The girl who stood before him was also tall and dark, but she was of a very different type. Instead of the flattish, indeterminate features of Lady Chevenix-Gore, she had a well-chiselled nose, slightly aquiline, and a clear, sharp line of jaw. Her black hair swept back from her face into a mass of little tight curls. Her colouring was of carnation clearness and brilliance, and owed little to make-up. She was, so Hercule Poirot thought, one of the loveliest girls he had seen. He recognized, too, that she had brains as well as beauty, and guessed at certain qualities of pride and temper. Her voice, when she spoke, came with a slight drawl that struck him as deliberately put on. 'How exciting,' she said, 'to entertain M. Hercule Poirot! The old man arranged a little surprise for us, I suppose.'
'So you did not know I was coming, mademoiselle?' he said quickly. 'I hadn't an idea of it. As it is, I must postpone getting my autograph book until after dinner.' The notes of a gong sounded from the hall, then the butler opened the door and announced: 'Dinner is served.' And then, almost before the last word, 'served', had been uttered, something very curious happened. The pontificial domestic figure became, just for one moment, a highly-astonished human being... The metamorphosis was so quick and the mask of the well-trained servant was back again so soon, that anyone who had not happened to be looking would not have noticed the change. Poirot, however, had happened to be looking. He wondered. The butler hesitated in the doorway. Though his face was again correctly expressionless, an air of tension hung about his figure. Lady Chevenix-Gore said uncertainly: 'Oh, dear - this is most extraordinary. Really, I - one hardly knows what to do.' Ruth said to Poirot: 'This singular consternation, M. Poirot, is occasioned by the fact that my father, for the first time for at least twenty years, is late for dinner.'
'It is most extraordinary - ' wailed Lady Chevenix-Gore. 'Gervase never - ' An elderly man of upright soldierly carriage came to her side. He laughed genially. 'Good old Gervase! Late at last ! Upon my word, we'll rag him over this. Elusive collar-stud, d'you think? Or is Gervase immune from our common weaknesses?' Lady Chevenix-Gore said in a low, puzzled voice: 'But Gervase is never late.' It was almost ludicrous, the consternation caused by this simple contretemps. And yet, to Hercule Poirot, it was not ludicrous...
Behind the consternation he felt uneasiness - perhaps even apprehension. And he, too, found it strange that Gervase Chevenix-
Gore should not appear to greet the guest he had summoned in such a mysterious manner. In the meantime, it was clear that nobody knew quite what to do. An unprecedented situation had arisen with which nobody knew how to deal. Lady Chevenix-Gore at last took the initiative, if initiative it can be called. Certainly her manner was vague in the extreme. 'Snell,' she said, 'is your master - ?' She did not finish the sentence, merely looked at the butler expectantly. Snell, who was clearly used to his mistress's methods of seeking information, replied promptly to the unspecified question: 'Sir Gervase came downstairs at five minutes to eight, m'lady, and went straight to the study.'
'Oh, I see - ' Her mouth remained open, her eyes seemed far away. 'You don't think - I mean - he heard the gong?'
'I think he must have done so, m'lady, the gong being immediately outside the study door. I did not, of course, know that Sir Gervase was still in the study, otherwise I should have announced to him that dinner was ready. Shall I do so now, m'lady?' Lady Chevenix-Gore seized on the suggestion with manifest relief. 'Oh, thank you, Snell. Yes, please do. Yes, certainly.' She said, as the butler left the room: 'Snell is such a treasure. I rely on him absolutely. I really don't know what I should do without Snell.' Somebody murmured a sympathetic assent, but nobody spoke.
Hercule Poirot, watching that room full of people with suddenly sharpened attention, had an idea that one and all were in a state of tension. His eyes ran quickly over them, tabulating them roughly.
Two elderly men, the soldierly one who had spoken just now, and a thin, spare, grey-haired man with closely pinched legal lips. Two youngish men - very different in type from each other. One with a moustache and an air of modest arrogance, he guessed to be possibly Sir Gervase's nephew, the one in the Blues. The other, with sleek brushed-back hair and a rather obvious style of good looks, he put down as of a definitely inferior social class. There was a small middle-aged woman with pince-nez and intelligent eyes, and there was a girl with flaming red hair. Snell appeared at the door. His manner was perfect, but once again the veneer of the impersonal butler showed signs of the perturbed human being beneath the surface. 'Excuse me, m'lady, the study door is locked.'
'Locked?' It was a man's voice - young, alert, with a ring of excitement in it. It was the good-looking young man with the slicked-back hair who had spoken. He went on, hurrying forward: 'Shall I go and see - ?' But very quietly Hercule Poirot took command. He did it so naturally that no one thought it odd that this stranger, who had just arrived, should suddenly assume charge of the situation. 'Come,' he said. 'Let us go to the study.' He continued, speaking to Snell: 'Lead the way, if you please.' Snell obeyed. Poirot followed close behind him, and, like a flock of sheep, everyone else followed. Snell led the way through the big hall, past the great branching curve of the staircase, past an enormous grandfather clock and a recess in which stood a gong, along a narrow passage which ended in a door. Here Poirot passed Snell and gently tried the handle. It turned, but the door did not open. Poirot rapped gently with his knuckles on the panel of the door. He rapped louder and louder. Then, suddenly desisting, he dropped to his knees and applied his eye to the keyhole. Slowly he rose to his feet and looked round. His face was stern. 'Gentlemen!' he said. 'This door must be broken open immediately!' Under his direction the two young men, who were both tall and powerfully built, attacked the door. It was no easy matter. The doors of Hamborough Close were solidly built. At last, however, the lock gave, and the door swung inwards with a noise of splintering, rending wood. And then, for a moment, everyone stood still, huddled in the doorway looking at the scene inside. The lights were on. Along the left-hand wall was a big writing-table, a massive affair of solid mahogany. Sitting, not at the table, but sideways to it, so that his back was directly towards them, was a big man slouched down in a chair. His head and the upper part of his body hung down over the right side of the chair, and his right hand and arm hung limply down.
Just below it on the carpet was a small, gleaming pistol...
There was no need of speculation. The picture was clear. Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore had shot himself.
Chapter 3
For a moment or two the group in the doorway stood motionless, staring at the scene. Then Poirot strode forward. At the same moment Hugo Trent said crisply: 'My God, the Old
Man's shot himself!' And there was a long, shuddering moan from Lady Chevenix-Gore. 'Oh, Gervase - Gervase!' Over his shoulder Poirot said sharply: 'Take Lady Chevenix-Gore away. She can do nothing here.' The elderly soldierly man obeyed. He said: 'Come, Vanda. Come, my dear. You can do nothing. It's all over.
Ruth, come and look after your mother.' But Ruth Chevenix-Gore had pressed into the room and stood close by Poirot's side as he bent over the dreadful sprawled figure in the chair - the figure of a man of Herculean build with a Viking beard. She said in a low, tense voice, curiously restrained and muffled: 'You're quite sure he's - dead?'
Poirot looked up. The girl's face was alive with some emotion - an emotion sternly checked and repressed - that he did not quite understand. It was not grief - it seemed more like a kind of half-fearful excitement. The little woman in the pince-nez murmured: 'Your mother, my dear - don't you think - ?' In a high, hysterical voice the girl with the red hair cried out: 'Then it wasn't a car or a champagne cork! It was a shot we heard...'
Poirot turned and faced them all. 'Somebody must communicate with the police - ' Ruth Chevenix-
Gore cried out violently: 'No!' The elderly man with the legal face said: 'Unavoidable, I am afraid. Will you see to that, Burrows? Hugo - '
Poirot said: 'You are Mr Hugo Trent?' to the tall young m
an with the moustache. 'It would be well, I think, if everyone except you and I were to leave this room.' Again his authority was not questioned. The lawyer shepherded the others away. Poirot and Hugo Trent were left alone. The latter said, staring: 'Look here – who are you? I mean , I haven't the foggiest idea. What are you doing here?' Poirot took a card-case from his pocket and selected a card. Hugo Trent said, staring at it: 'Private detective - eh? Of course, I've heard of you... But I still don't see what you are doing here.'
'You did not know that your uncle - he was your uncle, was he not - ?' Hugo's eyes dropped for a fleeting moment to the dead man. 'The Old Man? Yes, he was my uncle all right.'
'You did not know that he had sent for me?'
Hugo shook his head. He said slowly: 'I'd no idea of it.' There was an emotion in his voice that was rather hard to classify.
His face looked wooden and stupid - the kind of expression, Poirot thought, that made a useful mask in times of stress. Poirot said quietly: 'We are in Westshire, are we not? I know your Chief Constable, Major Riddle, very well.' Hugo said: 'Riddle lives about half a mile away. He'll probably come over himself.'
'That,' said Poirot, 'will be very convenient.' He began prowling gently round the room. He twitched aside the window curtain and examined the french windows, trying them gently. They were closed. On the wall behind the desk there hung a round mirror. The mirror was shivered. Poirot bent down and picked up a small object. 'What's that?' asked Hugo Trent. 'The bullet.'
'It passed straight through his head and struck the mirror?'
'It seems so.' Poirot replaced the bullet meticulously where he had found it. He came up to the desk. Some papers were arranged neatly stacked in heaps. On the blotting-pad itself there was a loose sheet of paper with the word SORRY printed across it in large, shaky handwriting. Hugo said: 'He must have written that just before he - did it.' Poirot nodded thoughtfully. He looked again at the smashed mirror, then at the dead man. His brow creased itself a little as though in perplexity. He went over to the door, where it hung crookedly with its splintered lock. There was no key in the door, as he knew - otherwise he would not have been able to see through the keyhole. There was no sign of it on the floor.
Poirot leaned over the dead man and ran his fingers over him. 'Yes,' he said. 'The key is in his pocket.' Hugo drew out a cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette. He spoke rather hoarsely. 'It seems all quite clear,' he said. 'My uncle shut himself up in here, scrawled that message on a piece of paper, and then shot himself.'
Poirot nodded meditatively. Hugo went on: 'But I don't understand why he sent for you. What was it all about?'
'That is rather more difficult to explain. While we are waiting, Mr Trent, for the authorities to take charge, perhaps you will tell me exactly who all the people are whom I saw tonight when I arrived?'
'Who they are?' Hugo spoke almost absently. 'Oh, yes, of course.
Sorry. Shall we sit down?' He indicated a settee in the farthest corner of the room from the body. He went on, speaking jerkily: 'Well, there's Vanda - my aunt, you know. And Ruth, my cousin. But you know them. Then the other girl is Susan Cardwell. She's just staying here. And there's Colonel Bury. He's an old friend of the family. And Mr Forbes. He's an old friend, too, beside being the family lawyer and all that. Both the old boys had a passion for Vanda when she was young, and they still hang round in a faithful, devoted sort of way. Ridiculous, but rather touching. Then there's Godfrey Burrows, the Old Man's - I mean my uncle's - secretary, and Miss Lingard, who's here to help him write a history of the Chevenix-
Gores. She mugs up historical stuff for writers. That's the lot, I think.' Poirot nodded. Then he said: 'And I understand you actually heard the shot that killed your uncle?'
'Yes, we did. Thought it was a champagne cork - at least, I did.
Susan and Miss Lingard thought it was a car backfiring outside - the road runs quite near, you know.'
'When was this?'
'Oh, about ten past eight. Snell had just sounded the first gong.'
'And where were you when you heard it?'
'In the hall. We - we were laughing about it - arguing, you know, as to where the sound came from. I said it came from the dining-room, and Susan said it came from the direction of the drawing-room, and Miss Lingard said it sounded like upstairs, and Snell said it came from the road outside, only it came through the upstairs windows. And Susan said, 'Any more theories?' And I laughed and said there was always murder! Seems pretty rotten to think of it now.' His face twitched nervously. 'It did not occur to anyone that Sir Gervase might have shot himself?'
'No, of course not.'
'You have, in fact, no idea why he should have shot himself?' Hugo said slowly: 'Oh, well, I shouldn't say that - '
'You have an idea?'
'Yes - well - it's difficult to explain. Naturally I didn't expect him to commit suicide, but all the same I'm not frightfully surprised. The truth of it is that my uncle was as mad as a hatter, M. Poirot.
Everyone knew that.'
'That strikes you as a sufficient explanation?'
'Well, people do shoot themselves when they're a bit barmy.'
'An explanation of an admirable simplicity.' Hugo stared. Poirot got up again and wandered aimlessly round the room. It was comfortably furnished, mainly in a rather heavy Victorian style.
There were massive bookcases, huge arm-chairs, and some upright chairs of genuine Chippendale. There were not many ornaments, but some bronzes on the mantel-piece attracted Poirot's attention and apparently stirred his admiration. He picked them up one by one, carefully examining them before replacing them with care. From the one on the extreme left he detached something with a fingernail. 'What's that?' asked Hugo without much interest. 'Nothing very much. A tiny sliver of looking-glass.' Hugo said: 'Funny the way that mirror was smashed by the shot. A broken mirror means bad luck. Poor old Gervase... I suppose his luck had held a bit too long.'
'Your uncle was a lucky man?' Hugo gave a short laugh. 'Why, his luck was proverbial! Everything he touched turned to gold!
If he backed an outsider, it romped home! If he invested in a doubtful mine, they struck a vein of ore at once! He's had the most amazing escapes from the tightest of tight places. His life's been saved by a kind of miracle more than once. He was rather a fine old boy, in his way, you know. He'd certainly "been places and seen things" - more than most of his generation.' Poirot murmured in a conversational tone: 'You were attached to your uncle, Mr Trent?' Hugo Trent seemed a little startled by the question. 'Oh - er - yes, of course,' he said rather vaguely. 'You know, he was a bit difficult at times. Frightful strain to live with, and all that.
Fortunately I didn't have to see much of him.'
'He was fond of you?'
'Not so that you'd notice it! As a matter of fact, he rather resented my existence, so to speak.'
'How was that, Mr Trent?'
'Well, you see, he had no son of his own - and he was pretty sore about it. He was mad about family and all that sort of thing. I believe it cut him to the quick to know that when he died the Chevenix-Gores would cease to exist. They've been going ever since the Norman Conquest, you know. The Old Man was the last of them. I suppose it was rather rotten from his point of view.'
'You yourself do not share that sentiment?' Hugo shrugged his shoulders. 'All that sort of thing seems to me rather out of date.'
'What will happen to the estate?'
'Don't really know. I might get it. Or he may have left it to Ruth.
Probably Vanda has it for her lifetime.'
'Your uncle did not definitely declare his intentions?'
'Well, he had his pet idea.'
'And what was that?'
'His idea was that Ruth and I should make a match of it.'
'That would doubtless have been very suitable.'
'Eminently suitable. But Ruth - well, Ruth has very decided views of her own about life. Mind you, she's an extremely attractive young woman, and she knows it
. She's in no hurry to marry and settle down.' Poirot leaned forward. 'But you yourself would have been willing, M. Trent?' Hugo said in a bored tone of voice: 'I really can't see it makes a ha'p'orth of difference who you marry nowadays. Divorce is so easy. If you're not hitting it off, nothing is easier than to cut the tangle and start again.' The door opened and Forbes entered with a tall, spruce-looking man. The latter nodded to Trent. 'Hallo, Hugo. I'm extremely sorry about this. Very rough on all of you.' Hercule Poirot came forward. 'How do you do, Major Riddle? You remember me?'
'Yes, indeed.' The chief constable shook hands. 'So you're down here?'
There was a meditative note in his voice. He glanced curiously at Hercule Poirot.
Chapter 4
'Well?' said Major Riddle. It was twenty minutes later. The chief constable's interrogative 'Well?' was addressed to the police surgeon, a lank elderly man with grizzled hair. The latter shrugged his shoulders. 'He's been dead over half an hour - but not more than an hour. You don't want technicalities, I know, so I'll spare you them. The man was shot through the head, the pistol being held a few inches from the right temple. Bullet passed right through the brain and out again.'
'Perfectly compatible with suicide?'
'Oh, perfectly. The body then slumped down in the chair, and the pistol dropped from his hand.'
'You've got the bullet?'
'Yes.' The doctor held it up. 'Good,' said Major Riddle. 'We'll keep it for comparison with the pistol. Glad it's a clear case and no difficulties.' Hercule Poirot asked gently: 'You are sure there are no difficulties, Doctor?' The doctor replied slowly: 'Well, I suppose you might call one thing a little odd. When he shot h imself he must have been leaning slightly over to the right.
Otherwise the bullet would have hit the wall below the mirror, instead of plumb in the middle.'
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