Murder in the mews hp-18

by Agatha Christie

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Gold. Good morning, Poirot. Both deserters this morning? A lot of absentees. You two, and your husband, Mrs Gold—and Mrs Chantry.’

  ‘And Commander Chantry?’ inquired Poirot casually.

  ‘Oh, no, he’s down there. Miss Pamela’s got him in hand.’ The General chuckled. ‘She’s finding him a little bit difficult! One of the strong, silent men you hear about in books.’

  Marjorie Gold said with a little shiver:

  ‘He frightens me a little, that man. He—he looks so black sometimes. As though he might do—anything!’

  She shivered.

  ‘Just indigestion, I expect,’ said the General cheerfully. ‘Dyspepsia is responsible for many a reputation for romantic melancholy or ungovernable rages.’

  Marjorie Gold smiled a polite little smile.

  ‘And where’s your good man?’ inquired the General.

  Her reply came without hesitation—in a natural, cheerful voice.

  ‘Douglas? Oh, he and Mrs Chantry have gone into the town. I believe they’ve gone to have a look at the walls of the old city.’

  ‘Ha, yes—very interesting. Time of the knights and all that. You ought to have gone too, little lady.’

  Mrs Gold said:

  ‘I’m afraid I came down rather late.’

  She got up suddenly with a murmured excuse and went into the hotel.

  General Barnes looked after her with a concerned expression, shaking his head gently.

  ‘Nice little woman, that. Worth a dozen painted trollops like someone whose name we won’t mention! Ha! Husband’s a fool! Doesn’t know when he’s well off.’

  He shook his head again. Then, rising, he went indoors.

  Sarah Blake had just come up from the beach and had heard the General’s last speech.

  Making a face at the departing warrior’s back, she remarked as she flung herself into a chair:

  ‘Nice little woman—nice little woman! Men always approve of dowdy women—but when it comes to brass tacks the dress-up trollops win hands down! Sad, but there it is.’

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ said Poirot, and his voice was abrupt. ‘I do not like all this!’

  ‘Don’t you? Nor do I. No, let’s be honest, I suppose I do like it really. There is a horrid side of one that enjoys accidents and public calamities and unpleasant things that happen to one’s friends.’

  Poirot asked:

  ‘Where is Commander Chantry?’

  ‘On the beach being dissected by Pamela (she’s enjoying herself if you like!) and not being improved in temper by the proceeding. He was looking like a thunder cloud when I came up. There are squalls ahead, believe me.’

  Poirot murmured:

  ‘There is something I do not understand—’

  ‘It’s not easy to understand,’ said Sarah. ‘But what’s going to happen that’s the question.’

  Poirot shook his head and murmured:

  ‘As you say, mademoiselle—it is the future that causes one inquietude.’

  ‘What a nice way of putting it,’ said Sarah and went into the hotel.

  In the doorway she almost collided with Douglas Gold. The young man came out looking rather pleased with himself but at the same time slightly guilty. He said:

  ‘Hallo, M. Poirot,’ and added rather self-consciously, ‘Been showing Mrs Chantry the Crusaders’ walls. Marjorie didn’t feel up to going.’

  Poirot’s eyebrows rose slightly, but even had he wished he would have had no time to make a comment for Valentine Chantry came sweeping out, crying in her high voice:

  ‘Douglas—a pink gin—positively I must have a pink gin.’

  Douglas Gold went off to order the drink. Valentine sank into a chair by Poirot. She was looking radiant this morning.

  She saw her husband and Pamela coming up towards them and waved a hand, crying out:

  ‘Have a nice bathe, Tony darling? Isn’t it a divine morning?’

  Commander Chantry did not answer. He swung up the steps, passed her without a word or a look and vanished into the bar.

  His hands were clenched by his sides and that faint likeness to a gorilla was accentuated.

  Valentine Chantry’s perfect but rather foolish mouth fell open.

  She said, ‘Oh,’ rather blankly.

  Pamela Lyall’s face expressed keen enjoyment of the situation. Masking it as far as was possible to one of her ingenuous disposition she sat down by Valentine Chantry and inquired:

  ‘Have you had a nice morning?’

  As Valentine began, ‘Simply marvellous. We—’ Poirot got up and in his turn strolled gently towards the bar. He found young Gold waiting for the pink gin with a flushed face. He looked disturbed and angry.

  He said to Poirot, ‘That man’s a brute!’ And he nodded his head in the direction of the retreating figure of Commander Chantry.

  ‘It is possible,’ said Poirot. ‘Yes, it is quite possible. But les femmes, they like brutes, remember that!’

  Douglas muttered:

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he ill-treats her!’

  ‘She probably likes that too.’

  Douglas Gold looked at him in a puzzled way, took up the pink gin and went out with it.

  Hercule Poirot sat on a stool and ordered a sirop de cassis. Whilst he was sipping it with long sighs of enjoyment, Chantry came in and drank several pink gins in rapid succession.

  He said suddenly and violently to the world at large rather than to Poirot:

  ‘If Valentine thinks she can get rid of me like she’s got rid of a lot of other damned fools, she’s mistaken! I’ve got her and I mean to keep her. No other fellow’s going to get her except over my dead body.’

  He flung down some money, turned on his heel and went out.

  Chapter 3

  It was three days later that Hercule Poirot went to the Mount of the Prophet. It was a cool, agreeable drive through the golden green fir trees, winding higher and higher, far above the petty wrangling and squabbling of human beings. The car stopped at the restaurant. Poirot got out and wandered into the woods. He came out at last on a spot that seemed truly on top of the world. Far below, deeply and dazzlingly blue, was the sea.

  Here at last he was at peace—removed from cares—above the world. Carefully placing his folded overcoat on a tree stump, Hercule Poirot sat down.

  ‘Doubtless le bon Dieu knows what he does. But it is odd that he should have permitted himself to fashion certain human beings. Eh bien, here for a while at least I am away from these vexing problems.’ Thus he mused.

  He looked up with a start. A little woman in a brown coat and skirt was hurrying towards him. It was Marjorie Gold and this time she had abandoned all pretence. Her face was wet with tears.

  Poirot could not escape. She was upon him.

  ‘M. Poirot. You’ve got to help me. I’m so miserable I don’t know what to do! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?’

  She looked up at him with a distracted face. Her fingers fastened on his coat sleeve. Then, as something she saw in his face alarmed her, she drew back a little.

  ‘What—what is it?’ she faltered.

  ‘You want my advice, madame? It is that you ask?’

  She stammered, ‘Yes…Yes…’

  ‘Eh bien—here it is.’ He spoke curtly—trenchantly. ‘Leave this place at once—before it is too late.’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him.

  ‘You heard me. Leave this island.’

  ‘Leave the island?’

  She stared at him stupefied.

  ‘That is what I say.’

  ‘But why—why?’

  ‘It is my advice to you—if you value your life.’

  She gave a gasp.

  ‘Oh! what do you mean? You’re frightening me—you’re frightening me.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Poirot gravely, ‘that is my intention.’

  She sank down, her face in her hands.

  ‘But I can’t! He wouldn’t come! Douglas wouldn’t, I mean. She would
n’t let him. She’s got hold of him—body and soul. He won’t listen to anything against her… He’s crazy about her… He believes everything she tells him—that her husband ill-treats her—that she’s an injured innocent—that nobody has ever understood her… He doesn’t even think about me any more—I don’t count—I’m not real to him. He wants me to give him his freedom—to divorce him. He believes that she’ll divorce her husband and marry him. But I’m afraid… Chantry won’t give her up. He’s not that kind of man. Last night she showed Douglas bruises on her arm—said her husband had done it. It made Douglas wild. He’s so chivalrous… Oh! I’m afraid! What will come of it all? Tell me what to do!’

  Hercule Poirot stood looking straight across the water to the blue line of hills on the mainland of Asia. He said:

  ‘I have told you. Leave the island before it is too late…’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I can’t—I can’t—unless Douglas…’

  Poirot sighed.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  Chapter 4

  Hercule Poirot sat with Pamela Lyall on the beach.

  She said with a certain amount of gusto, ‘The triangle’s going strong! They sat one each side of her last night—glowering at each other! Chantry had had too much to drink. He was positively insulting to Douglas Gold. Gold behaved very well. Kept his temper. The Valentine woman enjoyed it, of course. Purred like the man-eating tiger she is. What do you think will happen?’

  Poirot shook his head.

  ‘I am afraid. I am very much afraid…’

  ‘Oh, we all are,’ said Miss Lyall hypocritically. She added, ‘This business is rather in your line. Or it may come to be. Can’t you do anything?’

  ‘I have done what I could.’

  Miss Lyall leaned forward eagerly.

  ‘What have you done?’ she asked with pleasurable excitement.

  ‘I advised Mrs Gold to leave the island before it was too late.’

  ‘Oo-er—so you think—’ she stopped.

  ‘Yes, mademoiselle?’

  ‘So that’s what you think is going to happen!’ said Pamela slowly. ‘But he couldn’t—he’d never do a thing like that…He’s so nice really. It’s all that Chantry woman. He wouldn’t—He wouldn’t—do—’

  She stopped—then she said softly:

  ‘Murder? Is that—is that really the word that’s in your mind?’

  ‘It is in someone’s mind, mademoiselle. I will tell you that.’

  Pamela gave a sudden shiver.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she declared.

  Chapter 5

  The sequence of events on the night of October the twenty-ninth was perfectly clear.

  To begin with, there was a scene between the two men—Gold and Chantry. Chantry’s voice rose louder and louder and his last words were overheard by four persons—the cashier at the desk, the manager, General Barnes and Pamela Lyall.

  ‘You god-damned swine! If you and my wife think you can put this over on me, you’re mistaken! As long as I’m alive, Valentine will remain my wife.’

  Then he had flung out of the hotel, his face livid with rage.

  That was before dinner. After dinner (how arranged no one knew) a reconciliation took place. Valentine asked Marjorie Gold to come out for a moonlight drive. Pamela and Sarah went with them. Gold and Chantry played billiards together. Afterwards they joined Hercule Poirot and General Barnes in the lounge.

  For the first time almost, Chantry’s face was smiling and good-tempered.

  ‘Have a good game?’ asked the General.

  The Commander said:

  ‘This fellow’s too good for me! Ran out with a break of forty-six.’

  Douglas Gold deprecated this modestly.

  ‘Pure fluke. I assure you it was. What’ll you have? I’ll go and get hold of a waiter.’

  ‘Pink gin for me, thanks.’

  ‘Right. General?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll have a whisky and soda.’

  ‘Same for me. What about you, M. Poirot?’

  ‘You are most amiable. I should like a sirop de cassis.’

  ‘A sirop—excuse me?’

  ‘Sirop de cassis. The syrup of blackcurrants.’

  ‘Oh, a liqueur! I see. I suppose they have it here? I never heard of it.’

  ‘They have it, yes. But it is not a liqueur.’

  Douglas Gold said, laughing:

  ‘Sounds a funny taste to me—but every man his own poison! I’ll go and order them.’

  Commander Chantry sat down. Though not by nature a talkative or a social man, he was clearly doing his best to be genial.

  ‘Odd how one gets used to doing without any news,’ he remarked.

  The General grunted.

  ‘Can’t say the Continental Daily Mail four days old is much use to me. Of course I get The Times sent to me and Punch every week, but they’re a devilish long time in coming.’

  ‘Wonder if we’ll have a general election over this Palestine business?’

  ‘Whole thing’s been badly mismanaged,’ declared the General just as Douglas Gold reappeared followed by a waiter with the drinks.

  The General had just begun on an anecdote of his military career in India in the year 1905. The two Englishmen were listening politely, if without great interest. Hercule Poirot was sipping his sirop de cassis.

  The General reached the point of his narrative and there was dutiful laughter all round.

  Then the women appeared at the doorway of the lounge. They all four seemed in the best of spirits and were talking and laughing.

  ‘Tony, darling, it was too divine,’ cried Valentine as she dropped into a chair by his side. ‘The most marvellous idea of Mrs Gold’s. You all ought to have come!’

  Her husband said:

  ‘What about a drink?’

  He looked inquiringly at the others.

  ‘Pink gin for me, darling,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Gin and gingerbeer,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Sidecar,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Right.’ Chantry stood up. He pushed his own untouched pink gin over to his wife. ‘You have this. I’ll order another for myself. What’s yours, Mrs Gold?’

  Mrs Gold was being helped out of her coat by her husband. She turned smiling:

  ‘Can I have an orangeade, please?’

  ‘Right you are. Orangeade.’

  He went towards the door. Mrs Gold smiled up in her husband’s face.

  ‘It was so lovely, Douglas. I wish you had come.’

  ‘I wish I had too. We’ll go another night, shall we?’ They smiled at each other.

  Valentine Chantry picked up the pink gin and drained it.

  ‘Oo! I needed that,’ she sighed.

  Douglas Gold took Marjorie’s coat and laid it on a settee.

  As he strolled back to the others he said sharply:

  ‘Hallo, what’s the matter?’

  Valentine Chantry was leaning back in her chair. Her lips were blue and her hand had gone to her heart.

  ‘I feel—rather queer…’

  She gasped, fighting for breath.

  Chantry came back into the room. He quickened his step.

  ‘Hallo, Val, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I—I don’t know… That drink—it tasted queer…’

  ‘The pink gin?’

  Chantry swung round his face worked. He caught Douglas Gold by the shoulder.

  ‘That was my drink… Gold, what the hell did you put in it?’

  Douglas Gold was staring at the convulsed face of the woman in the chair. He had gone dead white.

  ‘I—I—never—’

  Valentine Chantry slipped down in her chair.

  General Barnes cried out:

  ‘Get a doctor—quick…’

  Five minutes later Valentine Chantry died…

  Chapter 6

  There was no bathing the next morning.

  Pamela Lyall, white-faced, clad in a simple dark dress, clutched at Hercule Poiro
t in the hall and drew him into the little writing-room.

  ‘It’s horrible!’ she said. ‘Horrible! You said so! You foresaw it! Murder!’

  He bent his head gravely.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried out. She stamped her foot on the floor. ‘You should have stopped it! Somehow! It could have been stopped!’

  ‘How?’ asked Hercule Poirot.

  That brought her up short for the moment.

  ‘Couldn’t you go to someone—to the police—?’

  ‘And say what? What is there to say—before the event? That someone has murder in their heart? I tell you, mon enfant, if one human being is determined to kill another human being—’

  ‘You could warn the victim,’ insisted Pamela.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘warnings are useless.’

  Pamela said slowly, ‘You could warn the murderer—show him that you knew what was intended…’

  Poirot nodded appreciatively.

  ‘Yes—a better plan, that. But even then you have to reckon with a criminal’s chief vice.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Conceit. A criminal never believes that his crime can fail.’

  ‘But it’s absurd—stupid,’ cried Pamela. ‘The whole crime was childish! Why, the police arrested Douglas Gold at once last night.’

  ‘Yes.’ He added thoughtfully, ‘Douglas Gold is a very stupid young man.’

  ‘Incredibly stupid! I hear that they found the rest of the poison—whatever it was—?’

  ‘A form of stropanthin. A heart poison.’

  ‘That they actually found the rest of it in his dinner jacket pocket?’

  ‘Quite true.’

  ‘Incredibly stupid!’ said Pamela again. ‘Perhaps he meant to get rid of it—and the shock of the wrong person being poisoned paralysed him. What a scene it would make on the stage. The lover putting the stropanthin in the husband’s glass and then, just when his attention is elsewhere, the wife drinks it instead…Think of the ghastly moment when Douglas Gold turned round and realized he had killed the woman he loved…’

  She gave a little shiver.

  ‘Your triangle. The Eternal Triangle! Who would have thought it would end like this?’