by Mark Place
"I will make all clear. The Prime Minister was in his car, his secretary beside him. Suddenly a pad of chloroform is clapped on his face -"
"But by whom?"
"By the clever linguistic Captain Daniels. As soon as the Prime Minister is unconscious, Daniels picks up the speaking-tube, and directs O'Murphy to turn to the right, which the chauffeur, quite unsuspicious, does. A few yards down that unfrequented road, a large car is standing, apparently broken down. Its driver signals to O'Murphy to stop. O'Murphy slows up. The stranger approaches. Daniels leans out of the window, and, probably with the aid of an instantaneous anaesthetic such as ethylchloride, the chloroform trick is repeated. In a few seconds, the two helpless men are dragged out and transferred to the other car, and a pair of substitutes take their places.
"Impossible!"
"Pas du tout! Have you not seen music-hall turns imitating celebrities with marvelous accuracy? Nothing is easier than to personate a public character. The Prime Minister of England is far easier to understudy than Mr John Smith of Clapham, say. As for O'Murphy's 'double,' no one was going to take much notice of him until after the departure of the Prime Minister, and by then he would have made himself scarce. He drives straight from Charing Cross to the meeting-place of his friends. He goes in as O'Murphy, he emerges as someone quite different. O'Murphy has disappeared, leaving a conveniently suspicious trail behind him."
"But the man who personated the Prime Minister was seen by everyone!"
"He was not seen by anyone who knew him privately or intimately. And Daniels shielded him from contact with anyone as much as possible. Moreover, his face was bandaged up, and anything unusual in his manner would be put down to the fact that he was suffering from shock as a result of the attempt upon his life. Mr MacAdam has a weak throat, and always spares his voice as much as possible before any great speech. The deception was perfectly easy to keep up as far as France. There it would be impracticable and impossible -so the Prime Minister disappears. The police of this country hurry across the Channel, and no one bothers to go into the details of the first attack. To sustain the illusion that the abduction has taken place in France, Daniels is gagged and chloroformed in a convincing manner."
"And the man who has enacted the part of the Prime Minister?"
"Rids himself of his disguise. He and the bogus chauffeur may be arrested as suspicious characters, but no one will dream of suspecting their real part in the drama, and they will eventually be released for lack of evidence."
"And the real Prime Minister?"
"He and O'Murphy were driven straight to the house of 'Mrs Everard,' at Hampstead, Daniels so-called 'aunt.' In reality, she is Frau Bertha Ebenthal, and the police have been looking for her for some time. It is a valuable little present that I have made to them -to say nothing of Daniels! Ah, it was a clever plan, but he did not reckon on the cleverness of Hercule Poirot!" I think my friend might well be excused his moment of vanity. "When did you first begin to suspect the truth of the matter?"
"When I began to work the right way -from within! I could not make that shooting affair fit in -but when I saw that the net result of it was that the Prime Minister went to France with his face bound up I began to comprehend! And when I visited all the cottage hospitals between Windsor and London, and found that no one answering to my description had had his face bound up and dressed that morning, I was sure! After that, it was child's-play for a mind like mine!"
The following morning, Poirot showed me a telegram he had just received. It had no place of origin, and was unsigned. It ran: "In time."
Later in the day the evening papers published an account of the Allied Conference. They laid particular stress on the magnificent ovation accorded to Mr David MacAdam, whose inspiring speech had produced a deep and lasting impression.
Sad Cypress
BY
AGATHA CHRISTIE
An anonymous letter! Elinor Carlisle stood looking down at it as it lay open in her hand. She'd never had such a thing before. It gave one an unpleasant sensation. It's written, badly spelled, on cheap pink paper.
This is to Warn You,
I'm naming no names but there's someone sucking up to your aunt and if you're not kareful you'll get cut out of everything. Girls are very artful and old ladies is soft when young ones suck up to them and flatter them what I say is you'd best come down and see for yourself whats going on its not right you and the young gentleman should be done out of what's yours - and she's very artful and the old lady might pop off at any time.
Well-Wisher.
Elinor was still staring at this missive, her plucked brows drawn together in distaste, when the door opened. The maid announced, "Mr. Welman," and Roddy came in. Roddy! As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent upon her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn't feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a man - an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man - should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want - just a little - to cry. Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion - not something that hurt you by its intensity. One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be off-hand and casual about it all. Men didn't like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn't. She said lightly, "Hallo, Roddy!" Roddy said, "Hello, darling. You're looking very tragic. Is it a bill?"
Elinor shook her head. Roddy said, ‘I thought it might be - midsummer, you know - when the fairies dance, and the accounts rendered come tripping along!"
Elinor said, "It's rather horrid. It's an anonymous letter." Roddy's brows went up. His keen, fastidious face stiffened and changed. He said - a sharp, disgusted exclamation, "No!" Elinor said again, "It's rather horrid...." She moved a step toward her desk. "I'd better tear it up, I suppose."
She could have done that - she almost did - for Roddy and anonymous letters were two things that ought not to come together. She might have thrown it away and thought no more about it. He would not have stopped her. His fastidiousness was far more strongly developed than his curiosity. But on an impulse Elinor decided differently. She said, "Perhaps, though, you'd better read it first. Then we'll burn it. It's about Aunt Laura." Roddy's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Aunt Laura?"
He took the letter, read it, gave a frown of distaste, and handed it back. "Yes," he said. "Definitely to be burned! How extraordinary people are!"
Elinor said, "One of the servants, do you think?"
"I suppose so." He hesitated. "I wonder who - who the person is - the one they mention?"
Elinor said thoughtfully, "It must be Mary Gerrard, I think."
Roddy frowned in an effort of remembrance.
"Mary Gerrard? Who is she?"
"The daughter of the people at the lodge. You must remember her as a child? Aunt Laura was always fond of the girl, and took an interest in her. She paid for her schooling and for various extras - piano lessons and French and things."
Roddy said, "Oh, yes, I remember her now; scrawny kid, all legs and arms, with a lot of messy fair hair."
Elinor nodded. "Yes, you probably haven't seen her since those summer holidays when Mum and Dad were abroad. You've not been down at Hunterbury as often as I have, of course, and she's been abroad au pair in Germany lately, but we used to rout her out and play with her when we were all kids."
"What's she like now?" asked Roddy.
Elinor said, "She's turned out very nice-looking. Good manners and all that. As a result of her education, you'd never take her for old Gerrard's daughter."
"Gone all lady-like, has she?"
"Yes. I think, as a result of that, she doesn't get on very well at the lodge. Mrs. Gerrard died some years ago, you know, and Mary and her father don't get on. He jeers at her schooling and her
"fine ways.'"
Roddy said irritably, "People never dream what harm they may do by ‘educating' someone! Often it's cruelty, not kindness!"
Elinor said, "I suppose she is up at the house a good deal. She reads aloud to Aunt Laura, I know, since she had her stroke."
Roddy said, "Why can't the nurse read to her?"
Elinor said with a smile, "Nurse O'Brien's got a brogue you can cut with a knife! I don't wonder Aunt Laura prefers Mary."
Roddy walked rapidly and nervously up and down the room for a minute or two. Then he said, "You know, Elinor, I believe we ought to go down."
Elinor said with a slight recoil, "Because of this?"
"No, no - not at all. Oh, damn it all, one must be honest, yes! Foul as that communication is, there may be some truth behind it. I mean, the old girl is pretty ill"
"Yes, Roddy."
He looked at her with his charming smile - admitting the fallibility of human nature. He said, "And the money does matter - to you and me, Elinor."
She admitted it quickly: "Oh, it does."
He said seriously, "It's not that I'm mercenary. But, after all, Aunt Laura herself has said over and over again that you and I are her only family ties. You're her own niece, her brother's child, and I'm her husband's nephew. She's always given us to understand that at her death all she's got would come to one or the other - or more probably both - of us. And - it's a pretty large sum, Elinor."
"Yes," said Elinor thoughtfully. "It must be."
"It's no joke keeping up Hunterbury." He paused. "Uncle Henry was what you'd call, I suppose, comfortably off when he met your Aunt Laura. But she was an heiress. She and your father were both left very wealthy. Pity your father speculated and lost most of his."
Elinor sighed. "Poor father never had much business sense. He got very worried over things before he died."
"Yes, your Aunt Laura had a much better head than he had. She married Uncle Henry and they bought Hunterbury, and she told me the other day that she'd been exceedingly lucky always in her investments.
Practically nothing had slumped."
"Uncle Henry left all he had to her when he died, didn't he?"
Roddy nodded. "Yes, tragic his dying so soon. And she's never married again. Faithful old bean. And she's always been very good to us. She's treated me as if I were her nephew by blood. If I've been in a hole she's helped me out; luckily I haven't done that too often!"
"She's been awfully generous to me, too," said Elinor gratefully. Roddy nodded. "Aunt Laura," he said, "is a brick. But, you know, Elinor, perhaps without meaning to do so, you and I live pretty extravagantly, considering what our means really are!"
She said ruefully, "I suppose, we do. Everything costs so much - clothes and one's face - and just silly things like movies and cocktails - and even gramophone records!"
Roddy said, "Darling, you are one of the lilies of the field, aren't you? You toil not, neither do you spin!"
Elinor said, "Do you think I ought to, Roddy?"
He shook his head. "I like you as you are: delicate and aloof and ironical. I'd hate you to go all earnest. I'm only saying that if it weren't for Aunt Laura you probably would be working at some grim job."
He went on: "The same with me. I've got a job, of sorts. Being with Lewis & Hume is not too arduous. It suits me. I preserve my self-respect by having a job; but - mark this - but I don't worry about the future because of my expectations - from Aunt Laura." Elinor said, "We sound rather like human leeches!"
"Nonsense! We've been given to understand that someday we shall have money - that's all. Naturally that fact influences our conduct."
Elinor said thoughtfully, "Aunt Laura has never told us definitely just how she has left her money?"
Roddy said, "That doesn't matter! In all probability she's divided it between us; but if that isn't so - if she's left all of it or most of it to you as her own flesh and blood - why, then, darling, I shall still share in it, because I'm going to marry you - and if the old pet thinks the majority should go to me as the male representative of the Welmans, that's still all right, because you're marrying me."
He grinned at her affectionately. He said, "Lucky we happen to love each other. You do love me, don't you, Elinor?"
"Yes." She said it coldly, almost primly.
"Yes!" Roddy mimicked her. "You're adorable, Elinor. That little air of yours - aloof - untouchable - la Princesse Lointaine. It's that quality of yours that made me love you, I believe."
Elinor caught her breath. She said, "Is it?"
"Yes." He frowned. "Some women are so - oh, I don't know - so damned possessive - so - so dog-like and devoted - their emotions slopping all over the place! I'd hate that. With you I never know - I'm never sure - any minute you might turn around in that cool, detached way of yours and say you'd changed your mind - quite coolly, like that - without batting an eyelash! You're a fascinating creature, Elinor. You're like a work of art, so - so finished."
He went on: "You know, I think ours will be the perfect marriage: We both love each other enough and not too much. We're good friends. We've got a lot of tastes in common. We know each other through and through. We've all the advantages of cousinship without the disadvantages of blood relationship. I shall never get tired of you, because you're such an elusive creature. You may get tired of me, though, I'm such an ordinary sort of chap" Elinor shook her head. She said, "I shan't get tired of you, Roddy ever."
"My sweet! "He kissed her.
He said, "Aunt Laura has a pretty shrewd idea of how it is with us, I think, although we haven't been down since we finally fixed it up. It rather gives us an excuse, doesn't it, for going down?"
"Yes. I was thinking the other day -"
Roddy finished the sentence for her: "- that we hadn't been down as often as we might. I thought that, too. When she first had her stroke we went down almost every other weekend. And now it must be almost two months since we were there."
Elinor said, "We'd have gone if she'd asked for us - at once."
"Yes, of course. And we know that she likes Nurse O'Brien and is well looked after. All the same, perhaps, we have been a bit slack. I'm talking now not from the money point of view - but the sheer human one." Elinor nodded. "I know."
"So that filthy letter has done some good, after all! We'll go down to protect our interests and because we're fond of the old dear!"
He lit a match and set fire to the letter which he took from Elinor's hand. "Wonder who wrote it?" he said. "Not that it matters.... Someone who was ‘on our side,' as we used to say when we were kids. Perhaps they've done us a good turn, too. Jim Partington's mother went out to the Riviera to live, had a handsome young Italian doctor to attend her, became quite crazy about him and left him every penny she had. Jim and his sisters tried to upset the will, but couldn't."
Elinor said, "Aunt Laura likes the new doctor who's taken over Dr. Ransome's practice - but not to that extent! Anyway, that horrid letter mentioned a girl. It must be Mary."
Roddy said, "We'll go down and see for ourselves."
II
Nurse O'Brien rustled out of Mrs. Welman's bedroom and into the bathroom. She said over her shoulder, "I'll just pop the kettle on. You could do with a cup of tea before you go on, I'm sure, Nurse."
Nurse Hopkins said comfortably, "Well, dear, I can always do with a cup of tea. I always say there's nothing like a nice cup of tea - a strong cup!"
Nurse O'Brien said as she filled the kettle and lit the gas-ring, "I've got everything here in this cupboard - teapot and cups and sugar - and Edna brings me up fresh milk twice a day. No need to be forever ringing bells. ‘This is a fine gas-ring, this; boils a kettle in a flash."
Nurse O'Brien was a tall red-haired woman of thirty with flashing white teeth, a freckled face and an engaging smile. Her cheerfulness and vitality made her a favourite with her patients. Nurse Hopkins, the District Nurse who came every morning to assist with the bed making and toilet of the heavy old lady, was a homely-looking middle-ag
ed woman with a capable air and a brisk manner. She said now approvingly, "Everything's very well done in this house."
The other nodded. "Yes, old-fashioned, some of it, no central heating, but plenty of fires and all the maids are very obliging girls and Mrs. Bishoplooks after them well."
Nurse Hopkins said, "These girls nowadays - I've no patience with ‘em - don't know what they want, most of them - and can't do a decent day's work."
"Mary Gerrard's a nice girl," said Nurse O'Brien. "I really don't know what Mrs. Welman would do without her. You saw how she asked for her now? Ah, well, she's a lovely creature, I will say, and she's got away with her."
Nurse Hopkins said, "I'm sorry for Mary. That old father of hers does his best to spite the girl."
"Not a civil word in his head, the old curmudgeon," said Nurse O'Brien. "There, the kettle's singing. I'll wet the tea as soon as it comes to the boil."
The tea was made and poured, hot and strong. The two nurses sat with it in Nurse O'Brien's room next door to Mrs. Welman's bedroom. "Mr. Welman and Miss Carlisle are coming down," said Nurse O'Brien. "There was a telegram came this morning."
"There, now, dear," said Nurse Hopkins. "I thought the old lady was looking excited about something. It's some time since they've been down, isn't it?"
"It must be two months and over. Such a nice young gentleman, Mr. Welman. But very proud-looking."
Nurse Hopkins said, "I saw her picture in the Tatler the other day - with a friend at Newmarket."
Nurse O'Brien said, "She's very well known in society, isn't she? And always has such lovely clothes.
Do you think she's really good-looking, Nurse?"
Nurse Hopkins said, "Difficult to tell what these girls really look like under their make-up! In my opinion, she hasn't got anything like the looks Mary Gerrard has!"
Nurse O'Brien pursed her lips and put her head on one side. "You may be right now. But Mary hasn't got the style!"
Nurse Hopkins said sententiously, "Fine feathers make fine birds."
"Another cup of tea, Nurse?"