My lethargy was gone. I got up, shaved, washed, dressed and walked along the front to the Curlew Hotel and got there at the appointed time.
The summer season was pretty well over now. There weren’t many people about inside the hotel.
I didn’t make any inquiries at the desk. I went up in the lift to the fourth floor and walked along the corridor to No. 413.
I stood there for a moment or two: then, feeling a complete fool, I knocked three times...
A voice said, ‘Come in.’
I turned the handle, the door wasn’t locked. I stepped inside and stopped dead.
I was looking at the last person on earth I would have expected to see.
Hercule Poirot sat facing me. He beamed at me.
‘Une petite surprise, n’est-ce pas?’ he said. ‘But a pleasant one, I hope.’
‘Poirot, you old fox,’ I shouted. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I got here in a Daimler limousine–most comfortable.’
‘But what are you doing here?’
‘It was most vexing. They insisted, positively insisted on the redecoration of my apartment. Imagine my difficulty. What can I do? Where can I go?’
‘Lots of places,’ I said coldly.
‘Possibly, but it is suggested to me by my doctor that the air of the sea will be good for me.’
‘One of those obliging doctors who finds out where his patient wants to go, and advises him to go there! Was it you who sent me this?’ I brandished the letter I had received.
‘Naturally–who else?’
‘Is it a coincidence that you have a room whose number is 413?’
‘It is not a coincidence. I asked for it specially.’
‘Why?’
Poirot put his head on one side and twinkled at me.
‘It seemed to be appropriate.’
‘And knocking three times?’
‘I could not resist it. If I could have enclosed a sprig of rosemary it would have been better still. I thought of cutting my finger and putting a bloodstained fingerprint on the door. But enough is enough! I might have got an infection.’
‘I suppose this is second childhood,’ I remarked coldly. ‘I’ll buy you a balloon and a woolly rabbit this afternoon.’
‘I do not think you enjoy my surprise. You express no joy, no delight at seeing me.’
‘Did you expect me to?’
‘Pourquoi pas? Come, let us be serious, now that I have had my little piece of foolery. I hope to be of assistance. I have called up the chief constable who has been of the utmost amiability, and at this moment I await your friend, Detective Inspector Hardcastle.’
‘And what are you going to say to him?’
‘It was in my mind that we might all three engage in conversation.’
I looked at him and laughed. He might call it conversation–but I knew who was going to do the talking.
Hercule Poirot!
II
Hardcastle had arrived. We had had the introduction and the greetings. We were now settled down in a companionable fashion, with Dick occasionally glancing surreptitiously at Poirot with the air of a man at the Zoo studying a new and surprising acquisition. I doubt if he had ever met anyone quite like Hercule Poirot before!
Finally, the amenities and politeness having been observed, Hardcastle cleared his throat and spoke.
‘I suppose, M. Poirot,’ he said cautiously, ‘that you’ll want to see–well, the whole set-up for yourself? It won’t be exactly easy–’ He hesitated. ‘The chief constable told me to do everything I could for you. But you must appreciate that there are difficulties, questions that may be asked, objections. Still, as you have come down here specially–’
Poirot interrupted him–with a touch of coldness.
‘I came here,’ he said, ‘because of the reconstruction and decoration of my apartment in London.’
I gave a horse laugh and Poirot shot me a look of reproach.
‘M. Poirot doesn’t have to go and see things,’ I said. ‘He has always insisted that you can do it all from an arm-chair. But that’s not quite true, is it, Poirot? Or why have you come here?’
Poirot replied with dignity.
‘I said that it was not necessary to be the foxhound, the bloodhound, the tracking dog, running to and fro upon the scent. But I will admit that for the chase a dog is necessary. A retriever, my friend. A good retriever.’
He turned towards the inspector. One hand twirled his moustache in a satisfied gesture.
‘Let me tell you,’ he said, ‘that I am not like the English, obsessed with dogs. I, personally, can live without the dog. But I accept, nevertheless, your ideal of the dog. The man loves and respects his dog. He indulges him, he boasts of the intelligence and sagacity of his dog to his friends. Now figure to yourself, the opposite may also come to pass! The dog is fond of his master. He indulges that master! He, too, boasts of his master, boasts of his master’s sagacity and intelligence. And as a man will rouse himself when he does not really want to go out, and take his dog for a walk because the dog enjoys the walk so much, so will the dog endeavour to give his master what that master pines to have.
‘It was so with my kind young friend Colin here. He came to see me, not to ask for help with his own problem; that he was confident that he could solve for himself, and has, I gather, done so. No, he felt concern that I was unoccupied and lonely so he brought to me a problem that he felt would interest me and give me something to work upon. He challenged me with it–challenged me to do what I had so often told him it was possible to do–sit still in my chair and–in due course–resolve that problem. It may be, I suspect it is, that there was a little malice, just a small harmless amount, behind that challenge. He wanted, let us say, to prove to me that it was not so easy after all. Mais oui, mon ami, it is true, that! You wanted to mock yourself at me–just a little! I do not reproach you. All I say is, you did not know your Hercule Poirot.’
He thrust out his chest and twirled his moustaches.
I looked at him and grinned affectionately.
‘All right then,’ I said. ‘Give us the answer to the problem–if you know it.’
‘But of course I know it!’
Hardcastle stared at him incredulously.
‘Are you saying you know who killed the man at 19, Wilbraham Crescent?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And also who killed Edna. Brent?’
‘Of course.’
‘You know the identity of the dead man?’
‘I know who he must be.’
Hardcastle had a very doubtful expression on his face. Mindful of the chief constable, he remained polite. But there was scepticism in his voice.
‘Excuse me, M. Poirot, you claim that you know who killed three people. And why?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got an open and shut case?’
‘That, no.’
‘All you mean is that you have a hunch,’ I said, unkindly.
‘I will not quarrel with you over a word, mon cher Colin. All I say is, I know!’
Hardcastle sighed.
‘But you see, M. Poirot, I have to have evidence.’
‘Naturally, but with the resources you have at your disposal, it will be possible for you, I think, to get that evidence.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Come now, Inspector. If you know–really know–is not that the first step? Can you not, nearly always, go on from there?’
‘Not always,’ said Hardcastle with a sigh. ‘There are men walking about today who ought to be in gaol. They know it and we know it.’
‘But that is a very small percentage, is it not–’
I interrupted.
‘All right. All right. You know... Now let us know too!’
‘I perceive you are still sceptical. But first let me say this: To be sure means that when the right solution is reached, everything falls into place. You perceive that in no other way could things have happened.’
‘For the love of Mike,’ I said, ‘get on with it! I grant you all the points you’ve made.’
Poirot arranged himself comfortably in his chair and motioned to the inspector to replenish his glass.
‘One thing, mes amis, must be clearly understood. To solve any problem one must have the facts. For that one needs the dog, the dog who is a retriever, who brings the pieces one by one and lays them at–’
‘At the feet of the master,’ I said. ‘Admitted.’
‘One cannot from one’s seat in a chair solve a case solely from reading about it in a newspaper. For one’s facts must be accurate, and newspapers are seldom, if ever, accurate. They report something happened at four o’clock when it was a quarter past four, they say a man had a sister called Elizabeth when actually he had a sister-in-law called Alexandra. And so on. But in Colin here, I have a dog of remarkable ability–an ability, I may say, which has taken him far in his own career. He has always had a remarkable memory. He can repeat to you, even several days later, conversations that have taken place. He can repeat them accurately–that is, not transposing them, as nearly all of us do, to what the impression made on him was. To explain roughly–he would not say, “And at twenty past eleven the post came” instead of describing what actually happened, namely a knock on the front door and someone coming into the room with letters in their hand. All this is very important. It means that he heard what I would have heard if I had been there and seen what I would have seen.’
‘Only the poor dog hasn’t made the necessary deductions?’
‘So, as far as can be, I have the facts–I am “in the picture”. It is your war-time term, is it not? To “put one in the picture”. The thing that struck me first of all, when Colin recounted the story to me, was its highly fantastic character. Four clocks, each roughly an hour ahead of the right time, and all introduced into the house without the knowledge of the owner, or so she said. For we must never, must we, believe what we are told, until such statements have been carefully checked?’
‘Your mind works the way that mine does,’ said Hardcastle approvingly.
‘On the floor lies a dead man–a respectable-looking elderly man. Nobody knows who he is (or again so they say). In his pocket is a card bearing the name of Mr R. H. Curry, 7, Denvers Street. Metropolis Insurance Company. But there is no Metropolis Insurance Company. There is no Denvers Street and there seems to be no such person as Mr Curry. That is negative evidence, but it is evidence. We now proceed further. Apparently at about ten minutes to two a secretarial agency is rung up, a Miss Millicent Pebmarsh asks for a stenographer to be sent to 19, Wilbraham Crescent at three o’clock. It is particularly asked that a Miss Sheila Webb should be sent. Miss Webb is sent. She arrives there at a few minutes before three; goes, according to instructions, into the sitting-room, finds a dead man on the floor and rushes out of the house screaming. She rushes into the arms of a young man.’
Poirot paused and looked at me. I bowed.
‘Enter our young hero,’ I said.
‘You see,’ Poirot pointed out. ‘Even you cannot resist a farcical melodramatic tone when you speak of it. The whole thing is melodramatic, fantastic and completely unreal. It is the kind of thing that could occur in the writings of such people as Garry Gregson, for instance. I may mention that when my young friend arrived with this tale I was embarking on a course of thriller writers who had plied their craft over the last sixty years. Most interesting. One comes almost to regard actual crimes in the light of fiction. That is to say that if I observe that a dog has not barked when he should bark, I say to myself, “Ha! A Sherlock Holmes crime!” Similarly, if the corpse is found in a sealed room, naturally I say, “Ha! A Dickson Carr case!” Then there is my friend Mrs Oliver. If I were to find–but I will say no more. You catch my meaning? So here is the setting of a crime in such wildly improbable circumstances that one feels at once, “This book is not true to life. All this is quite unreal.” But alas, that will not do here, for this is real. It happened. That gives one to think furiously, does it not?’
Hardcastle would not have put it like that, but he fully agreed with the sentiment, and nodded vigorously. Poirot went on:
‘It is, as it were, the opposite of Chesterton’s, “Where would you hide a leaf? In a forest. Where would you hide a pebble? On a beach.” Here there is excess, fantasy, melodrama! When I say to myself in imitation of Chesterton, “Where does a middle-aged woman hide her fading beauty?” I do not reply, “Amongst other faded middle-aged faces.” Not at all. She hides it under make-up, under rouge and mascara, with handsome furs wrapped round her and with jewels round her neck and hanging in her ears. You follow me?’
‘Well–’ said the inspector, disguising the fact that he didn’t.
‘Because then, you see, people will look at the furs and the jewels and the coiffure and the haute couture, and they will not observe what the woman herself is like at all! So I say to myself–and I say to my friend Colin–Since this murder has so many fantastic trappings to distract one it must really be very simple. Did I not?’
‘You did,’ I said. ‘But I still don’t see how you can possibly be right.’
‘For that you must wait. So, then, we discard the trappings of the crime and we go to the essentials. A man has been killed. Why has he been killed? And who is he? The answer to the first question will obviously depend on the answer to the second. And until you get the right answer to these two questions you cannot possibly proceed. He could be a blackmailer, or a confidence trickster, or somebody’s husband whose existence was obnoxious or dangerous to his wife. He could be one of a dozen things. The more I heard, the more everybody seems to agree that he looked a perfectly ordinary, well-to-do, reputable elderly man. And suddenly I think to myself, “You say this should be a simple crime? Very well, make it so. Let this man be exactly what he seems–a well-to-do respectable elderly man.” ’ He looked at the inspector. ‘You see?’
‘Well–’ said the inspector again, and paused politely.
‘So here is someone, an ordinary, pleasant, elderly man whose removal is necessary to someone. To whom? And here at last we can narrow the field a little. There is local knowledge–of Miss Pebmarsh and her habits, of the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau, of a girl working there called Sheila Webb. And so I say to my friend Colin: “The neighbours. Converse with them. Find out about them. Their backgrounds. But above all, engage in conversation. Because in conversation you do not get merely the answers to questions–in ordinary conversational prattle things slip out. People are on their guard when the subject may be dangerous to them, but the moment ordinary talk ensues they relax, they succumb to the relief of speaking the truth, which is always very much easier than lying. And so they let slip one little fact which unbeknown to them makes all the difference.’
‘An admirable exposition,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately it didn’t happen in this case.’
‘But, mon cher, it did. One little sentence of inestimable importance.’
‘What?’ I demanded. ‘Who said it? When?’
‘In due course, mon cher.’
‘You were saying, M. Poirot?’ The inspector politely drew Poirot back to the subject.
‘If you draw a circle round Number 19, anybody within it might have killed Mr Curry. Mrs Hemming, the Blands, the McNaughtons, Miss Waterhouse. But more important still, there are those already positioned on the spot. Miss Pebmarsh who could have killed him before she went out at 1.35 or thereabouts and Miss Webb who could have arranged to meet him there, and killed him before rushing from the house and giving the alarm.’
