“Shall we say that it is an experiment I am trying?”
“What kind of an experiment?”
“That, you will pardon me, is my business. . . .”
“Now look here, M. Poirot, I didn’t ask you to come here in the first place—”
Poirot interrupted.
“Believe me, Admiral Chandler, I quite understand and appreciate your point of view. I am here simply and solely because of the obstinacy of a girl in love. You have told me certain things. Colonel Frobisher has told me certain things. Hugh himself has told me certain things. Now—I want to see for myself.”
“Yes, but see what? I tell you, there’s nothing to see! I lock Hugh into his room every night and that’s that.”
“And yet—sometimes—he tells me that the door is not locked in the morning?”
“What’s that?”
“Have you not found the door unlocked yourself?”
Chandler was frowning.
“I always imagined George had unlocked—what do you mean?”
“Where do you leave the key—in the lock?”
“No, I lay it on the chest outside. I, or George, or Withers, the valet, take it from there in the morning. We’ve told Withers it’s because Hugh walks in his sleep . . . I daresay he knows more—but he’s a faithful fellow, been with me for years.”
“Is there another key?”
“Not that I know of.”
“One could have been made.”
“But who—”
“Your son thinks that he himself has one hidden somewhere, although he is unaware of it in his waking state.”
Colonel Frobisher, speaking from the far end of the room, said:
“I don’t like it, Charles . . . The girl—”
Admiral Chandler said quickly: “Just what I was thinking. The girl mustn’t come back with you. Come back yourself, if you like.”
Poirot said: “Why don’t you want Miss Maberly here tonight?”
Frobisher said in a low voice:
“It’s too risky. In these cases—”
He stopped.
Poirot said: “Hugh is devoted to her. . . .”
Chandler cried: “That’s just why! Damn it all, man, everything’s topsy-turvy where a madman’s concerned. Hugh knows that himself. Diana mustn’t come here.”
“As to that,” said Poirot, “Diana must decide for herself.”
He went out of the library. Diana was waiting outside in the car. She called out, “We’ll get what we want for the night and be back in time for dinner.”
As they drove down the long drive, Poirot repeated to her the conversation he had just held with the Admiral and Colonel Frobisher. She laughed scornfully.
“Do they think Hugh would hurt me?”
By way of reply, Poirot asked her if she would mind stopping at the chemist’s in the village. He had forgotten, he said, to pack a toothbrush.
The chemist’s shop was in the middle of the peaceful village street. Diana waited outside in the car. It struck her that Hercule Poirot was a long time choosing a toothbrush. . . .
VI
In the big bedroom with the heavy Elizabethan, oak furniture, Hercule Poirot sat and waited. There was nothing to do but wait. All his arrangements were made.
It was towards early morning that the summons came.
At the sound of footsteps outside, Poirot drew back the bolt and opened the door. There were two men in the passage outside—two middle-aged men who looked older than their years. The Admiral was stern-faced and grim, Colonel Frobisher twitched and trembled.
Chandler said simply:
“Will you come with us, M. Poirot?”
There was a huddled figure lying outside Diana Maberly’s bedroom door. The light fell on a rumpled, tawny head. Hugh Chandler lay there breathing stertorously. He was in his dressing gown and slippers. In his right hand was a sharply curved, shining knife. Not all of it was shining—here and there it was obscured by red glistening patches.
Hercule Poirot exclaimed softly:
“Mon Dieu!”
Frobisher said sharply:
“She’s all right. He hasn’t touched her.” He raised his voice and called: “Diana! It’s us! Let us in!”
Poirot heard the Admiral groan and mutter under his breath:
“My boy. My poor boy.”
There was a sound of bolts being drawn. The door opened and Diana stood there. Her face was dead white.
She faltered out:
“What’s happened? There was someone—trying to get in—I heard them—feeling the door—the handle—scratching on the panels—Oh! it was awful . . . like an animal. . . .”
Frobisher said sharply:
“Thank God your door was locked!”
“M. Poirot told me to lock it.”
Poirot said:
“Lift him up and bring him inside.”
The two men stooped and raised the unconscious man. Diana caught her breath with a little gasp as they passed her.
“Hugh? Is it Hugh? What’s that—on his hands?”
Hugh Chandler’s hands were sticky and wet with a brownish, red stain.
Diana breathed: “Is that blood?”
Poirot looked inquiringly at the two men. The Admiral nodded. He said:
“Not human, thank God! A cat! I found it downstairs in the hall. Throat cut. Afterwards he must have come up here—”
“Here?” Diana’s voice was low with horror. “To me?”
The man on the chair stirred—muttered. They watched him, fascinated. Hugh Chandler sat up. He blinked.
“Hallo,” his voice was dazed—hoarse. “What’s happened? Why am I—?”
He stopped. He was staring at the knife which he held still clasped in his hand.
He said in a slow, thick voice:
“What have I done?”
His eyes went from one to the other. They rested at last on Diana shrinking back against the wall. He said quietly:
“Did I attack Diana?”
His father shook his head. Hugh said:
“Tell me what has happened? I’ve got to know!”
They told him—told him unwillingly—haltingly. His quiet perseverance drew it out of them.
Outside the window the sun was coming up. Hercule Poirot drew a curtain aside. The radiance of the dawn came into the room.
Hugh Chandler’s face was composed, his voice was steady.
He said:
“I see.”
Then he got up. He smiled and stretched himself. His voice was quite natural as he said:
“Beautiful morning, what? Think I’ll go out in the woods and try to get a rabbit.”
He went out of the room and left them staring after him.
Then the Admiral started forward. Frobisher caught him by the arm.
“No, Charles, no. It’s the best way—for him, poor devil, if for nobody else.”
Diana had thrown herself sobbing on the bed.
Admiral Chandler said, his voice coming unevenly:
“You’re right, George—you’re right, I know. The boy’s got guts. . . .”
Frobisher said, and his voice, too, was broken:
“He’s a man . . .”
There was a moment’s silence and then Chandler said:
“Damn it, where’s that cursed foreigner?”
VII
In the gun room, Hugh Chandler had lifted his gun from the rack and was in the act of loading it when Hercule Poirot’s hand fell on his shoulder.
Hercule Poirot’s voice said one word and said it with a strange authority. He said:
“No!”
Hugh Chandler stared at him. He said in a thick, angry voice: “Take your hands off me. Don’t interfere. There’s going to be an accident, I tell you. It’s the only way out.”
Again Hercule Poirot repeated that one word:
“No.”
“Don’t you realize that if it hadn’t been for the accident of her door being locked, I would have cut Diana’s thr
oat—Diana’s!—with that knife?”
“I realize nothing of the kind. You would not have killed Miss Maberly.”
“I killed that cat, didn’t I?”
“No, you did not kill the cat. You did not kill the parrot. You did not kill the sheep.”
Hugh stared at him. He demanded:
“Are you mad, or am I?”
Hercule Poirot replied:
“Neither of us is mad.”
It was at that moment that Admiral Chandler and Colonel Frobisher came in. Behind them came Diana.
Hugh Chandler said in a weak, dazed voice:
“This chap says I’m not mad. . . .”
Hercule Poirot said:
“I am happy to tell you that you are entirely and completely sane.”
Hugh laughed. It was a laugh such as a lunatic might popularly be supposed to give.
“That’s damned funny! It’s sane, is it, to cut the throats of sheep and other animals? I was sane, was I, when I killed that parrot? And the cat tonight?”
“I tell you you did not kill the sheep—or the parrot—or the cat.”
“Then who did?”
“Someone who has had at heart the sole object of proving you insane. On each occasion you were given a heavy soporific and a blood-stained knife or razor was planted by you. It was someone else whose bloody hands were washed in your basin.”
“But why?”
“In order that you should do what you were just about to do when I stopped you.”
Hugh stared. Poirot turned to Colonel Frobisher.
“Colonel Frobisher, you lived for many years in India. Did you never come across cases where persons were deliberately driven mad by the administration of drugs?”
Colonel Frobisher’s face lit up. He said:
“Never came across a case myself, but I’ve heard of them often enough. Datura poisoning. It ends by driving a person insane.”
“Exactly. Well, the active principle of the datura is very closely allied to, if it is not actually, the alkaloid atropine—which is also obtained from belladonna or deadly nightshade. Belladonna preparations are fairly common and atropine sulphate itself is prescribed freely for eye treatments. By duplicating a prescription and getting it made up in different places a large quantity of the poison could be obtained without arousing suspicion. The alkaloid could be extracted from it and then introduced into, say—a soothing shaving cream. Applied externally it would cause a rash, this would soon lead to abrasions in shaving and thus the drug would be continually entering the system. It would produce certain symptoms—dryness of the mouth and throat, difficulty in swallowing, hallucinations, double vision—all the symptoms, in fact, which Mr. Chandler has experienced.”
He turned to the young man.
“And to remove the last doubt from my mind, I will tell you that that is not a supposition but a fact. Your shaving cream was heavily impregnated with atropine sulphate. I took a sample and had it tested.”
White, shaking, Hugh asked:
“Who did it? Why?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“That is what I have been studying ever since I arrived here. I have been looking for a motive for murder. Diana Maberly gained financially by your death, but I did not consider her seriously—”
Hugh Chandler flashed out:
“I should hope not!”
“I envisaged another possible motive. The eternal triangle; two men and a woman. Colonel Frobisher had been in love with your mother, Admiral Chandler married her.”
Admiral Chandler cried out:
“George? George! I won’t believe it.”
Hugh said in an incredulous voice:
“Do you mean that hatred could go on—to a son?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Under certain circumstances, yes.”
Frobisher cried out:
“It’s a damned lie! Don’t believe him, Charles.”
Chandler shrank away from him. He muttered to himself:
“The datura . . . India—yes, I see . . . And we’d never suspect poison—not with madness in the family already. . . .”
“Mais oui!” Hercule Poirot’s voice rose high and shrill. “Madness in the family. A madman—bent on revenge—cunning—as madmen are, concealing his madness for years.” He whirled round on Frobisher. “Mon Dieu, you must have known, you must have suspected, that Hugh was your son? Why did you never tell him so?”
Frobisher stammered, gulped.
“I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure . . . You see, Caroline came to me once—she was frightened of something—in great trouble. I don’t know, I never have known, what it was all about. She—I—we lost our heads. Afterwards I went away at once—it was the only thing to be done, we both knew we’d got to play the game. I—well, I wondered, but I couldn’t be sure. Caroline never said anything that led me to think Hugh was my son. And then when this—this streak of madness appeared, it settled things definitely, I thought.”
Poirot said:
“Yes, it settled things! You could not see the way the boy has of thrusting out his face and bringing down his brows—a trick he inherited from you. But Charles Chandler saw it. Saw it years ago—and learnt the truth from his wife. I think she was afraid of him—he’d begun to show her the mad streak—that was what drove her into your arms—you whom she had always loved. Charles Chandler planned his revenge. His wife died in a boating accident. He and she were out in the boat alone and he knows how that accident came about. Then he settled down to feed his concentrated hatred against the boy who bore his name but who was not his son. Your Indian stories put the idea of datura poisoning into his head. Hugh should be slowly driven mad. Driven to the stage where he would take his own life in despair. The blood lust was Admiral Chandler’s, not Hugh’s. It was Charles Chandler who was driven to cut the throats of sheep in lonely fields. But it was Hugh who was to pay the penalty!
“Do you know when I suspected? When Admiral Chandler was so averse to his son seeing a doctor. For Hugh to object was natural enough. But the father! There might be treatment which would save his son—there were a hundred reasons why he should seek to have a doctor’s opinion. But no, a doctor must not be allowed to see Hugh Chandler—in case a doctor should discover that Hugh was sane!”
Hugh said very quietly:
“Sane . . . I am sane?”
He took a step towards Diana. Frobisher said in a gruff voice:
“You’re sane enough. There’s no taint in our family.”
Diana said:
“Hugh . . .”
Admiral Chandler picked up Hugh’s gun. He said:
“All a lot of nonsense! Think I’ll go and see if I can get a rabbit—”
Frobisher started forward, but the hand of Hercule Poirot restrained him. Poirot said:
“You said yourself—just now—that it was the best way. . . .”
Hugh and Diana had gone from the room.
The two men, the Englishman and the Belgian, watched the last of the Chandlers cross the Park and go up into the woods.
Presently, they heard a shot. . . .
Forty-six
THE HORSES OF DIOMEDES
“The Horses of Diomedes” was first published in The Strand, June 1940.
The telephone rang.
“Hallo, Poirot, is that you?”
Hercule Poirot recognized the voice as that of young Dr. Stoddart. He liked Michael Stoddart, liked the shy friendliness of his grin, was amused by his naïve interest in crime, and respected him as a hardworking and shrewd man in his chosen profession.
“I don’t like bothering you—” the voice went on and hesitated.
“But something is bothering you?” suggested Hercule Poirot acutely.
“Exactly.” Michael Stoddart’s voice sounded relieved. “Hit it in one!”
“Eh bien, what can I do for you, my friend?”
Stoddart sounded diffident. He stammered a little when he answered.
“I suppose it would
be awful c-c-cheek if I asked you to come round at this time of night . . . B-b-but I’m in a bit of a j-j-jam.”
“Certainly I will come. To your house?”
“No—as a matter of fact I’m at the Mews that runs along behind. Conningby Mews. The number is 17. Could you really come? I’d be no end grateful.”
“I arrive immediately,” replied Hercule Poirot.
II
Hercule Poirot walked along the dark Mews looking up at the numbers. It was past one o’clock in the morning and for the most part the Mews appeared to have gone to bed, though there were still lights in one or two windows.
As he reached 17, its door opened and Dr. Stoddart stood looking out.
“Good man!” he said. “Come up, will you?”
A small ladderlike stairway led to the upper floor. Here, on the right, was a fairly big room, furnished with divans, rugs, triangular silver cushions and large numbers of bottles and glasses.
Everything was more or less in confusion, cigarette ends were everywhere and there were many broken glasses.
“Ha!” said Hercule Poirot. “Mon cher Watson, I deduce that there has been here a party!”
“There’s been a party all right,” said Stoddart grimly. “Some party, I should say!”
“You did not, then, attend it yourself?”
“No, I’m here strictly in my professional capacity.”
“What happened?”
Stoddart said:
“This place belongs to a woman called Patience Grace—Mrs. Patience Grace.”
“It sounds,” said Poirot, “a charming old-world name.”
“There’s nothing charming or old-world about Mrs. Grace. She’s good-looking in a tough sort of way. She’s got through a couple of husbands, and now she’s got a boyfriend whom she suspects of trying to run out on her. They started this party on drink and they finished it on dope—cocaine, to be exact. Cocaine is stuff that starts off making you feel just grand and with everything in the garden lovely. It peps you up and you feel you can do twice as much as you usually do. Take too much of it and you get violent mental excitement, delusions and delirium. Mrs. Grace had a violent quarrel with her boyfriend, an unpleasant person by the name of Hawker. Result, he walked out on her then and there, and she leaned out of the window and took a potshot at him with a brand-new revolver that someone had been fool enough to give her.”
Hercule Poirot- the Complete Short Stories Page 96