Black Coffee

  With a final anxious look back at Poirot, Richard left the room. ‘Oh, these English! How obstinate,’ muttered Poirot. He moved to the french windows and called, ‘Mademoiselle Barbara!’

  Chapter 18

  In answer to Poirot’s call, Barbara Amory appeared outside the french windows. ‘What is it? Has something else happened?’ she asked.

  Poirot gave her his most winning smile. ‘Ah, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you might be able to spare my colleague Hastings for just a little minute or two, perhaps?’

  Barbara’s reply was accompanied by a skittish glance. ‘So! You want to take my little pet away from me, do you?’

  ‘Just for a very short time, mademoiselle, I promise you.’

  ‘Then you shall, Monsieur Poirot.’ Turning back into the garden, Barbara called, ‘My pet, you’re wanted.’

  ‘I thank you,’ Poirot smiled again with a polite bow. Barbara returned to the garden, and a few moments later Hastings entered the library through the french windows, looking somewhat ashamed.

  ‘And what have you to say for yourself ?’ Poirot asked in a tone of mock annoyance.

  Hastings attempted an apologetic smile. ‘It is all very well to put on the grin of the sheep,’ Poirot admonished him. ‘I leave you here, on guard, and the next thing I know you are promenading yourself with that very charming young lady in the garden. You are generally the most reliable of men, mon cher, but as soon as a pretty young woman appears upon the scene, your judgement flies out of the window. Zut alors!’

  Hastings’ sheepish grin faded, to be replaced by a blush of embarrassment. ‘I say, I’m awfully sorry, Poirot,’ he exclaimed. ‘I just stepped outside for a second, and then I saw you through the window, coming into the room, so I thought it didn’t matter.’

  ‘You mean you thought it better not to return to face me,’ declared Poirot. ‘Well, my dear Hastings, you may have done the most irreparable damage. I found Carelli in here. The good Lord alone knows what he was doing, or what evidence he was tampering with.’

  ‘I say, Poirot, I really am sorry,’ Hastings apologized again. ‘I’m most awfully sorry.’

  ‘If you have not done the damage irreparable, it is more by good luck than for any other reason. But now, mon ami, the moment has come when we must employ our little grey cells.’ Pretending to smack Hastings on the cheek, Poirot in fact gave his colleague an affectionate pat.

  ‘Ah, good! Let’s get to work,’ Hastings exclaimed. ‘No, it is not good, my friend,’ Poirot told him. ‘It is bad. It is obscure.’ His face wore a troubled look as he continued, ‘It is dark, as dark as it was last night.’ He thought for a moment, and then added, ‘But – yes – I think there is perhaps an idea. The germ of an idea. Yes, we will start there!’

  Looking completely mystified, Hastings asked, ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  The tone of Poirot’s voice changed. He spoke gravely and thoughtfully. ‘Why did Sir Claud die, Hastings? Answer me that. Why did Sir Claud die?’

  Hastings stared at him. ‘But we know that,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Do we?’ asked Poirot. ‘Are you so very sure?’

  ‘Er – yes,’ Hastings responded, though somewhat uncertainly. ‘He died – he died because he was poisoned.’

  Poirot made an impatient gesture. ‘Yes, but why was he poisoned?’

  Hastings thought carefully before replying. Then, ‘Surely it must have been because the thief suspected –’ he began.

  Poirot slowly shook his head as Hastings continued, ‘because the thief suspected – that he had been discovered –’ He broke off again as he observed Poirot continuing to shake his head.

  ‘Suppose, Hastings –’ Poirot murmured, ‘just suppose that the thief did not suspect?’

  ‘I don’t quite see,’ Hastings confessed.

  Poirot moved away, and then turned back with his arm raised in a gesture that seemed intended to hold his friend’s attention. He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Let me recount to you, Hastings,’ he declared, ‘the sequence of events as they might have gone, or rather as I think they were meant to go.’

  Hastings sat in the chair by the table as Poirot continued.

  ‘Sir Claud dies in his chair one night.’ Poirot moved to the arm-chair, sat, and paused for a moment before repeating thoughtfully, ‘Yes, Sir Claud dies in his chair. There are no suspicious circumstances attending that death. In all probability it will be put down to heart failure. It will be some days before his private papers are examined. His will is the only document that will be searched for. After the funeral, in due course, it will be discovered that his notes on the new explosive are incomplete. It may never be known that the exact formula existed. You see what that gives to our thief, Hastings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’ asked Poirot.

  Hastings looked puzzled. ‘What?’ he repeated.

  ‘Security. That is what it gives the thief. He can dispose of his booty quite safely, whenever he wishes to. There is no pressure upon him. Even if the existence of the formula is known, he will have had plenty of time to cover his tracks.’

  ‘Well, it’s an idea – yes, I suppose so,’ Hastings commented in a dubious tone.

  ‘But naturally it is an idea!’ Poirot cried. ‘Am I not Hercule Poirot? But see now where this idea leads us. It tells us that the murder of Sir Claud was not a chance manoeuvre executed on the spur of the moment. It was planned beforehand. Beforehand. You see now where we are?’

  ‘No,’ Hastings admitted with an engaging candour. ‘You know very well I never see these things. I know that we’re in the library of Sir Claud’s house, and that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, my friend, you are right,’ Poirot told him. ‘We are in the library of Sir Claud Amory’s house. It is not morning but evening. The lights have just gone out. The thief ’s plans have gone awry.’

  Poirot sat very upright, and wagged his forefinger emphatically to emphasize his points. ‘Sir Claud, who, in the normal course of things, would not have gone to that safe until the following day, has discovered his loss by a mere chance. And, as the old gentleman himself said, the thief is caught like a rat in a trap. Yes, but the thief, who is also the murderer, knows something, too, that Sir Claud does not. The thief knows that in a very few minutes Sir Claud will be silenced for ever. He – or she – has one problem that has to be solved, and one only – to hide the paper safely during those few moments of darkness. Shut your eyes, Hastings, as I shut mine. The lights have gone out, and we can see nothing. But we can hear. Repeat to me, Hastings, as accurately as you can, the words of Miss Amory when she described this scene for us.’

  Hastings shut his eyes. Then he began to speak, slowly, with an effort of memory and several pauses. ‘Gasps,’ he uttered.

  Poirot nodded. ‘A lot of little gasps,’ Hastings went on, and Poirot nodded again.

  Hastings concentrated for a time, and then continued, ‘The noise of a chair falling – a metallic clink – that must have been the key, I imagine.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Poirot. ‘The key. Continue.’

  ‘A scream. That was Lucia screaming. She called out to Sir Claud – Then the knocking came at the door – Oh! Wait a moment – right at the beginning, the noise of tearing silk.’ Hastings opened his eyes.

  ‘Yes, tearing silk,’ Poirot exclaimed. He rose, moved to the desk, and then crossed to the fireplace. ‘It is all there, Hastings, in those few moments of darkness. All there. And yet our ears tell us – nothing.’ He stopped at the mantelpiece and mechanically straightened the vase of spills.

  ‘Oh, do stop straightening those damned things, Poirot,’ Hastings complained. ‘You’re always at it.’

  His attention arrested, Poirot removed his hand from the vase. ‘What is that you say?’ he asked. ‘Yes, it is true.’ He stared at the vase of spills. ‘I remember straightening them but a little hour ago. And now – it is necessary that I straighten them again.’ He spoke excitedly. ‘Why, Hasting
s – why is that?’

  ‘Because they’re crooked, I suppose,’ Hastings replied in a bored tone. ‘It’s just your little mania for neatness.’

  ‘Tearing silk!’ exclaimed Poirot. ‘No, Hastings! The sound is the same.’ He stared at the paper spills, and snatched up the vase that contained them. ‘Tearing paper –’ he continued as he moved away from the mantelpiece.

  His excitement communicated itself to his friend. ‘What is it?’ Hastings asked, springing up and moving to him.

  Poirot stood, tumbling out the spills onto the settee, and examining them. Every now and then he handed one to Hastings, muttering, ‘Here is one. Ah, another, and yet another.’

  Hastings unfolded the spills and scrutinized them. ‘C19 N23 –’ he began to read aloud from one of them.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ exclaimed Poirot.

  ‘It is the formula!’ ‘I say, that’s wonderful!’

  ‘Quick! Fold them up again!’

  Poirot ordered, and Hastings began to do so. ‘Oh, you are so slow!’ Poirot admonished him. ‘Quick! Quick!’ Snatching the spills from Hastings, he put them back into the vase and hastened to return it to the mantelpiece.

  Looking dumbfounded, Hastings joined him there.

  Poirot beamed. ‘It intrigues you what I do there, yes? Tell me, Hastings, what is it that I have here in this vase?’

  ‘Why, spills, of course,’ Hastings replied in a tone of tremendous irony.

  ‘No, mon ami, it is cheese.’

  ‘Cheese?’

  ‘Precisely, my friend, cheese.’

  ‘I say, Poirot,’ Hastings enquired sarcastically, ‘you’re all right, aren’t you? I mean, you haven’t got a headache or anything?’

  Poirot’s reply ignored his friend’s frivolous question. ‘For what do you use cheese, Hastings? I will tell you, mon ami. You use it to bait a mousetrap. We wait now for one thing only – the mouse.’

  ‘And the mouse –’

  ‘The mouse will come, my friend,’ Poirot assured Hastings. ‘Rest assured of that. I have sent him a message. He will not fail to respond.’

  Before Hastings had time to react to Poirot’s cryptic announcement, the door opened and Edward Raynor entered the room. ‘Oh, you’re here, Monsieur Poirot,’ the secretary observed. ‘And Captain Hastings also. Inspector Japp would like to speak to you both upstairs.’

  Chapter 19

  ‘We will come at once,’ Poirot replied. Followed by Hastings, he walked to the door, as Raynor entered the library and crossed to the fireplace. At the door, Poirot suddenly wheeled round to look at the secretary. ‘By the way, Mr Raynor,’ the detective asked, as he moved back to the centre of the room, ‘do you by any chance know whether Dr Carelli was here in the library at all this morning?’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Raynor told the detective. ‘I found him here.’

  ‘Ah!’ Poirot seemed pleased at this. ‘And what was he doing?’

  ‘He was telephoning, I believe.’

  ‘Was he telephoning when you came in?’

  ‘No, he was just coming back into the room. He had been in Sir Claud’s study.’

  Poirot considered this for a moment, and then asked Raynor, ‘Where exactly were you then? Can you remember?’

  Still standing by the fireplace, Raynor replied, ‘Oh, somewhere about here, I think.’

  ‘Did you hear any of Dr Carelli’s conversation on the phone?’

  ‘No,’ said the secretary. ‘He made it perfectly clear that he wanted to be alone, so I cleared out.’

  ‘I see.’ Poirot hesitated, and then took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. Writing a few words on a page, he tore it out. ‘Hastings!’ he called.

  Hastings, who had been hovering by the door, came to him, and Poirot gave his friend the folded page. ‘Would you be so kind as to take that up to Inspector Japp?’

  Raynor watched Hastings leave the room on his errand, and then asked, ‘What was that all about?’

  Putting the notebook and pencil back in his pocket, Poirot replied, ‘I told Japp that I would be with him in a few minutes, and that I might be able to tell him the name of the murderer.’

  ‘Really? You know who it is?’ asked Raynor in a state of some excitement.

  There was a momentary pause. Hercule Poirot seemed to hold the secretary under the spell of his personality. Raynor watched the detective, fascinated, as he slowly began to speak. ‘Yes, I think I know who the murderer is – at last,’ Poirot announced. ‘I am reminded of another case, not so long ago. Never shall I forget the killing of Lord Edgware. I was nearly defeated – yes, I, Hercule Poirot! – by the extremely simple cunning of a vacant brain. You see, Monsieur Raynor, the very simple-minded have often the genius to commit an uncomplicated crime and then leave it alone. Let us hope that the murderer of Sir Claud, on the other hand, is intelligent and superior and thoroughly pleased with himself and unable to resist – how do you say? – painting the lily.’ Poirot’s eyes lit up in vivid animation.

  ‘I’m not sure that I understand you,’ said Raynor. ‘Do you mean that it’s not Mrs Amory?’

  ‘No, it is not Mrs Amory,’ Poirot told him. ‘That is why I wrote my little note. That poor lady has suffered enough. She must be spared any further questioning.’

  Raynor looked thoughtful, and then exclaimed, ‘Then I’ll bet it’s Carelli. Yes?’

  Poirot wagged a finger at him playfully. ‘Monsieur Raynor, you must permit me to keep my little secrets until the last moment.’ Taking out a handkerchief, he mopped his brow. ‘Mon Dieu, how hot it is today!’ he complained.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Raynor. ‘I’m forgetting my manners. I should have offered you one earlier.’

  Poirot beamed. ‘You are very kind. I will have a whisky, please, if I may.’

  ‘Certainly. Just a moment.’ Raynor left the room, while Poirot wandered across to the french windows and looked out into the garden for a moment. Then, moving to the settee, he shook the cushions, before drifting across to the mantelpiece to examine the ornaments. In a few moments Raynor returned with two whiskies and sodas on a tray. He watched as Poirot lifted a hand to an ornament on the mantelpiece.

  ‘This is a valuable antique, I fancy,’ Poirot remarked, picking up a jug.

  ‘Is it?’ was Raynor’s uninterested comment. ‘I don’t know much about that kind of thing. Come and have a drink,’ he suggested as he set his tray down on the coffee table.

  ‘Thank you,’ murmured Poirot, joining him there.

  ‘Well, here’s luck,’ said Raynor, taking a glass and drinking.

  With a bow, Poirot raised the other glass to his lips. ‘To you, my friend. And now let me tell you of my suspicions. I first realized that –’

  He broke off suddenly, jerking his head over his shoulder as though some sound had caught his ear. Looking first at the door and then at Raynor, he put his finger to his lips, indicating that he thought someone might be eavesdropping.

  Raynor nodded in comprehension. The two men crept stealthily up to the door, and Poirot gestured to the secretary to remain in the room. Poirot opened the door sharply and bounced outside, but returned immediately looking extremely crestfallen. ‘Surprising,’ he admitted to Raynor. ‘I could have sworn I heard something. Ah well, I made a mistake. It does not happen very often. A votre santé, my friend.’ He drained the contents of his glass.

  ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Raynor, as he also drank.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Poirot.

  ‘Nothing. A load off my mind, that is all.’

  Poirot moved to the table and put his glass down. ‘Do you know, Monsieur Raynor,’ he confided, ‘to be absolutely honest with you, I have never become quite used to your English national drink, the whisky. The taste, it pleases me not. It is bitter.’ He moved to the arm-chair and sat.

  ‘Really? I’m so sorry. Mine didn’t taste at all bitter.’ Raynor put his glass down on the coffee table, and continued, ‘I think you were about to tell me something just now, we
re you not?’

  Poirot looked surprised. ‘Was I? What can it have been? Can I have forgotten already? I think that perhaps I wanted to explain to you how I proceed in an investigation. Voyons! One fact leads to another, so we continue. Does the next one fit in with that? A merveille! Good! We can proceed. This next little fact – no! Ah, that is curious! There is something missing – a link in the chain that is not there. We examine. We search. And that little curious fact, that perhaps paltry little detail that will not tally, we put it here!’ Poirot made an extravagant gesture to his head with his hand. ‘It is significant! It is tremendous!’

  ‘Y-es, I see,’ Raynor murmured dubiously.

  Poirot shook his forefinger so fiercely in Raynor’s face that the secretary almost quailed before it. ‘Ah, beware! Peril to the detective who says, “It is so small – it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.” That way lies confusion! Everything matters.’ Poirot suddenly stopped, and tapped his head. ‘Ah! Now I remember what I wanted to talk to you about. It was one of those small, unimportant little facts. I wanted to talk to you, Monsieur Raynor, about dust.’

  Raynor smiled politely. ‘Dust?’

  ‘Precisely. Dust,’ Poirot repeated. ‘My friend Hastings, he reminded me just now that I am a detective and not a housemaid. He thought himself very clever to make such a remark, but I am not so sure. The housemaid and the detective, after all, have something in common. The housemaid, what does she do? She explores all the dark corners with her broom. She brings into the light of day all the hidden things that have rolled conveniently out of sight. Does not the detective do much the same?’

  Raynor looked bored, but murmured, ‘Very interesting, Monsieur Poirot.’ He moved to the chair by the table and sat, before asking, ‘But – is that all you were intending to say?’