Cards on the Table hp-15

by Agatha Christie

  Mrs. Oliver looked at him thoughtfully. Then she smiled – an agreeable, engaging smile rather like that of an impudent small child.

  "You have been warned," she quoted. "Thank you, Monsieur Poirot, I'll watch my step. But I'm not going to be out of this."

  Poirot bowed gracefully.

  "Permit me to say – you are the sport, madame."

  "I presume," said Mrs. Oliver, sitting up very straight and speaking in a businesslike committee meeting manner, "that all information we receive will be pooled – that is, that we will not keep any knowledge to ourselves. Our own deductions and impressions, of course, we are entitled to keep up our sleeves."

  Superintendent Battle sighed.

  "This isn't a detective story, Mrs. Oliver," he said. Race said, "Naturally all information must be handed over to the police."

  Having said this in his most "Orderly Room" voice he added, with a slight twinkle in his eye, "I'm sure you'll play fair, Mrs. Oliver. The stained glove, the fingerprint on the tooth glass, the fragment of burned paper, you'll turn them over to Battle here."

  "You may laugh," said Mrs. Oliver, "but a woman's intuition -" She nodded her head with decision.

  Race rose to his feet.

  "I'll have Despard looked up for you. It may take a little time. Anything else I can do?"

  "I don't think so, thank you, sir. You've no hints? I'd value anything of that kind."

  "H'm. Well – I'd keep a special lookout for shooting or poison or accidents, but I expect you're on to that already."

  "I'd made a note of that – yes, sir."

  "Good man, Battle. You don't need me to teach you your job. Good night, Mrs. Oliver. Good night, Monsieur Poirot." And with a final nod to Battle, Colonel Race left the room.

  "Who is he?" asked Mrs. Oliver.

  "Very fine Army record," said Battle. "Traveled a lot, too. Not many parts of the world he doesn't know about."

  "Secret Service, I suppose," said Mrs. Oliver. "You can't tell me so, I know, but he wouldn't have been asked otherwise this evening. The four murderers and the four sleuths – Scotland Yard. Secret Service. Private. Fiction. A clever idea."

  Poirot shook his head.

  "You are in error, madame. It was a very stupid idea. The tiger was alarmed – and the tiger sprang."

  "The tiger? Why the tiger?"

  "By the tiger I mean the murderer," said Poirot.

  Battle said bluntly, "What's your idea of the right line to take, Monsieur Poirot? That's one question. And I'd also like to know what you think of the psychology of these four people. You're rather hot on that."

  Still smoothing his bridge scores, Poirot said, "You are right; psychology is very important. We know the kind of murder that has been committed, the way it was committed. If we have a person who from the psychological point of view could not have committed that particular type of murder, then we can dismiss that person from our calculations. We know something about these people. We have our own impression of them, we know the line that each has elected to take, and we know something about their minds and their characters from what we have learned about them as card players and from the study of their handwriting and of these scores. But alas! It is not too easy to give a definite pronouncement. This murder required audacity and nerve – a person who was willing to take a risk.

  "Well, we have Doctor Roberts – a bluffer, an overbidder of his hand, a man with complete confidence in his own powers to pull off a risky thing. His psychology fits very well with the crime. One might say, then, that that automatically wipes out Miss Meredith. She is timid, frightened of overbidding her hand, careful, economical prudent and lacking in self-confidence – the last type of person to carry out a bold and risky coup. But a timid person will murder out of fear. A frightened nervous person can be made desperate, can turn like a rat at bay if driven into a corner. If Miss Meredith had committed a crime in the past, and if she believed that Mr. Shaitana knew the circumstances of that crime and was about to deliver her up to justice, she would be wild with terror; she would stop at nothing to save herself. It would be the same result, though brought about through a different reaction – not cool nerve and daring, but desperate panic.

  "Then take Major Despard – a cool, resourceful man willing to try a long shot if he believed it absolutely necessary. He would weigh the pros and cons and might decide that there was a sporting chance in his favor – and he is the type of man to prefer action to inaction, and a man who would never shrink from taking the dangerous way if he believed there was a reasonable chance of success. Finally there is Mrs. Lorrimer, an elderly woman, but a woman in full possession of her wits and faculties. A cool woman. A woman with a mathematical brain. She has probably the best brain of the four. I confess that if Mrs. Lorrimer committed a crime, I should expect it to be a premeditated crime. I can see her planning a crime slowly and carefully, making sure that there were no flaws in her scheme. For that reason she seems to me slightly more unlikely than the other three. She is, however, the most dominating personality, and whatever she undertook she would probably carry through without a flaw. She is a thoroughly efficient woman." He paused.

  "So, you see, that does not help us much. No – there is only one way in this crime. We must go back into the past."

  Battle sighed. "You've said it," he murmured.

  "In the opinion of Mr. Shaitana each of those four people had committed murder. Had he evidence? Or was it a guess? We cannot tell. It is unlikely, I think, that he could have had actual evidence in all four cases -"

  "I agree with you there," said Battle, nodding his head. "That would be a bit too much of a coincidence."

  "I suggest that it might come about this way – murder or a certain form of murder is mentioned, and Mr. Shaitana surprised a look on someone's face. He was very quick – very sensitive to expression. It amuses him to experiment, to probe gently in the course of apparently aimless conversation; he is alert to notice a wince, a reservation, a desire to turn the conversation. Oh, it is easily done. If you suspect a certain secret, nothing is easier than to confirm your suspicion. Every time a word goes home you notice it – if you are watching for such a thing."

  "It's the sort of game that would have amused our late friend," said Battle, nodding.

  "We may assume, then, that such was the procedure in one or more cases. He may have come across a piece of actual evidence in another case and followed it up. I doubt whether, in any of the cases, he had sufficient actual knowledge with which – for instance – to have gone to the police."

  "Or it mayn't have been the kind of case," said Battle. "Often enough there's a fishy business – we suspect foul play, but we can't ever prove it. Anyway the course is clear. We've got to go through the records of all these people – and note any deaths that may be significant. I expect you noticed, just as the colonel did, what Shaitana said at dinner."

  "The black angel," murmured Mrs. Oliver.

  "A neat little reference to poison, to accident, to a doctor's opportunities, to shooting accidents. I shouldn't be surprised if he signed his death warrant when he said those words."

  "It was a nasty sort of pause," said Mrs. Oliver.

  "Yes," said Poirot. "Those words went home to one person at least – that person probably thought that Shaitana knew far more than he really did. That listener thought that they were the prelude to the end – that the party was a dramatic entertainment arranged by Shaitana leading up to arrest for murder as its climax! Yes, as you say, he signed his death warrant when he baited his guests with those words."

  There was a moment's silence.

  "This will be a long business," said Battle with a sigh. "We can't find out all we want in a moment – and we've got to be careful. We don't want any of the four to suspect what we're doing. All our questioning and so on must seem to have to do with this murder. There mustn't be a suspicion that we've got any idea of the motive for the crime. And the devil of it is we've got to check up on four possible murders in the pas
t, not one."

  Poirot demurred.

  "Our friend Mr. Shaitana was not infallible," he said. "He may – it is just possible – have made a mistake."

  "About all four?"

  "No – he was more intelligent than that."

  "Call it fifty-fifty?"

  "Not even that. For me, I say one in four."

  "One innocent and three guilty? That's bad enough. And the devil of it is even if we get at the truth it mayn't help us. Even if somebody did push his or her great-aunt down the stairs years ago, it won't be much use to us today."

  "Yes, yes, it will be of use to us." Poirot encouraged him. "You know that. You know it as well as I do."

  Battle nodded slowly.

  "I know what you mean," he said. "Same hallmark."

  "Do you mean," said Mrs. Oliver, "that the previous victim will have been stabbed with a dagger, too?"

  "Not quite as crude as that, Mrs. Oliver," said Battle turning to her. "But I don't doubt it will be essentially the same type of crime. The details may be different, but the essentials underlying them will be the same. It's odd, but a criminal gives himself away every time by that."

  "Man is an unoriginal animal," said Hercule Poirot.

  "Women," said Mrs. Oliver, "are capable of infinite variation. I should never commit the same type of murder twice running."

  "Don't you ever write the same plot twice running?" asked Battle.

  "The Lotus Murder," murmured Poirot. "The Clue of the Candle Wax."

  Mrs. Oliver turned on him, her eyes beaming appreciation. "That's clever of you – that's really very clever of you. Because of course those two are exactly the same plot, but nobody else has seen it. One is stolen papers at an informal week-end party of the Cabinet, and the other's a murder in Borneo in a rubber planter's bungalow."

  "But the essential point on which the story turns is the same," said Poirot. "One of your neatest tricks. The rubber planter arranges his own murder; the cabinet minister arranges the robbery of his own papers. At the last minute the third person steps in and turns deception into reality."

  "I enjoyed your last, Mrs. Oliver," said Superintendent Battle kindly. "The one where all the chief constables were shot simultaneously. You just slipped up once or twice on official details. I know you're keen on accuracy, so I wondered if -"

  Mrs. Oliver interrupted him.

  "As a matter of fact I don't care two pins about accuracy. Who is accurate? Nobody nowadays. If a reporter writes that a beautiful girl of twenty-two dies by turning on the gas after looking out over the sea and kissing her favorite Labrador, Bob, good-by, does anybody make a fuss because the girl was twenty-six, the room faced inland, and the dog was a Sealyham terrier called Bonnie? If a journalist can do that sort of thing I don't see that it matters if I mix up police ranks and say a revolver when I mean an automatic and a dictograph when I mean a phonograph, and use a poison that just allows you to gasp one dying sentence and no more.

  "What really matters is plenty of bodies! If the thing's getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something – and then they're killed first! That always goes down well. It comes in all my books – camouflaged different ways of course. And people like untraceable poisons, and idiotic police inspectors and girls tied up in cellars with sewer gas or water pouring in, such a troublesome way of killing anyone really, and a hero who can dispose of anything from three to seven villains singlehanded. I've written thirty-two books by now – and of course they're all exactly the same really, as Monsieur Poirot seems to have noticed – but nobody else has; and I only regret one thing, making my detective a Finn. I don't really know anything about Finns and I'm always getting letters from Finland pointing out something impossible that he's said or done. They seem to read detective stories a good deal in Finland. I suppose it's the long winters with no daylight. In Bulgaria and Rumania they don't seem to read at all. I'd have done better to have made him a Bulgarian," She broke off.

  "I'm so sorry. I'm talking shop. And this is a real murder." Her face lighted up. "What a good idea it would be if none of them had murdered him. If he'd asked them all, and then quietly committed suicide just for the fun of making a schemozzle."

  Poirot nodded approvingly. "An admirable solution. So neat. So ironic. But alas, Mr. Shaitana was not that sort of man. He was very fond of life."

  "I don't think he was really a nice man," said Mrs. Oliver slowly.

  "He was not nice, no," said Poirot. "But he was alive – and now he is dead and, as I told him once, I have a bourgeois attitude to murder. I disapprove of it."

  He added softly, "And so – I am prepared to go inside the tiger's cage."

  Chapter 9

  DOCTOR ROBERTS

  "Good morning, Superintendent Battle."

  Doctor Roberts rose from his chair and offered a large pink hand smelling of soap and carbolic.

  "How are things going?" he went on.

  Superintendent Battle glanced round the comfortable consulting room before answering.

  "Well, Doctor Roberts, strictly speaking, they're not going. They're standing still."

  "There's been nothing much in the papers, I've been glad to see."

  "Sudden death of the well-known Mr. Shaitana at an evening party in his own house. It's left at that for the moment. We've had the autopsy – I brought a report of the findings along – thought it might interest you -"

  "That's very kind of you; it would. H'm – cervical third rib, et cetera. Yes, very interesting."

  He handed it back.

  "And we've interviewed Mr. Shaitana's solicitor. We know the terms of his will. Nothing of interest there. He has relatives in Syria it seems. And then, of course, we've been through all his private papers."

  Was it fancy or did that broad, clean – shaven countenance look a little strained – a little wooden?

  "And?" asked Doctor Roberts.

  "Nothing," said Superintendent Battle, watching him.

  There wasn't a sigh of relief. Nothing so blatant as that. But the doctor's figure seemed to relax just a shade more comfortably in his chair.

  "And so you've come to me?"

  "And so, as you say, I've come to you."

  The doctor's eyebrows rose a little and his shrewd eyes looked into Battle 's.

  "Want to go through my private papers – eh?"

  "That was my idea."

  "Got a search warrant?"

  "No."

  "Well, you could get one easily enough, I suppose. I'm not going to make difficulties. It's not very pleasant being suspected of murder, but I suppose I can't blame you for what's obviously your duty."

  "Thank you, sir," said Superintendent Battle with real gratitude. "I appreciate your attitude, if I may say so, very much. I hope all the others will be as reasonable, I'm sure."

  "What can't be cured must be endured," said the doctor good-humoredly.

  He went on. "I've finished seeing my patients here. I'm just off on my rounds. I'll leave you my keys and just say a word to my secretary and you can rootle to your heart's content."

  "That's all very nice and pleasant, I'm sure," said Battle. "I'd like to ask you a few more questions before you go."

  "About the other night? Really, I told you all I know,"

  "No, not about the other night. About yourself."

  "Well, man, ask away. What do you want to know?"

  "I'd just like a rough sketch of your career, Doctor Roberts. Birth, marriage, and so on."

  "It will get me into practice for Who's Who," said the doctor dryly. "My career's a perfectly straightforward one. I'm a Shropshire man, born at Ludlow. My father was in practice there. He died when I was fifteen. I was educated at Shrewsbury and went in for medicine like my father before me. I'm a Saint Christopher's man – but you'll have all the medical details already, I expect."

  "I looked you up, yes, sir. You an only child or have you any brothers or sisters?"

  "I'm an only child. Both my parents are d
ead and I'm unmarried. Will that do to get on with? I came into partnership here with Doctor Emery. He retired about fifteen years ago. Lives in Ireland. I'll give you his address if you like. I live here with a cook, a parlormaid, and a housemaid. My secretary comes in daily. I make a good income and I only kill a reasonable number of my patients. How's that?"

  Superintendent Battle grinned. "That's fairly comprehensive, Doctor Roberts. I'm glad you've got a sense of humor. Now I'm going to ask you one more thing."

  "I'm a strictly moral man, Superintendent."

  "Oh, that wasn't my meaning. No, I was just going to ask you if you'd give me the names of four friends – people who've known you intimately for a number of years. Kind of references, if you know what I mean."

  "Yes, I think so. Let me see now. You'd prefer people who are actually in London now?"

  "It would make it a bit easier, but it doesn't really matter."

  The doctor thought for a minute or two, then with his fountain pen he scribbled four names and addresses on a paper and pushed it across the desk to Battle.

  "Will those do? They're the best I can think of on the spur of the moment."

  Battle read carefully, nodded his head in satisfaction, and put the sheet of paper away in an inner pocket.

  "It's just a question of elimination," he said. "The sooner I can get one person eliminated and go on to the next, the better it is for everyone concerned. I've got to make perfectly certain that you weren't on bad terms with the late Mr. Shaitana, that you had no private connections or business dealings with him, that there was no question of his having injured you at any time and your bearing resentment. I may believe you when you say you only know him slightly, but it isn't a question of my belief. I've got to say I've made sure."

  "Oh, I understand perfectly. You've got to think everybody's a liar till he's proved he's speaking the truth. Here are my keys, Superintendent. That's the drawers of the desk – that's the bureau – that little one's the key of the poison cupboard. Be sure you lock it up again. Perhaps I'd better just have a word with my secretary." He pressed a button on his desk.