myself. We shall probably be late. You’d better turn in.’

  ‘Thank you. Goodnight, Lord Mayfield. Goodnight, Sir George.’

  ‘Goodnight, Carlile.’

  As the secretary was about to leave the room, Lord Mayfield said sharply:

  ‘Just a minute, Carlile. You’ve forgotten the most important of the lot.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Lord Mayfield.’

  ‘The actual plans of the bomber, man.’

  The secretary stared.

  ‘They’re right on the top, sir.’

  ‘They’re nothing of the sort.’

  ‘But I’ve just put them there.’

  ‘Look for yourself, man.’

  With a bewildered expression, the young man came forward and joined Lord Mayfield at the desk.

  Somewhat impatiently the Minister indicated the pile of papers. Carlile sorted through them, his expression of bewilderment growing.

  ‘You see, they’re not there.’

  The secretary stammered:

  ‘But—but it’s incredible. I laid them there not three minutes ago.’

  Lord Mayfield said good-humouredly:

  ‘You must have made a mistake, they must be still in the safe.’

  ‘I don’t see how—I know I put them there!’

  Lord Mayfield brushed past him to the open safe. Sir George joined them. A very few minutes sufficed to show that the plans of the bo
mber were not there.

  Dazed and unbelieving, the three men returned to the desk and once more turned over the papers.

  ‘My God!’ said Mayfield. ‘They’re gone!’

  Mr Carlile cried:

  ‘But it’s impossible!’

  ‘Who’s been in this room?’ snapped out the Minister.

  ‘No one. No one at all.’

  ‘Look here, Carlile, those plans haven’t vanished into thin air. Someone has taken them. Has Mrs Vanderlyn been in here?’

  ‘Mrs Vanderlyn? Oh, no, sir.’

  ‘I’ll back that,’ said Carrington. He sniffed the air. ‘You’d soon smell if she had. That scent of hers.’

  ‘Nobody has been in here,’ insisted Carlile. ‘I can’t understand it.’

  ‘Look here, Carlile,’ said Lord Mayfield. ‘Pull yourself together. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this. You’re absolutely sure the plans were in the safe?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘You actually saw them? You didn’t just assume they were among the others?’

  ‘No, no, Lord Mayfield. I saw them. I put them on top of the others on the desk.’

  ‘And since then, you say, nobody has been in the room. Have you been out of the room?’

  ‘No—at least—yes.’

  ‘Ah!’ cried Sir George. ‘Now we’re getting at it!’

  Lord Mayfield said sharply:

  ‘What on earth—’ when Carlile interrupted.

  ‘In the normal course of events, Lord Mayfield, I should not, of course, have dreamt of leaving the room when important papers were lying about, but hearing a woman scream—’

  ‘A woman scream?’ ejaculated Lord Mayfield in a surprised voice.

  ‘Yes, Lord Mayfield. It startled me more than I can say. I was just laying the papers on the desk when I heard it, and naturally I ran out into the hall.’

  ‘Who screamed?’

  ‘Mrs Vanderlyn’s French maid. She was standing half-way up the stairs, looking very white and upset and shaking all over. She said she had seen a ghost.’

  ‘Seen a ghost?’

  ‘Yes, a tall woman dressed all in white who moved without a sound and floated in the air.’

  ‘What a ridiculous story!’

  ‘Yes, Lord Mayfield, that is what I told her. I must say she seemed rather ashamed of herself. She went off upstairs and I came back in here.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Just a minute or two before you and Sir George came in.’

  ‘And you were out of the room—how long?’

  The secretary considered.

  ‘Two minutes—at the most three.’

  ‘Long enough,’ groaned Lord Mayfield. Suddenly he clutched his friend’s arm.

  ‘George, that shadow I saw—slinking away from this window. That was it! As soon as Carlile left the room, he nipped in, seized the plans and made off.’

  ‘Dirty work,’ said Sir George.

  Then he seized his friend by the arm.

  ‘Look here, Charles, this is the devil of a business. What the hell are we going to do about it?’

  ‘At any rate give it a trial, Charles.’

  It was half an hour later. The two men were in Lord Mayfield’s study, and Sir George had been expending a considerable amount of persuasion to induce his friend to adopt a certain course.

  Lord Mayfield, at first most unwilling, was gradually becoming less averse to the idea.

  Sir George went on:

  ‘Don’t be so damned pig-headed, Charles.’

  Lord Mayfield said slowly:

  ‘Why drag in a wretched foreigner we know nothing about?’

  ‘But I happen to know a lot about him. The man’s a marvel.’

  ‘Humph.’

  ‘Look here, Charles. It’s a chance! Discretion is the essence of this business. If it leaks out—’

  ‘When it leaks out is what you mean!’

  ‘Not necessarily. This man, Hercule Poirot—’

  ‘Will come down here and produce the plans like a conjurer taking rabbits out of his hat, I suppose?’

  ‘He’ll get at the truth. And the truth is what we want. Look here, Charles, I take all responsibility on myself.’

  Lord Mayfield said slowly:

  ‘Oh, well, have it your own way, but I don’t see what the fellow can do …’

  Sir George picked up the phone.

  ‘I’m going to get through to him—now.’

  ‘He’ll be in bed.’

  ‘He can get up. Dash it all, Charles, you can’t let that woman get away with it.’

  ‘Mrs Vanderlyn, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. You don’t doubt, do you, that she’s at the bottom of this?’

  ‘No, I don’t. She’s turned the tables on me with a vengeance. I don’t like admitting, George, that a woman’s been too clever for us. It goes against the grain. But it’s true. We shan’t be able to prove anything against her, and yet we both know that she’s been the prime mover in the affair.’

  ‘Women are the devil,’ said Carrington with feeling.

  ‘Nothing to connect her with it, damn it all! We may believe that she put the girl up to that screaming trick, and that the man lurking outside was her accomplice, but the devil of it is we can’t prove it.’

  ‘Perhaps Hercule Poirot can.’

  Suddenly Lord Mayfield laughed.

  ‘By the Lord, George, I thought you were too much of an old John Bull to put your trust in a Frenchman, however clever.’

  ‘He’s not even a Frenchman, he’s a Belgian,’ said Sir George in a rather shamefaced manner.

  ‘Well, have your Belgian down. Let him try his wits on this business. I’ll bet he can’t make more of it than we can.’

  Without replying, Sir George stretched a hand to the telephone.

  Blinking a little, Hercule Poirot turned his head from one man to the other. Very delicately he smothered a yawn.

  It was half-past two in the morning. He had been roused from sleep and rushed down through the darkness in a big Rolls-Royce. Now he had just finished hearing what the two men had to tell him.

  ‘Those are the facts, M. Poirot,’ said Lord Mayfield.

  He leaned back in his chair, and slowly fixed his monocle in one eye. Through it a shrewd, pale-blue eye watched Poirot attentively. Besides being shrewd the eye was definitely sceptical. Poirot cast a swift glance at Sir George Carrington.

  That gentleman was leaning forward with an expression of almost childlike hopefulness on his face.

  Poirot said slowly:

  ‘I have the facts, yes. The maid screams, the secretary goes out, the nameless watcher comes in, the plans are there on top of the desk, he snatches them up and goes. The facts—they are all very convenient.’

  Something in the way he uttered the last phrase seemed to attract Lord Mayfield’s attention. He sat up a little straighter, his monocle dropped. It was as though a new alertness came to him.

  ‘I beg your pardon, M. Poirot?’

  ‘I said, Lord Mayfield, that the facts were all very convenient—for the thief. By the way, you are sure it was a man you saw?’

  Lord Mayfield shook his head.

  ‘That I couldn’t say. It was just a—shadow. In fact, I was almost doubtful if I had seen anyone.’

  Poirot transferred his gaze to the Air Marshal.

  ‘And you, Sir George? Could you say if it was a man or a woman?’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone myself.’

  Poirot nodded thoughtfully. Then he skipped suddenly to his feet and went over to the writing-table.

  ‘I can assure you that the plans are not there,’ said Lord Mayfield. ‘We have all three been through those papers half a dozen times.’

  ‘All three? You mean, your secretary also?’

  ‘Yes, Carlile.’

  Poirot turned suddenly.

  ‘Tell me, Lord Mayfield, which paper was on top when you went over to the desk?’

  Mayfield frowned a little in the
effort of remembrance.

  ‘Let me see—yes, it was a rough memorandum of some sort of our air defence positions.’

  Deftly, Poirot nipped out a paper and brought it over.

  ‘Is this the one, Lord Mayfield?’

  Lord Mayfield took it and glanced over it.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

  Poirot took it over to Carrington.

  ‘Did you notice this paper on the desk?’

  Sir George took it, held it away from him, then slipped on his pincenez.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I looked through them too, with Carlile and Mayfield. This was on top.’

  Poirot nodded thoughtfully. He replaced the paper on the desk. Mayfield looked at him in a slightly puzzled manner.

  ‘If there are any other questions—’ he began.

  ‘But yes, certainly there is a question. Carlile. Carlile is the question!’

  Lord Mayfield’s colour rose a little.

  ‘Carlile, M. Poirot, is quite above suspicion! He has been my confidential secretary for nine years. He has access to all my private papers, and I may point out to you that he could have made a copy of the plans and a tracing of the specifications quite easily without anyone being the wiser.’

  ‘I appreciate your point,’ said Poirot. ‘If he had been guilty there would be no need for him to stage a clumsy robbery.’

  ‘In any case,’ said Lord Mayfield, ‘I am sure of Carlile. I will guarantee him.’

  ‘Carlile,’ said Carrington gruffly, ‘is all right.’

  Poirot spread out his hands gracefully.

  ‘And this Mrs Vanderlyn—she is all wrong?’

  ‘She’s a wrong ’un all right,’ said Sir George.

  Lord Mayfield said in more measured tones:

  ‘I think, M. Poirot, that there can be no doubt of Mrs Vanderlyn’s—well—activities. The Foreign Office can give you more precious data as to that.’

  ‘And the maid, you take it, is in with her mistress?’

  ‘Not a doubt of it,’ said Sir George.

  ‘It seems to me a plausible assumption,’ said Lord Mayfield more cautiously.

  There was a pause. Poirot sighed, and absent-mindedly rearranged one or two articles on a table at his right hand. Then he said:

  ‘I take it that these papers represented money? That is, the stolen papers would be definitely worth a large sum in cash.’

  ‘If presented in a certain quarter—yes.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Sir George mentioned the names of two European powers.