While the Light Lasts

  Alan took the cheque book from his pocket.

  "I've been going through Jane's papers."

  "Yes?"

  He tried to imitate her calm, to keep his voice from shaking.

  "For the last four years she's been supplying you with money."

  "Yes. For Winnie."

  "No, not for Winnie," shouted Everard. "You pretended, both of you, that it was for Winnie, but you both knew that that wasn't so. Do you realize that Jane has been selling her securities, living from hand to mouth, to supply you with clothes - clothes that you didn't really need?"

  Isobel never took her eyes from his face. She settled her body more comfortably on the cushions as a white Persian cat might do.

  "I can't help it if Jane denuded herself more than she should have done," she said. "I supposed she could afford the money. She was always crazy about you - I could see that, of course. Some wives would have kicked up a fuss about the way you were always rushing off to see her, and spending hours there. I didn't."

  "No," said Alan, very white in the face. "You made her pay instead."

  "You are saying very offensive things, Alan. Be careful."

  "Aren't they true? Why did you find it so easy to get money out of Jane?"

  "Not for love of me, certainly. It must have been for love of you."

  "That's just what it was," said Alan simply. "She paid for my freedom - freedom to work in my own way. So long as you had a sufficiency of money, you'd leave me alone - not badger me to paint a crowd of awful women."

  Isobel said nothing.

  "Well?" cried Alan angrily.

  Her quiescence infuriated him.

  Isobel was looking at the floor. Presently she raised her head and said quietly:

  "Come here, Alan."

  She touched the divan at her side. Uneasily, unwillingly, he came and sat there, not looking at her. But he knew that he was afraid.

  "Alan," said Isobel presently.

  "Well?"

  He was irritable, nervous.

  "All that you say may be true. It doesn't matter. I'm like that. I want things - clothes, money, you. Jane's dead, Alan."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jane's dead. You belong to me altogether now. You never did before - not quite."

  He looked at her - saw the light in her eyes, acquisitive, possessive - was revolted yet fascinated.

  "Now you shall be all mine."

  He understood Isobel then as he had never understood her before.

  "You want me as a slave? I'm to paint what you tell me to paint, live as you tell me to live, be dragged at your chariot wheels."

  "Put it like that if you please. What are words?"

  He felt her arms round his neck, white, smooth, firm as a wall. Words danced through his brain. "A wall as white as milk." Already he was inside the wall. Could he still escape? Did he want to escape?

  He heard her voice close against his ear - poppy and mandragora.

  "What else is there to live for? Isn't this enough? Love - happiness - success - love -"

  The wall was growing up all around him now - "the curtain soft as silk," the curtain wrapping him round, stifling him a little, but so soft, so sweet! Now they were drifting together, at peace, out on the crystal sea. The wall was very high now, shutting out all those other things - those dangerous, disturbing things that hurt - that always hurt. Out on the sea of crystal, the golden apple between their hands.

  The light faded from Jane's picture.

  THE MYSTERY OF THE BAGHDAD CHEST

  The words made a catchy headline, and I said as much to my friend, Hercule Poirot. I knew none of the parties. My interest was merely the dispassionate one of the man in the street. Poirot agreed.

  "Yes, it has a flavor of the Oriental, of the mysterious. The chest may very well have been a sham Jacobean one from the Tottenham Court Road; none the less the reporter who thought of naming it the Baghdad Chest was happily inspired. The word 'mystery' is also thoughtfully placed in juxtaposition, though I understand there is very little mystery about the case."

  "Exactly. It is all rather horrible and macabre, but it is not mysterious."

  "Horrible and macabre," repeated Poirot thoughtfully.

  "The whole idea is revolting," I said, rising to my feet and pacing up and down the room. "The murderer kills this man - his friend - shoves him into the chest, and half an hour later is dancing in that same room with the wife of his victim. Think! If she had imagined for one moment -"

  "True," said Poirot thoughtfully. "That much-vaunted possession, a woman's intuition - it does not seem to have been working."

  "The party seems to have gone off very merrily,'' I said with a slight shiver. "And all that time, as they danced and played poker, there was a dead man in the room with them. One could write a play about such an idea."

  "It has been done," said Poirot. "But console yourself, Hastings," he added kindly. "Because a theme has been used once, there is no reason why it should not be used again. Compose your drama."

  I had picked up the paper and was studying the rather blurred reproduction of a photograph.

  "She must be a beautiful woman," I said slowly. "Even from this, one gets an idea."

  Below the picture ran the inscription:

  A recent portrait of Mrs. Clayton,

  the wife of the murdered man

  Poirot took the paper from me.

  "Yes," he said. "She is beautiful. Doubtless she is of those born to trouble the souls of men."

  He handed the paper back to me with a sigh.

  "Dieu merci, I am not of an ardent temperament. It has saved me from many embarrassments. I am duly thankful."

  I do not remember that we discussed the case further. Poirot displayed no special interest in it at the time. The facts were so clear, and there was so little ambiguity about them, that discussion seemed merely futile.

  Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and Major Rich were friends of fairly long standing. On the day in question, the tenth of March, the Claytons had accepted an invitation to spend the evening with Major Rich. At about seven-thirty, however, Clayton explained to another friend, a Major Curtiss, with whom he was having a drink, that he had been unexpectedly called to Scotland and was leaving by the eight o'clock train.

  "I'll just have time to drop in and explain to old Jack," went on Clayton. "Marguerita is going, of course. I'm sorry about it, but Jack will understand how it is."

  Mr. Clayton was as good as his word. He arrived at Major Rich's rooms about twenty to eight. The major was out at the time, but his manservant, who knew Mr. Clayton well, suggested that he come in and wait. Mr. Clayton said that he had not time, but that he would come in and write a note. He added that he was on his way to catch a train.

  The valet accordingly showed him into the sitting-room.

  About five minutes later Major Rich, who must have let himself in without the valet hearing him, opened the door of the sitting-room, called his man and told him to go out and get some cigarettes. On his return the man brought them to his master, who was then alone in the sitting-room. The man naturally concluded that Mr. Clayton had left.

  The guests arrived shortly afterwards. They comprised Mrs. Clayton, Major Curtiss and a Mr. and Mrs. Spence. The evening was spent dancing to the phonograph and playing poker. The guests left shortly after midnight.

  The following morning, on coming to do the sitting-room, the valet was startled to find a deep stain discoloring the carpet below and in front of a piece of furniture which Major Rich had brought from the East and which was called the Baghdad Chest.

  Instinctively the valet lifted the lid of the chest and was horrified to find inside the doubled-up body of a man who had been stabbed to the heart.

  Terrified, the man ran out of the flat and fetched the nearest policeman. The dead man proved to be Mr. Clayton. The arrest of Major Rich followed very shortly afterward. The major's defense, it was understood, consisted of a sturdy denial of everything. He had not seen Mr. Clayton the pre
ceding evening and the first he had heard of his going to Scotland had been from Mrs. Clayton.

  Such were the bald facts of the case. Innuendoes and suggestions naturally abounded. The close friendship and intimacy of Major Rich and Mrs. Clayton were so stressed that only a fool could fail to read between the lines. The motive for the crime was plainly indicated.

  Long experience has taught me to make allowance for baseless calumny. The motive suggested might, for all the evidence, be entirely nonexistent. Some quite other reasons might have precipitated the issue. But one thing did stand out clearly - that Rich was the murderer.

  As I say, the matter might have rested there, had it not happened that Poirot and I were due at a party given by Lady Chatterton that night.

  Poirot, whilst bemoaning social engagements and declaring a passion for solitude, really enjoyed these affairs enormously. To be made a fuss of and treated as a lion suited him down to the ground.

  On occasions he positively purred! I have seen him blandly receiving the most outrageous compliments as no more than his due, and uttering the most blatantly conceited remarks, such as I can hardly bear to set down.

  Sometimes he would argue with me on the subject.

  "But, my friend, I am not an Anglo-Saxon. Why should I play the hypocrite? Si, si, that is what you do, all of you. The airman who has made a difficult flight, the tennis champion – they look down their noses, they mutter inaudibly that 'it is nothing.' But do they really think that themselves? Not for a moment. They would admire the exploit in someone else. So, being reasonable men, they admire it in themselves. But their training prevents them from saying so. Me, I am not like that. The talents that I possess - I would salute them in another. As it happens, in my own particular line, there is no one to touch me. C'est dommage, as it is, I admit freely and without the hypocrisy that I am a great man. I have the order, the method and the psychology in an unusual degree. I am, in fact, Hercule Poirot! Why should I turn red and stammer and mutter into my chin that really I am very stupid? It would not be true."

  "There is certainly only one Hercule Poirot," I agreed - not without a spice of malice, of which, fortunately, Poirot remained quite oblivious.

  Lady Chatterton was one of Poirot's most ardent admirers. Starting from the mysterious conduct of a Pekingese, he had unraveled a chain which led to a noted burglar and housebreaker. Lady Chatterton had been loud in his praises ever since.

  To see Poirot at a party was a great sight. His faultless evening clothes, the exquisite set of his white tie, the exact symmetry of his hair parting, the sheen of pomade on his hair, and the tortured splendor of his famous mustaches - all combined to paint the perfect picture of an inveterate dandy. It was hard, at these moments, to take the little man seriously.

  It was about half-past eleven when Lady Chatterton, bearing down upon us, whisked Poirot neatly out of an admiring group, and carried him off - I need hardly say, with myself in tow.

  "I want you to go into my little room upstairs," said Lady Chatterton rather breathlessly as soon as she was out of earshot of her other guests. "You know where it is, M. Poirot. You'll find someone there who needs your help very badly - and you will help her, I know. She's one of my dearest friends - so don't say no."

  Energetically leading the way as she talked, Lady Chatterton flung open a door, exclaiming as she did so, "I've got him, Marguerita darling. And he'll do anything you want. You'll help Mrs. Clayton, won't you, M. Poirot?"

  And taking the answer for granted, she withdrew with the same energy that characterized all her movements.

  Mrs. Clayton had been sitting in a chair by the window. She rose now and come toward us. Dressed in deep mourning, the dull black showed up her fair coloring. She was a singularly lovely woman, and there was about her a simple childlike candor which made her charm quit irresistible.

  "Alice Chatterton is so kind," she said. "She arranged this. She said you would help me, M. Poirot. Of course I don't know whether you will or not - but I hope you will."

  She had held out her hand and Poirot had taken it. He held it now for a moment or two while he stood scrutinizing her closely. There was nothing ill-bred in his manner of doing it. It was more the kind but searching look that a famous consultant gives a new patient as the latter is ushered into his presence.

  "Are you sure, madame," he said at last, "that I can help you?"

  "Alice says so."

  "Yes, but I am asking you, madame."

  A little flush rose to her cheeks.

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "What is it, madame, that you want me to do?"

  "You - you - know who I am?" she asked.

  "Assuredly."

  "Then you can guess what it is I am asking you to do, M. Poirot - Captain Hastings" - I was gratified that she realized my identity - "Major Rich did not kill my husband."

  "Why not?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  Poirot smiled at her slight discomfiture.

  "I said, 'Why not?'" he repeated.

  "I'm not sure that I understand."

  "Yet it is very simple. The police - the lawyers - they will all ask the same question: Why did Major Rich kill M. Clayton? I ask the opposite. I ask you, madame, why did Major Rich not kill Major Clayton?"

  "You mean - why I'm so sure? Well, but I know. I know Major Rich so well."

  "You know Major Rich so well," repeated Poirot tonelessly.

  The color flamed into her cheeks.

  "Yes, that's what they'll say - what they'll think! Oh, I know!"

  "C'est vrai. That is what they will ask you about - how well you knew Major Rich. Perhaps you will speak the truth, perhaps you will lie. It is very necessary for a woman to lie sometimes. Women must defend themselves - and the lie, it is a good weapon. But there are three people, madame, to whom a woman should speak the truth. To her Father Confessor, to her hairdresser and to her private detective - if she trusts him. Do you trust me, madame?"

  Marguerita Clayton drew a deep breath. "Yes," she said. "I do. I must," she added rather childishly.

  "Then, how well do you know Major Rich?"

  She looked at him for a moment in silence, then she raised her chin defiantly.

  "I will answer your question. I loved Jack from the first moment I saw him - two years ago. Lately I think - I believe - he has come to love me. But he has never said so."

  "Épatant!'' said Poirot. "You have saved me a good quarter of an hour by coming to the point without beating the bush. You have the good sense. Now your husband - did he suspect your feelings?"

  "I don't know," said Marguerita slowly. "I thought lately - that he might. His manner has been different. But that may have been merely my fancy."

  "Nobody else knew?"

  "I do not think so."

  "And - pardon me, madame - you did not love your husband?"

  There were, I think, very few women who would have answered that question as simply as this woman did. They would have tried to explain their feelings.

  Maruerita Clayton said quite simply:

  "No."

  "Bien. Now we know where we are. According to you, madame, Major Rich did not kill your husband, but you realize that all the evidence points to his having done so. Are you aware, privately, of any flaw in that evidence?"

  "No. I know nothing."

  "When did your husband first inform you of his visit to Scotland?"

  "Just after lunch. He said it was a bore, but he'd have to go. Something to do with land values, he said it was."

  "And after that?"

  "He went out - to his club, I think. I - I didn't see him again."

  "Now as to Major Rich - what was his manner that evening? Just as usual?"

  "Yes, I think so."

  "You are not sure?"

  Marguerita wrinkled her brows.

  "He was a little constrained. With me – not with the others. But I thought I knew why that was. You understand? I am sure the constraint or - or - absent-mindedness perhaps desc
ribes it better - had nothing to do with Edward. He was surprised to hear that Edward had gone to Scotland, but not unduly so."

  "And nothing else unusual occurs to you in connection with that evening?"

  Marguerita thought.

  "No, nothing whatever."

  "You - noticed the chest?"

  She shook her head with a little shiver.

  "I don't even remember it - or what it was like. We played poker most of the evening."

  "Who won?"

  "Major Rich. I had very bad luck, and so did Major Curtiss. The Spences won a little, but Major Rich was the chief winner."

  "The party broke up - when?"

  "About half-past twelve, I think. We all left together."

  "Ah!"

  Poirot remained silent, lost in thought.

  "I wish I could be more helpful to you," said Mrs. Clayton. "I seem to be able to tell you so little."

  "About the present - yes. What about the past, madame?"

  "The past?"

  "Yes. Have there not been incidents?"

  She flushed.

  "You mean that dreadful little man who shot himself. It wasn't my fault, M. Poirot. Indeed it wasn't."

  "It was not precisely of that incident that I was thinking."

  "That ridiculous duel? But Italians do fight duels. I was so thankful the man wasn't killed."

  "It must have been a relief to you," agreed Poirot gravely.

  She was looking at him doubtfully. He rose and took her hand in his.

  "I shall not fight a duel for you, madame," he said. "But I will do what you have asked me. I will discover the truth. And let us hope that your instincts are correct - that the truth will help and not harm you."

  Our first interview was with Major Curtiss. He was a man of about forty, of soldierly build, with very dark hair and a bronzed face. He had known the Claytons for some years and Major Rich also. He confirmed the press reports.

  Clayton and he had had a drink together at the club just before half-past seven, and Clayton had then announced his intention of looking in on Major Rich on his way to Euston.