THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES

by The Mysterious Affair at Styles (lit)

  It occurred to me very forcibly at that moment that to harbour Miss Howard and Alfred Inglethorp under the same roof, and keep the peace between them, was likely to prove a Herculean task, and I did not envy John. I could see by the expression of his face that he fully appreciated the difficulty of the position. For the moment, he sought refuge in retreat, and left the room precipitately.

  Dorcas brought in fresh tea. As she left the room, Poirot came over from the window where he had been standing, and sat down facing Miss Howard.

  "Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "I want to ask you something."

  "Ask away," said the lady, eyeing him with some disfavour.

  "I want to be able to count upon your help."

  "I'll help you to hang Alfred with pleasure," she replied gruffly. "Hanging's too good for him. Ought to be drawn and quartered, like in good old times."

  "We are at one then," said Poirot, "for I, too, want to hang the criminal."

  "Alfred Inglethorp?"

  "Him, or another."

  "No question of another. Poor Emily was never murdered until *HE came along. I don't say she wasn't surrounded by sharks--she was. But it was only her purse they were after. Her life was safe enough. But along comes Mr. Alfred Inglethorp--and within two months--hey presto!"

  "Believe me, Miss Howard," said Poirot very earnestly, "if Mr. Inglethorp is the man, he shall not escape me. On my honour, I will hang him as high as Haman!"

  "That's better," said Miss Howard more enthusiastically.

  "But I must ask you to trust me. Now your help may be very valuable to me. I will tell you why. Because, in all this house of mourning, yours are the only eyes that have wept."

  Miss Howard blinked, and a new note crept into the gruffness of her voice.

  "If you mean that I was fond of her--yes, I was. You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them--and, that way she missed love. Don't think she ever realized it, though, or felt the lack of it. Hope not, anyway. I was on a different footing. I took my stand from the first. 'So many pounds a year I'm worth to you. Well and good. But not a penny piece besides-- not a pair of gloves, nor a theatre ticket.' She didn't understand--was very offended sometimes. Said I was foolishly proud. It wasn't that--but I couldn't explain. Anyway, I kept my self-respect. And so, out of the whole bunch, I was the only one who could allow myself to be fond of her. I watched over her. I guarded her from the lot of them, and then a glib-tongued scoundrel comes along, and pooh! all my years of devotion go for nothing."

  Poirot nodded sympathetically.

  "I understand, mademoiselle, I understand all you feel. It is most natural. You think that we are lukewarm--that we lack fire and energy--but trust me, it is not so."

  John stuck his head in at this juncture, and invited us both to come up to Mrs. Inglethorp's room, as he and Mr. Wells had finished looking through the desk in the boudoir.

  As we went up the stairs, John looked back to the dining-room door, and lowered his voice confidentially:

  "Look here, what's going to happen when these two meet?"

  I shook my head helplessly.

  "I've told Mary to keep them apart if she can."

  "Will she be able to do so?"

  "The Lord only knows. There's one thing, Inglethorp himself won't be too keen on meeting her."

  "You've got the keys still, haven't you, Poirot?" I asked, as we reached the door of the locked room.

  Taking the keys from Poirot, John unlocked it, and we all passed in. The lawyer went straight to the desk, and John followed him.

  "My mother kept most of her important papers in this despatch-case, I believe," he said.

  Poirot drew out the small bunch of keys.

  "Permit me. I locked it, out of precaution, this morning."

  "But it's not locked now."

  "Impossible!"

  "See." And John lifted the lid as he spoke.

  "Milles tonnerres!" cried Poirot, dumfounded. "And I--who have both the keys in my pocket!" He flung himself upon the case. Suddenly he stiffened. "En voila une affaire! This lock has been forced."

  "What?"

  Poirot laid down the case again.

  "But who forced it? Why should they? When? But the door was locked?" These exclamations burst from us disjointedly.

  Poirot answered them categorically--almost mechanically.

  "Who? That is the question. Why? Ah, if I only knew. When? Since I was here an hour ago. As to the door being locked, it is a very ordinary lock. Probably any other of the doorkeys in this passage would fit it."

  We stared at one another blankly. Poirot had walked over to the mantel-piece. He was outwardly calm, but I noticed his hands, which from long force of habit were mechanically straightening the spill vases on the mantel-piece, were shaking violently.

  "See here, it was like this," he said at last. "There was something in that case--some piece of evidence, slight in itself perhaps, but still enough of a clue to connect the murderer with the crime. It was vital to him that it should be destroyed before it was discovered and its significance appreciated. Therefore, he took the risk, the great risk, of coming in here. Finding the case locked, he was obliged to force it, thus betraying his presence. For him to take that risk, it must have been something of great importance."

  "But what was it?"

  "Ah!" cried Poirot, with a gesture of anger. "That, I do not know! A document of some kind, without doubt, possibly the scrap of paper Dorcas saw in her hand yesterday afternoon. And I--" his anger burst forth freely--"miserable animal that I am! I guessed nothing! I have behaved like an imbecile! I should never have left that case here. I should have carried it away with me. Ah, triple pig! And now it is gone. It is destroyed--but is it destroyed? Is there not yet a chance--we must leave no stone unturned--"

  He rushed like a madman from the room, and I followed him as soon as I had sufficiently recovered my wits. But, by the time I had reached the top of the stairs, he was out of sight.

  Mary Cavendish was standing where the staircase branched, staring down into the hall in the direction in which he had disappeared.

  "What has happened to your extraordinary little friend, Mr. Hastings? He has just rushed past me like a mad bull."

  "He's rather upset about something," I remarked feebly. I really did not know how much Poirot would wish me to disclose. As I saw a faint smile gather on Mrs. Cavendish's expressive mouth, I endeavoured to try and turn the conversation by saying: "They haven't met yet, have they?"

  "Who?"

  "Mr. Inglethorp and Miss Howard."

  She looked at me in rather a disconcerting manner.

  "Do you think it would be such a disaster if they did meet?"

  "Well, don't you?" I said, rather taken aback.

  "No." She was smiling in her quiet way. "I should like to see a good flare up. It would clear the air. At present we are all thinking so much, and saying so little."

  "John doesn't think so," I remarked. "He's anxious to keep them apart."

  "Oh, John!"

  Something in her tone fired me, and I blurted out:

  "Old John's an awfully good sort."

  She studied me curiously for a minute or two, and then said, to my great surprise:

  "You are loyal to your friend. I like you for that."

  "Aren't you my friend too?"

  "I am a very bad friend."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because it is true. I am charming to my friends one day, and forget all about them the next."

  I don't know what impelled me, but I was nettled, and I said foolishly and not in the best of taste:

  "Yet you seem to be invariably charming to Dr. Bauerstein!"

  Instantly I regretted my words. Her face stiffened. I had the impression of a steel curtain coming down and blotting out the real woman. Without a word, she turned and went swiftly up the stairs, whilst I stood like an idiot gaping
after her.

  I was recalled to other matters by a frightful row going on below. I could hear Poirot shouting and expounding. I was vexed to think that my diplomacy had been in vain. The little man appeared to be taking the whole house into his confidence, a proceeding of which I, for one, doubted the wisdom. Once again I could not help regretting that my friend was so prone to lose his head in moments of excitement. I stepped briskly down the stairs. The sight of me calmed Poirot almost immediately. I drew him aside.

  "My dear fellow," I said, "is this wise? Surely you don't want the whole house to know of this occurrence? You are actually playing into the criminal's hands."

  "You think so, Hastings?"

  "I am sure of it."

  "Well, well, my friend, I will be guided by you."

  "Good. Although, unfortunately, it is a little too late now."

  "Sure."

  He looked so crestfallen and abashed that I felt quite sorry, though I still thought my rebuke a just and wise one.

  "Well," he said at last, "let us go, mon ami."

  "You have finished here?"

  "For the moment, yes. You will walk back with me to the village?"

  "Willingly."

  He picked up his little suit-case, and we went out through the open window in the drawing-room. Cynthia Murdoch was just coming in, and Poirot stood aside to let her pass.

  "Excuse me, mademoiselle, one minute."

  "Yes?" she turned inquiringly.

  "Did you ever make up Mrs. Inglethorp's medicines?"

  A slight flush rose in her face, as she answered rather constrainedly:

  "No."

  "Only her powders?"

  The flush deepened as Cynthia replied:

  "Oh, yes, I did make up some sleeping powders for her once."

  "These?"

  Poirot produced the empty box which had contained powders.

  She nodded.

  "Can you tell me what they were? Sulphonal? Veronal?"

  "No, they were bromide powders."

  "Ah! Thank you, mademoiselle; good morning."

  As we walked briskly away from the house, I glanced at him more than once. I had often before noticed that, if anything excited him, his eyes turned green like a cat's. They were shining like emeralds now.

  "My friend," he broke out at last, "I have a little idea, a very strange, and probably utterly impossible idea. And yet-- it fits in."

  I shrugged my shoulders. I privately thought that Poirot was rather too much given to these fantastic ideas. In this case, surely, the truth was only too plain and apparent.

  "So that is the explanation of the blank label on the box," I remarked. "Very simple, as you said. I really wonder that I did not think of it myself."

  Poirot did not appear to be listening to me.

  "They have made one more discovery, la-bas," he observed, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Styles. "Mr. Wells told me as we were going upstairs."

  "What was it?"

  "Locked up in the desk in the boudoir, they found a will of Mrs. Inglethorp's, dated before her marriage, leaving her fortune to Alfred Inglethorp. It must have been made just at the time they were engaged. It came quite as a surprise to Wells-- and to John Cavendish also. It was written on one of those printed will forms, and witnessed by two of the servants--not Dorcas."

  "Did Mr. Inglethorp know of it?"

  "He says not."

  "One might take that with a grain of salt," I remarked sceptically. "All these wills are very confusing. Tell me, how did those scribbled words on the envelope help you to discover that a will was made yesterday afternoon?"

  Poirot smiled.

  "Mon ami, have you ever, when writing a letter, been arrested by the fact that you did not know how to spell a certain word?"

  "Yes, often. I suppose every one has."

  "Exactly. And have you not, in such a case, tried the word once or twice on the edge of the blotting-paper, or a spare scrap of paper, to see if it looked right? Well, that is what Mrs. Inglethorp did. You will notice that the word 'possessed' is spelt first with one's' end subsequently with two--correctly. To make sure, she had further tried it in a sentence, thus: 'I am possessed.' Now, what did that tell me? It told me that Mrs. Inglethorp had been writing the word 'possessed' that afternoon, and, having the fragment of paper found in the grate fresh in my mind, the possibility of a will--(a document almost certain to contain that word)--occurred to me at once. This possibility was confirmed by a further circumstance. In the general confusion, the boudoir had not been swept that morning, and near the desk were several traces of brown mould and earth. The weather had been perfectly fine for some days, and no ordinary boots would have left such a heavy deposit.

  "I strolled to the window, and saw at once that the begonia beds had been newly planted. The mould in the beds was exactly similar to that on the floor of the boudoir, and also I learnt from you that they had been planted yesterday afternoon. I was now sure that one, or possibly both of the gardeners-- for there were two sets of footprints in the bed--had entered the boudoir, for if Mrs. Inglethorp had merely wished to speak to them she would in all probability have stood at the window, and they would not have come into the room at all. I was now quite convinced that she had made a fresh will, and had called the two gardeners in to witness her signature. Events proved that I was right in my supposition."

  "That was very ingenious," I could not help admitting. "I must confess that the conclusions I drew from those few scribbled words were quite erroneous."

  He smiled.

  "You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely."

  "Another point--how did you know that the key of the despatch-case had been lost?"

  "I did not know it. It was a guess that turned out to be correct. You observed that it had a piece of twisted wire through the handle. That suggested to me at once that it had possibly been wrenched off a flimsy key-ring. Now, if it had been lost and recovered, Mrs. Inglethorp would at once have replaced it on her bunch; but on her bunch I found what was obviously the duplicate key, very new and bright, which led me to the hypothesis that somebody else had inserted the original key in the lock of the despatch-case."

  "Yes," I said, "Alfred Inglethorp, without doubt."

  Poirot looked at me curiously.

  "You are very sure of his guilt?"

  "Well, naturally. Every fresh circumstance seems to establish it more clearly."

  "On the contrary," said Poirot quietly, "there are several points in his favour."

  "Oh, come now!"

  "Yes."

  "I see only one."

  "And that?"

  "That he was not in the house last night."

  " 'Bad shot!' as you English say! You have chosen the one point that to my mind tells against him."

  "How is that?"

  "Because if Mr. Inglethorp knew that his wife would be poisoned last night, he would certainly have arranged to be away from the house. His excuse was an obviously trumped up one. That leaves us two possibilities: either he knew what was going to happen or he had a reason of his own for his absence."

  "And that reason?" I asked sceptically.

  Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

  "How should I know? Discreditable, without doubt. This Mr. Inglethorp, I should say, is somewhat of a scoundrel--but that does not of necessity make him a murderer."

  I shook my head, unconvinced.

  "We do not agree, eh?" said Poirot. "Well, let us leave it. Time will show which of us is right. Now let us turn to other aspects of the case. What do you make of the fact that all the doors of the bedroom were bolted on the inside?"

  "Well----" I considered. "One must look at it logically."

  "True."

  "I should put it this way. The doors *WERE bolted--our own eyes have told us that--yet the presence of the candle grease on the floor, and the destruction of the will, prove that durin
g the night some one entered the room. You agree so far?"

  "Perfectly. Put with admirable clearness. Proceed."

  "Well," I said, encouraged, "as the person who entered did not do so by the window, nor by miraculous means, it follows that the door must have been opened from inside by Mrs. Inglethorp herself. That strengthens the conviction that the person in question was her husband. She would naturally open the door to her own husband."

  Poirot shook his head.

  "Why should she? She had bolted the door leading into his room--a most unusual proceeding on her part--she had had a most violent quarrel with him that very afternoon. No, he was the last person she would admit."

  "But you agree with me that the door must have been opened by Mrs. Inglethorp herself?"

  "There is another possibility. She may have forgotten to bolt the door into the passage when she went to bed, and have got up later, towards morning, and bolted it then."

  "Poirot, is that seriously your opinion?"

  "No, I do not say it is so, but it might be. Now, to turn to another feature, what do you make of the scrap of conversation you overheard between Mrs. Cavendish and her mother-in-law?"

  "I had forgotten that," I said thoughtfully. "That is as enigmatical as ever. It seems incredible that a woman like Mrs. Cavendish, proud and reticent to the last degree, should interfere so violently in what was certainly not her affair."

  "Precisely. It was an astonishing thing for a woman of her breeding to do."

  "It is certainly curious," I agreed. "Still, it is unimportant, and need not be taken into account."

  A groan burst from Poirot.

  "What have I always told you? Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory--let the theory go."

  "Well, we shall see," I said, nettled.

  "Yes, we shall see."

  We had reached Leastways Cottage, and Poirot ushered me upstairs to his own room. He offered me one of the tiny Russian cigarettes he himself occasionally smoked. I was amused to notice that he stowed away the used matches most carefully in a little china pot. My momentary annoyance vanished.

  Poirot had placed our two chairs in front of the open window which commanded a view of the village street. The fresh air blew in warm and pleasant. It was going to be a hot day.