into eacla other's hearts that night, and I don't
think, from that moment, that we ever drifted
away from each other again ....
It's a sobering thought to go through life with
--that, but for the grace of God and a mirror, one
might be a murderer ....
One thing did die that night--the devil of jeal-ousy
that had possessed me s°long ....
But I wonder sometimes--suppose I hadn't
made that initial mistake--the scar on the left
cheek--when really it was the right--reversed by
the mirror .... Should I have been so sure the
man was Charles Crawley? Would I have warned
Sylvia? Would she be married to me--or to him?
Or are the past and the future all one?
I'm a simple fellow--and I can't pretend to
understand these things--but I saw what I saw--and
because of what I saw, Sylvia and I are to-gether-in
the old-fashioned words--till death do
us part. And perhaps beyond ....
"Colonel Clapperton!" said General Forbes.
He said it with an effect midway between a
snort and a sniff.
Miss Ellie Henderson leaned forward, a strand
of her soft gray hair blowing across her face. Her
eyes, dark and snapping, gleamed with a wicked
pleasure.
"Such a soldierly-looking man!" she said with
malicious intent, and smoothed back the lock of
hair to await the result.
"Soldierly!" exploded General Forbes. He
tugged at his military mustache and his face
became bright red.
"In the Guards, wasn't he?" murmured Miss
Henderson, completing her work.
"Guards? Guards? Pack of nonsense. Fellow
was on the music hall stage! Fact! Joined up and
was out in France counting tins of plum and
193
194
Agatha Christie
apple. Huns dropped a stray bomb and he went
home with a flesh wound in the arm. Somehow or
other got into Lady Carrington's hospital." "So that's how they met."
"Fact! Fellow played the wounded hero. Lady
Carrington had no sense and oceans of money.
Old Carrington had been in munitions. She'd been
a widow only six months. This fellow snaps her up
in no time. She wangled him a job at the War Office. Colonel Clapperton! Pah!" he snorted.
"And before the war he was on the music hall
stage," mused Miss Henderson, trying to reconcile
the distinguished gray-haired Colonel Clap-perton
with a red-nosed comedian singing mirth-provoking
songs.
"Fact!" said General Forbes. "Heard it from
old Bassington-ffrench. And he heard it from old
Badger Cotterill who'd got it from Snooks
Parker"
Miss Henderson nodded brightly. "That does
seem to settle it!" she said.
A fleeting smile showed for a minute on the face
of a small man sitting near them. Miss Henderson
noticed the smile. She was observant. It had
shown appreciation of the irony underlying her
last remark--irony which the General never for a
moment suspected.
The General himself did not notice the smiles.
He glanced at his watch, rose and remarked:
"Exercise. Got to keep oneself fit on a boat," and
passed out through the open door onto the deck.
Miss Henderson glanced at the man who had
smiled. It was a well-bred glance indicating that
she was ready to enter into conversation with a
fellow traveler.
PROBLEI AT SEA
195
energetic--yes, said the little man.
ii.
"He is
·
"He goes round the deck forty-eight times
exactly," said Miss Henclerson. "What an old
gossip! And they say we are the scandal-loving sex. ' '
"What an impoliteness!',
"Frenchmen are always polite," said Miss
Henderson--there was the nuance of a question in
her voice.
The little man responded promptly. "Belgian,
Mademoiselle."
"Oh I Belgian."
"Hercule Poirot. At YOUr service."
The name aroused sonic memory. Surely she
had heard it before--? "Are you enjoying this
trip, M. Poirot?"
"Frankly, no. It was an imbecility to allow
myself to be persuaded to come. I detest ia mcr. Never does it remain tranquil--no, not for a little
minute."
"Well, you admit it's quite calm now."
M. Poirot admitted this grudgingly. ",'i ce
moment, yes. That is why I revive. I once more interest
myself in what passea around mewyour very
adept handling Of the General Forbes, for instance."
"You meanw" Miss Hetdei-son paused.
Hercule Poirot bowed. "Your methods of extracting
the scandalous matter. Admirable!"
Miss Henderson laughed in an unashamed manner.
"That touch about the Guards.'? I knew that
would bring the old boy up spluttering and gasping.''
She leaned forward Confidentially. "I admit I like scandal--the more ill-natured, the better!"
Poirot looked thoughtfully at her--her slim
196
Agatha Christie
well-preserved figure, her keen dark eyes, her gray
hair; a woman of forty-five who was content to
look her age.
Ellie said abruptly: "I have it! Aren't you the
great detective?"
Poirot bowed. "You are too amiable, Ma-demoiselle."
But he made no disclaimer.
"How thrilling," said Miss Henderson. "Are
you 'hot on the trail' as they say in books? Have
we a criminal secretly in our midst? Or am I being
indiscreet?"
"Not at all. Not at all. It pains me to disappoint
your expectations, but I am simply here, like
everyone else, to amuse myself."
He said it in such a gloomy voice that Miss
Henderson laughed.
"Oh! Well, you will be able to get ashore to-morrow
at Alexandria. You have been to Egypt
before?"
"Never, Mademoiselle."
Miss Henderson rose somewhat abruptly.
"I think I shall join the General on his constitu-tional,''
she announced.
Poirot sprang politely to his feet.
She gave him a little nod and passed out onto
the deck.
A faint puzzled look showed for a moment in
Poirot's eyes then, a little smile creasing his lips,
he rose, put his head through the door and glanced
down the deck. Miss Henderson was leaning
against the rail talking to a tall, soldierly-looking
man.
Poirot's smile deepened. He drew himself back
into the smoking-room with the same exaggerated
care with which a tortoise withdraws itself into it,
PROBLEM AT SEA
197
shell. For the moment he had the smoking-room
to himself, though he rightly conjectured that that
would not last long.
It did not. Mrs. Clapperton, her carefully
waved platinum head protected with a net, her
massaged and dieted form dressed in a smart
sports suit, came through
the door from the bar
with the purposeful air of a woman who has always
been able to pay top price for anything she
needed.
She said: "John--? Oh! Good-morning, M.
Poirot--have you seen John?"
"He's on the starboard deck, Madame. Shall
She arrested him with a gesture. "I'll sit here
a minute." She sat down in a regal fashion in the
chair opposite him. From the distance she had
looked a possible twenty-eight. Now, in spite of
her exquisitely made-up face, her delicately
plucked eyebrows, she looked not her actual forty-nine
years, but a possible fifty-five. Her eyes were
a hard pale blue with tiny pupils.
"I was sorry not to have seen you at dinner last
night," she said. "It was just a shade choppy, of
course--"
"Prcisment," said Poirot with feeling.
"Luckily, I am an excellent sailor," said Mrs.
Clapperton. "I say luckily, because, with my weak
heart, seasickness would probably be the death of
me."
"You have the weak heart, Madame?"
"Yes, I have to be most careful. I must not overtire myself! All the specialists say so!" Mrs.
Clapperton had embarked on the--to her--ever-fascinating
topic of her health. "John, poor dar-
198
Agatha Christie
ling, wears himself out trying to prevent me from
doing too much. I live so intensely, if you know
what I mean, M. Poirot?"
"Yes, yes."
"He always says to me: 'Try to be more of a
vegetable, Adeline.' But I can't. Life was meant to
be lived, I feel. As a matter of fact I wore myself
out as a girl in the war. My hospital--you've
heard of my hospital? Of course I had nurses and
matrons and all that--but I actually, ran it." She
sighed.
"Your vitality is marvelous, dear lady," said
Poirot, with the slightly mechanical air of one
responding to his cue.
Mrs. Clapperton gave a girlish laugh.
'Everyone tells me how young,I am! It's ab-surd.
I never try to pretend I'm a day less than
forty-three," she continued with slightly menda-cious
candor, "but a lot of people find it hard to
believe. 'You're so alive, Adeline,' they say to me.
But really, M. Poirot, what would one be if one
wasn't alive?"
"Dead," said Poirot.
Mrs. Clapperton frowned. The reply was not to
her liking. The man, she decided, was trying to be
funny. She got up and said coldly: "I must find
John."
As she stepped through the door she dropped
her handbag. It opened and the contents flew far
and wide. Poirot rushed gallantly to the rescue. It
was some few minutes before the lipsticks, vanity
boxes, cigarette case and lighter and other odds
and ends were collected. Mrs. Clapperton thanked
him politely, then she swept down the deck and
said, "John--"
PROBLEM AT SEA
199
Colonel Clapperton was still deep in conversa-on
with Miss Henderson. He swung round and
quickly to meet his wife. He bent over her
y. Her deck chair--was it in the right
Wouldn't it be better--? His manner was
rteous--full of gentle consideration. Clearly
an adored wife spoilt by an adoring husband.
Miss Ellie Henderson looked out at the horizon
as though something about it rather disgusted her.
Standing in the smoking-room door, Poirot
looked on.
A hoarse quavering voice behind him said:
"I'd take a hatchet to that woman if I were her
husband." The old gentleman known disrespect-fully
among the Younger Set on board as the
Grandfather of All the Tea Planters, had just
shuffled in. "'Boy!" he called. "Get me a whisky
peg."
Poirot stooped to retrieve a torn scrap of
an overlooked item from the contents
of Mrs. Clapperton's bag. Part of a prescription,
noted, containing digitalin. He put it in his
pocket, meaning to restore it to Mrs. Clapperton
later.
"Yes," went on the aged passenger. Poisonous
woman. I remember a woman like that in Poona.
In '87 that was."
"Did anyone take a hatchet to her?" inquired
Poirot.
The old gentleman shook his head sadly.
"Worried her husband into his grave within the
year. Clapperton ought'to assert himself. Gives his
wife her head too much."
"She holds the purse strings," said Poirot
gravely.
200
Agatha Christie
"Ha ha!" chuckled the old gentleman. "You've
put the matter in a nutshell. Holds the purse
strings. Ha ha!"
Two girls burst into the smoking-room. One
had a round face with freckles and dark hair
streaming out in a windswept confusion, the other
had freckles and curly chestnut hair.
"A rescue--a rescue!" cried Kitty Mooney.
"Pam and I are going to rescue Colonel Clapper-ton."
"From his wife," gasped Pamela Cregan.
"We think he's a pet .... "
"And she's just awful--she won't let him do anything," the two girls exclaimed.
"And if he isn't with her, he's usually grabbed
by the Henderson woman .... "
"Who's quite nice. But terribly old .... " They ran out, gasping in between giggles:
"A rescue--a rescue..."
That the rescue of Colonel Clapperton was no
isolated sally, but a fixed project was made clear
that same evening when the eighteen-year-old Pam
Cregan came up to Hercule Poirot, and murmured:
"Watch us, M. Poirot. He's going to be
cut out from under her nose and taken to walk in
the moonlight on the boat deck."
It was just at that moment that Colonel Clap-perton
was saying: "I grant you the price of a
Rolls Royce. But it's practically good for a lifetime.
Now my car--"
"My car, I think, John." Mrs. Clapperton's
voice was shrill and penetrating.
He showed no annoyance at her ungracious
PROBLEM AT SEA
201
ness. Either he was used to it by this time, or
else--
"Or else?" thought Poirot and let himself
'. speculate.
"Certainly, my dear, your car," Clapperton
bowed to his wife and finished what he had been
saying, perfectly unruffled.
"You ce qu'on appeile !e pukka sahib," thought Poirot. "But the General Forbes says that
Clapperton is no gentleman at all. I wonder now."
There was a suggestion of bridge. Mrs. Clapper-ton,
General Forbes and a hawk-eyed couple sat
down to it. Miss Henderson had excused herself
and gone out on deck.
"What about your husband?" asked General
Forbes, hesitating.
"John won't play," said Mrs. Clapperton.
"Most tiresome of him."
The four bridge players began shuffling the
cards.
Pam and Kitty advanced on Colonel Clapper-ton.
Each
one took an arm.
"You're coming with us!" said Pam. "To the
boat deck. There's a moon."
"Don't be foolish, John," said Mrs. Clapper-ton.
"You'll catch a chill."
"Not with us, he won't," said Kitty. "We're
hot stuff!"
He went with them, laughing.
Poirot noticed that Mrs. Clapperton said No
Bid to her initial bid of Two Clubs.
He strolled out onto the promenade deck. Miss
Henderson was standing by the rail. She looked
round expectantly as he came to stand beside her
202
Agatha Christie
and he saw the drop in her expression.
They chatted for a while. Then presently as he
fell silent she asked: "What are you thinking
about?"
Poirot replied: "I am wondering about my
knowledge of English. Mrs. Clapperton said:
'John won't play bridge.' Is not 'can't play' the
usual term?"
"She takes it as a personal insult that he
doesn't, I suppose," said lllie drily. "The man
was a fool ever to have married her."
In the darkness Poirot smiled. "You don't
think it's just possible that the marriage may be a
success?" he asked diffidently.
"With a woman like that?"
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. "Many odious
women have devoted husbands. An enigma of
Nature. You will admit that nothing she says or
does appears to gall him."
Miss Henderson was considering her reply when
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories Page 18