‘Tell Lady Astwell, Mademoiselle, that I am entirely at her service. I will be at – Mon Repos, is it not? – this afternoon.’
He rose. The girl followed suit.
‘I – I will tell her. It is very good of you to come, M. Poirot. I am afraid, though, you will find you have been brought on a wild goose chase.’
‘Very likely, but – who knows?’
He saw her out with punctilious courtesy to the door. Then he returned to the sitting-room, frowning, deep in thought. Once or twice he nodded his head, then he opened the door and called to his valet.
‘My good George, prepare me, I pray of you, a little valise. I go down to the country this afternoon.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said George.
He was an extremely English-looking person. Tall, cadaverous and unemotional.
‘A young girl is a very interesting phenomenon, George,’ said Poirot, as he dropped once more into his arm-chair and lighted a tiny cigarette. ‘Especially, you understand, when she has brains. To ask someone to do a thing and at the same time to put them against doing it, that is a delicate operation. It requires finesse. She was very adroit – oh, very adroit – but Hercule Poirot, my good George, is of a cleverness quite exceptional.’
‘I have heard you say so, sir.’
‘It is not the secretary she has in mind,’ mused Poirot. ‘Lady Astwell’s accusation of him she treats with contempt. Just the same she is anxious that no one should disturb the sleeping dogs. I, my good George, I go to disturb them, I go to make the dog fight! There is a drama there, at Mon Repos. A human drama, and it excites me. She was adroit, the little one, but not adroit enough. I wonder – I wonder what I shall find there?’
Into the dramatic pause which succeeded these words George’s voice broke apologetically:
‘Shall I pack dress clothes, sir?’
Poirot looked at him sadly.
‘Always the concentration, the attention to your own job. You are very good for me, George.’
II
When the 4.55 drew up at Abbots Cross station, there descended from it M. Hercule Poirot, very neatly and foppishly attired, his moustaches waxed to a stiff point. He gave up his ticket, passed through the barrier, and was accosted by a tall chauffeur.
‘M. Poirot?’
The little man beamed upon him. ‘That is my name.’
‘This way, sir, if you please.’
He held open the door of the big Rolls-Royce.
The house was a bare three minutes from the station. The chauffeur descended once more and opened the door of the car, and Poirot stepped out. The butler was already holding the front door open.
Poirot gave the outside of the house a swift appraising glance before passing through the open door. It was a big, solidly built red-brick mansion, with no pretensions to beauty, but with an air of solid comfort.
Poirot stepped into the hall. The butler relieved him deftly of his hat and overcoat, then murmured with that deferential undertone only to be achieved by the best servants:
‘Her ladyship is expecting you, sir.’
Poirot followed the butler up the soft-carpeted stairs. This, without doubt, was Parsons, a very well-trained servant, with a manner suitably devoid of emotion. At the top of the staircase he turned to the right along a corridor. He passed through a door into a little ante-room, from which two more doors led. He threw open the left-hand one of these, and announced:
‘M. Poirot, m’lady.’
The room was not a very large one, and it was crowded with furniture and knick-knacks. A woman, dressed in black, got up from a sofa and came quickly towards Poirot.
‘M. Poirot,’ she said with outstretched hand. Her eye ran rapidly over the dandified figure. She paused a minute, ignoring the little man’s bow over her hand, and his murmured ‘Madame,’ and then, releasing his hand after a sudden vigorous pressure, she exclaimed:
‘I believe in small men! They are the clever ones.’
‘Inspector Miller,’ murmured Poirot, ‘is, I think, a tall man?’
‘He is a bumptious idiot,’ said Lady Astwell. ‘Sit down here by me, will you, M. Poirot?’
She indicated the sofa and went on: ‘Lily did her best to put me off sending for you, but I have not come to my time of life without knowing my own mind.’
‘A rare accomplishment,’ said Poirot, as he followed her to the settee.
Lady Astwell settled herself comfortably among the cushions and turned so as to face him.
‘Lily is a dear girl,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘but she thinks she knows everything, and as often as not in my experience those sort of people are wrong. I am not clever, M. Poirot, I never have been, but I am right where many a more stupid person is wrong. I believe in guidance. Now do you want me to tell you who is the murderer, or do you not? A woman knows, M. Poirot.’
‘Does Miss Margrave know?’
‘What did she tell you?’ asked Lady Astwell sharply.
‘She gave me the facts of the case.’
‘The facts? Oh, of course they are dead against Charles, but I tell you, M. Poirot, he didn’t do it. I know he didn’t!’ She bent upon him an earnestness that was almost disconcerting.
‘You are very positive, Lady Astwell?’
‘Trefusis killed my husband, M. Poirot. I am sure of it.’
‘Why?’
‘Why should he kill him, do you mean, or why am I sure? I tell you I know it! I am funny about those things. I make up my mind at once, and I stick to it.’
‘Did Mr Trefusis benefit in any way by Sir Reuben’s death?’
‘Never left him a penny,’ returned Lady Astwell promptly. ‘Now that shows you dear Reuben couldn’t have liked or trusted him.’
‘Had he been with Sir Reuben long, then?’
‘Close on nine years.’
‘That is a long time,’ said Poirot softly, ‘a very long time to remain in the employment of one man. Yes, Mr Trefusis, he must have known his employer well.’
Lady Astwell stared at him. ‘What are you driving at? I don’t see what that has to do with it.’
‘I was following out a little idea of my own,’ said Poirot. ‘A little idea, not interesting, perhaps, but original, on the effects of service.’
Lady Astwell still stared. ‘You are very clever, aren’t you?’ she said in rather a doubtful tone. ‘Everybody says so.’
Hercule Poirot laughed. ‘Perhaps you shall pay me that compliment, too, Madame, one of these days. But let us return to the motive. Tell me now of your household, of the people who were here in the house on the day of the tragedy.’
‘There was Charles, of course.’
‘He was your husband’s nephew, I understand, not yours.’
‘Yes, Charies was the only son of Reuben’s sister. She married a comparatively rich man, but one of those crashes came – they do, in the city – and he died, and his wife, too, and Charles came to live with us. He was twenty-three at the time, and going to be a barrister. But when the trouble came, Reuben took him into his office.’
‘He was industrious, M. Charles?’
‘I like a man who is quick on the uptake,’ said Lady Astwell with a nod of approval. ‘No, that’s just the trouble, Charles was not industrious. He was always having rows with his uncle over some muddle or other that he had made. Not that poor Reuben was an easy man to get on with. Many’s the time I’ve told him he had forgotten what it was to be young himself. He was very different in those days, M. Poirot.’
Lady Astwell heaved a sigh of reminiscence.
‘Changes must come, Madame,’ said Poirot. ‘It is the law.’
‘Still,’ said Lady Astwell, ‘he was never really rude to me. At least if he was, he was always sorry afterwards – poor dear Reuben.’
‘He was difficult, eh?’ said Poirot.
‘I could always manage him,’ said Lady Astwell with the air of a successful lion tamer. ‘But it was rather awkward sometimes when he would lose his temper with the servants.
There are ways of doing that, and Reuben’s was not the right way.’
‘How exactly did Sir Reuben leave his money, Lady Astwell?’
‘Half to me and half to Charles,’ replied Lady Astwell promptly. ‘The lawyers don’t put it simply like that, but that’s what it amounts to.’
Poirot nodded his head.
‘I see – I see,’ he murmured. ‘Now, Lady Astwell, I will demand of you that you will describe to me the household. There was yourself, and Sir Reuben’s nephew, Mr Charles Leverson, and the secretary, Mr Owen Trefusis, and there was Miss Lily Margrave. Perhaps you will tell me something of that young lady.’
‘You want to know about Lily?’
‘Yes, she had been with you long?’
‘About a year. I have had a lot of secretary-companions you know, but somehow or other they all got on my nerves. Lily was different. She was tactful and full of common sense and besides she looks so nice. I do like to have a pretty face about me, M. Poirot. I am a funny kind of person; I take likes and dislikes straight away. As soon as I saw that girl, I said to myself: “She’ll do.” ’
‘Did she come to you through friends, Lady Astwell?’
‘I think she answered an advertisement. Yes – that was it.’
‘You know something of her people, of where she comes from?’
‘Her father and mother are out in India, I believe. I don’t really know much about them, but you can see at a glance that Lily is a lady, can’t you, M. Poirot?’
‘Oh, perfectly, perfectly.’
‘Of course,’ went on Lady Astwell, ‘I am not a lady myself. I know it, and the servants know it, but there is nothing mean-spirited about me. I can appreciate the real thing when I see it, and no one could be nicer than Lily has been to me. I look upon that girl almost as a daughter M. Poirot, indeed I do.’
Poirot’s right hand strayed out and straightened one or two of the objects lying on a table near him.
‘Did Sir Reuben share this feeling?’ he asked.
His eyes were on the knick-knacks, but doubtless he noted the pause before Lady Astwell’s answer came.
‘With a man it’s different. Of course they – they got on very well.’
‘Thank you, Madame,’ said Poirot. He was smiling to himself.
‘And these were the only people in the house that night?’ he asked. ‘Excepting, of course, the servants.’
‘Oh, there was Victor.’
‘Victor?’
‘Yes, my husband’s brother, you know, and his partner.’
‘He lived with you?’
‘No, he had just arrived on a visit. He has been out in West Africa for the past few years.’
‘West Africa,’ murmured Poirot.
He had learned that Lady Astwell could be trusted to develop a subject herself if sufficient time was given her.
‘They say it’s a wonderful country, but I think it’s the kind of place that has a very bad effect upon a man. They drink too much, and they get uncontrolled. None of the Astwells has a good temper, and Victor’s, since he came back from Africa, has been simply too shocking. He has frightened me once or twice.’
‘Did he frighten Miss Margrave, I wonder?’ murmured Poirot gently.
‘Lily? Oh, I don’t think he has seen much of Lily.’
Poirot made a note or two in a diminutive notebook; then he put the pencil back in its loop and returned the note-book to his pocket.
‘I thank you, Lady Astwell. I will now, if I may, interview Parsons.’
‘Will you have him up here?’
Lady Astwell’s hand moved towards the bell. Poirot arrested the gesture quickly.
‘No, no, a thousand times no. I will descend to him.’
‘If you think it is better –’
Lady Astwell was clearly disappointed at not being able to participate in the forthcoming scene. Poirot adopted an air of secrecy.
‘It is essential,’ he said mysteriously, and left Lady Astwell duly impressed.
He found Parsons in the butler’s pantry, polishing silver. Poirot opened the proceedings with one of his funny little bows.
‘I must explain myself,’ he said. ‘I am a detective agent.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Parsons, ‘we gathered as much.’
His tone was respectful but aloof. ‘Lady Astwell sent for me,’ continued Poirot. ‘She is not satisfied; no, she is not satisfied at all.’
‘I have heard her ladyship say so on several occasions,’ said Parsons.
‘In fact,’ said Poirot, ‘I recount to you the things you already know? Eh? Let us then not waste time on these bagatelles. Take me, if you will be so good, to your bedroom and tell me exactly what it was you heard there on the night of the murder.’
The butler’s room was on the ground floor, adjoining the servants’ hall. It had barred windows, and the strong-room was in one corner of it. Parsons indicated the narrow bed.
‘I had retired, sir, at eleven o’clock. Miss Margrave had gone to bed, and Lady Astwell was with Sir Reuben in the Tower room.’
‘Lady Astwell was with Sir Reuben? Ah, proceed.’
‘The Tower room, sir, is directly over this. If people are talking in it one can hear the murmur of voices, but naturally not anything that is said. I must have fallen asleep about half past eleven. It was just twelve o’clock when I was awakened by the sound of the front door being slammed to and knew Mr Leverson had returned. Presently I heard footsteps overhead, and a minute or two later Mr Leverson’s voice talking to Sir Reuben.
‘It was my fancy at the time, sir, that Mr Leverson was – I should not exactly like to say drunk, but inclined to be a little indiscreet and noisy. He was shouting at his uncle at the top of his voice. I caught a word or two here or there, but not enough to understand what it was all about, and then there was a sharp cry and a heavy thud.’
There was a pause, and Parsons repeated the last words.
‘A heavy thud,’ he said impressively.
‘If I mistake not, it is a dull thud in most works of romance,’ murmured Poirot.
‘Maybe, sir,’ said Parsons severely. ‘It was a heavy thud I heard.’
‘A thousand pardons,’ said Poirot.
‘Do not mention it, sir. After the thud, in the silence, I heard Mr Leverson’s voice as plain as plain can be, raised high. “My God,” he said, “my God,” just like that, sir.’
Parsons, from his first reluctance to tell the tale, had now progressed to a thorough enjoyment of it. He fancied himself mightily as a narrator. Poirot played up to him.
‘Mon Dieu,’ he murmured. ‘What emotion you must have experienced!’
‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said Parsons, ‘as you say, sir. Not that I thought very much of it at the time. But it did occur to me to wonder if anything was amiss, and whether I had better go up and see. I went to turn the electric light on, and was unfortunate enough to knock over a chair.
‘I opened the door, and went through the servants’ hall, and opened the other door which gives on a passage. The back stairs lead up from there, and as I stood at the bottom of them, hesitating, I heard Mr Leverson’s voice from up above, speaking hearty and cheery-like. “No harm done, luckily,” he says. “Good night,” and I heard him move off along the passage to his own room, whistling.
‘Of course I went back to bed at once. Just something knocked over, that’s all I thought it was. I ask you, sir, was I to think Sir Reuben was murdered, with Mr Leverson saying good night and all?’
‘You are sure it was Mr Leverson’s voice you heard?’ Parsons looked at the little Belgian pityingly, and Poirot saw clearly enough that, right or wrong, Parsons’s mind was made up on this point.
‘Is there anything further you would like to ask me, sir?’
‘There is one thing,’ said Poirot, ‘do you like Mr Leverson?’
‘I – I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘It is a simple question. Do you like Mr Leverson?’
Parsons, from being startled at firs
t, now seemed embarrassed.
‘The general opinion in the servants’ hall, sir,’ he said, and paused.
‘By all means,’ said Poirot, ‘put it that way if it pleases you.’
‘The opinion is, sir, that Mr Leverson is an open-handed young gentleman, but not, if I may say so, particularly intelligent, sir.’
‘Ah!’ said Poirot. ‘Do you know, Parsons, that without having seen him, that is also precisely my opinion of Mr Leverson.’
‘Indeed, sir.’
‘What is your opinion – I beg your pardon – the opinion of the servants’ hall of the secretary?’
‘He is a very quiet, patient gentleman, sir. Anxious to give no trouble.’
‘Vraiment,’ said Poirot.
The butler coughed.
‘Her ladyship, sir,’ he murmured, ‘is apt to be a little hasty in her judgments.’
‘Then, in the opinion of the servants’ hall, Mr Leverson committed the crime?’
‘We none of us wish to think it was Mr Leverson,’ said Parsons. ‘We – well, plainly, we didn’t think he had it in him, sir.’
‘But he has a somewhat violent temper, has he not?’ asked Poirot.
Parsons came nearer to him.
‘If you are asking me who had the most violent temper in the house –’
Poirot held up a hand.
‘Ah! But that is not the question I should ask,’ he said softly. ‘My question would be, who has the best temper?’ Parsons stared at him open-mouthed.
III
Poirot wasted no further time on him. With an amiable little bow – he was always amiable – he left the room and wandered out into the big square hall of Mon Repos. There he stood a minute or two in thought, then, at a slight sound that came to him, cocked his head on one side in the manner of a perky robin, and finally, with noiseless steps, crossed to one of the doors that led out of the hall.
He stood in the doorway, looking into the room; a small room furnished as a library. At a big desk at the farther end of it sat a thin, pale young man busily writing. He had a receding chin, and wore pince-nez.
Poirot watched him for some minutes, and then he broke the silence by giving a completely artificial and theatrical cough.