'Extraordinary,' he commented. 'I've never known such a thing to happen. Are you sure?'
'Digby said so.'
'He said something about a train,' said Joan Ashby. 'At least I think so.'
'Queer,' said Keene thoughtfully. 'We shall hear all about it in due course, I suppose. But it's very odd.'
Both men were silent for a moment or two, watching the girl. Joan Ashby was a charming creature, blue-eyed and golden-haired, with an impish glance. This was her first visit to Lytcham Close and her invitation was at Harry's prompting.
The door opened and Diana Cleves, the Lytcham-Roches' adopted daughter, came into the room.
There was a daredevil grace about Diana, a witchery in her dark eyes and her mocking tongue. Nearly all men fell for Diana and she enjoyed her conquests. A strange creature, with her alluring suggestion of warmth and her complete coldness.
'Beaten the Old Man for once,' she remarked. 'First time for weeks he hasn't been here first, looking at his watch and tramping up and down like a tiger at feeding time.'
The young men had sprung forward. She smiled entrancingly at them both - they turned to Harry. Geoffrey Keene's dark cheek flushed as he dropped back.
He recovered himself, however, a moment as Mrs Lytcham-Roche came in. She was a tall, dark woman, naturally vague in manner, wearing floating draperies of an indeterminate shade of green. With her was a middle-aged man with a beaklike nose and a determined chin - Gregory Barling. He was a somewhat prominent figure in the financial world, well-bred on his mother's side, he had for some years been an intimate friend of Hubert Lytcham-Roche.
Boom!
The gong resounded imposingly. As it died away, the door was flung open and Digby announced:
'Dinner is served.'
Then, well-trained servant that he was, a look of complete astonishment flashed over his impassive face. For the first time in his memory, his master was not in the room!
That his astonishment was shared by everybody was evident. Mrs Lytcham-Roche gave a little nervous laugh.
'Most amazing. Really - I don't know what to do.'
Everybody was taken aback. The whole tradition of Lytcham Close was undermined. What could have happened? Conversation ceased. There was a strained sense of waiting.
At last the door opened once more; a sigh of relief went round only tempered by a slight anxiety as to how to treat the situation. Nothing must be said to emphasize the fact that the host himself transgressed the stringent rule of the house.
But the newcomer was not Lytcham-Roche. Instead of the big, bearded, viking-like figure, there advanced into the long drawing room a very small man, palpably a foreigner, with an egg-shaped head, a flamboyant moustache, and most irreproachable evening clothes.
His eyes twinkling, the newcomer advanced toward Mrs Lytcham-Roche.
'My apologies, madame,' he said. 'I am, I fear, a few minutes late.'
'Oh, not at all!' murmured Mrs Lytcham-Roche vaguely. 'Not at all, Mr -' She paused.
'Poirot, madame. Hercule Poirot.'
He heard behind him a very soft 'Oh' - a gasp rather than an articulate word - a woman's ejaculation. Perhaps he was flattered.
'You knew I was coming?' he murmured gently. 'N'est ce pas, madame? Your husband told you.'
'Oh - oh, yes,' said Mrs Lytcham-Roche, her manner unconvincing in the extreme. 'I mean, I suppose so. I am so terribly unpractical, M. Poirot. I never remember anything. But fortunately Digby sees to everything.'
'My train, I fear, was late,' said M. Poirot. 'An accident on the line in front of us.'
'Oh,' cried Joan, 'so that's why dinner was put off.'
His eye came quickly round to her - a most uncannily discerning eye.
'That is something out of the usual - eh?'
'I really can't think -' began Mrs Lytcham-Roche, and then stopped. 'I mean,' she went on confusedly, 'it's so odd. Hubert never -'
Poirot's eyes swept rapidly round the group.
'M. Lytcham-Roche is not down yet?'
'No, and it's so extraordinary -' She looked appealingly at Geoffrey Keene.
'Mr Lytcham-Roche is the soul of punctuality,' explained Keene. 'He has not been late for dinner for - well, I don't know that he was ever late before.'
To a stranger the situation must have been ludicrous - the perturbed faces and the general consternation.
'I know,' said Mrs Lytcham-Roche with the air of one solving a problem. 'I shall ring for Digby.'
She suited the action to the word.
The butler came promptly.
'Digby,' said Mrs Lytcham-Roche, 'Your master. Is he -'
As was customary with her, she did not finish her sentence. It was clear that the butler did not expect her to do so. He replied promptly and with understanding.
'Mr Lytcham-Roche came down at five minutes to eight and went into the study, madam.'
'Oh!' she paused. 'You don't think - I mean - he heard the gong?'
'I think he must have - the gong is immediately outside the study door.'
'Yes, of course, of course,' aid Mrs Lytcham-Roche more vaguely than ever. 'Shall I inform him, madam, that dinner is ready?'
'Oh, thank you, Digby. Yes, I think - yes, yes, I should.'
'I don't know,' said Mrs Lytcham-Roche to her guests as the butler withdrew, 'what I would do without Digby!'
A pause followed.
Then Digby re-entered the room. His breath was coming a little faster than is considered good form in a butler.
'Excuse me, madam - the study door is locked.'
It was then that M. Hercule Poirot took command of the situation.
'I think,' he said, 'that we had better go to the study.'
He led the way and everyone followed. His assumption of authority seemed perfectly natural. He was no longer a rather comic-looking guest. He was a personality and master of the situation.
He led the way out into the hall, past the staircase, past the great clock, past the recess in which stood the gong. Exactly opposite that recess was a closed door.
He tapped on it, first gently, then with increasing violence. But there was no reply. Very nimbly he dropped to his knees and applied his eye to the keyhole. He rose and looked round.
'Messieurs,' he said, 'we must break open this door. Immediately!'
As before no one questioned his authority. Geoffrey Keene and Gregory Barling were the two biggest men. They attacked the door under Poirot's directions. It was no easy matter. The doors of Lytcham Close were solid affairs - no modern jerry-building here. It resisted the attack valiantly, but at last it gave before the united attack of the men and crashed inward.
The house party hesitated in the doorway. They saw what they had subconsciously feared to see. Facing them was the window. On the left, between the door and the window, was a big writing table. Sitting, not at the table, but sideways to it, was a man - a big man - slouched forward in his chair. His back was to them and his face to the window, but his position told the tale. His right hand hung limply down and below it, on the carpet was a small shining pistol.
Poirot spoke sharply to Gregory Barling.
'Take Mrs Lytcham-Roche away - and the other two ladies.'
The other nodded comprehendingly. He laid a hand on his hostess's arm. She shivered.
'He has shot himself,' she murmured. 'Horrible!' With another shiver she permitted him to lead her away. The two girls followed.
Poirot came forward into the room, the two young men behind him.
He knelt down by the body, motioning them to keep back a little.
He found the bullet hole on the right side of the head. It had passed out the other side and evidently struck a mirror hanging on the left-hand wall, since this was shivered. On the writing table was a sheet of paper, blank save for the word Sorry scrawled across it in hesitating shaky writing.
Poirot's eyes darted back to the door.
'The key is not on the lock,' he said. 'I wonder -'
His hand slid i
nto the dead man's pocket.
'Here it is,' he said. 'At least I think so. Have the goodness to try it, monsieur?'
Geoffrey Keene took it from him and tried it in the lock.
'That's it, all right.'
'And the window?'
Harry Dalehouse strode across to it.
'Shut.'
'You permit?' Very swiftly, Poirot scrambled to his feet and joined the other at the window. It was a long French window. Poirot opened it, stood a minute scrutinizing the grass just on front of it, then closed it again.
'My friends,' he said, 'we must telephone for the police. Until they have come and satisfied themselves that it is truly suicide nothing must be touched. Death can only have occurred about a quarter of an hour ago.'
'I know,' said Harry hoarsely. 'We heard the shot.'
'Comment? What is that you say?'
Harry explained with the help of Geoffrey Keene. As he finished speaking, Barling reappeared.
Poirot repeated what he had said before, and while Keene went off to telephone, Poirot requested Barling to give him a few minutes' interview.
They went into a small morning room, leaving Digby on guard outside the study door, while Harry went off to find the ladies.
'You were, I understood, an intimate friend of M. Lytcham-Roche,' began Poirot. 'It is for that reason that I address myself to you primarily. In etiquette, perhaps, I should have spoken first to madame, but at the moment I do not think that is pratique.'
He paused.
'I am, see you, in a delicate situation. I will lay the facts plainly before you. I am, by profession, a private detective.'
The financier smiled a little.
'It is not necessary to tell me that, M. Poirot. Your name is, by now, a household word.'
'Monsieur is too amiable,' said Poirot, bowing. 'Let us, then, proceed. I receive, at my London address, a letter from this M. Lytcham-Roche. In it he says that he has reason to believe that he is being swindled of large sums of money. For family reasons, so he puts it, he does not want to call in the police, but he desires that I should come down and look into the matter for him. Well, I agree. I come. Not quite so soon as M. Lytcham-Roche wishes - for after all I have other affairs, and M. Lytcham-Roche, he is not quite the King of England, though he seems to think he is.'
Barling gave a wry smile.
'He did think of himself that way.'
'Exactly. Oh, you comprehend - his letter showed plainly enough that he was what one calls an eccentric. He was not insane, but he was unbalanced, n'est-ce pas?'
'What he's just done ought to show that.'
'Oh, monsieur, but suicide is not always the act of the unbalanced. The coroner's jury, they say so, but that is to spare the feelings of those left behind.'
'Hubert was not a normal individual,' said Barling decisively. 'He was given to ungovernable rages, was a monomaniac on the subject of family pride, and had a bee in his bonnet in more ways than one. But for all that he was a shrewd man.'
'Precisely. He was sufficiently shrewd to discover that he was being robbed.'
'Does a man commit suicide because he's being robbed?' Barling asked.
'As you say, monsieur. Ridiculous. And that brings me to the need for haste in the matter. For family reasons - that was the phrase he used in the letter. Eh bien, monsieur, you are a man of the world, you know that it is for precisely that - family reasons - that a man does commit suicide.'
'You mean?'
'That it looks - on the face of it - as if ce pauvre monsieur had found out something further - and was unable to face what he had found out. But you perceive, I have a duty. I am already employed - commissioned - I have accepted the task. This 'family reason', the dead man did not want it to get to the police. So I must act quickly. I must learn the truth.'
'And when you have learned it?'
'Then - I must use discretion. I must do what I can.'
'I see,' said Barling. He smoked for a minute or too in silence, then he said, 'All the same, I'm afraid I can't help you. Hubert never confided anything to me. I know nothing.'
'But tell me, monsieur, who, should you say, had a chance of robbing this poor gentleman?'
'Difficult to say. Of course, there's the agent for the estate. He's a new man.'
'The agent?'
'Yes. Marshall. Captain Marshall. Very nice fellow, lost an arm in the war. He came here a year ago. But Hubert liked him, I know, and trusted him, too.'
'If it were Captain Marshall who was playing him false, there would be no family reasons for silence.'
'N-no.'
The hesitation did not escape Poirot.
'Speak, monsieur. Speak plainly, I beg of you.'
'It may be gossip.'
'I implore you, speak.'
'Very well, then, I will. Did you notice a very attractive looking woman in the drawing room?'
'I noticed two very attractive looking women.'
'Oh, yes, Miss Ashby. Pretty little thing. Her first visit. Harry Dalehouse got Mrs Lytcham-Roche to ask her. No, I mean a dark girl - Diana Cleves.'
'I noticed her,' said Poirot. 'She is one that all men would notice, I think.'
'She's a little devil,' burst out Barling. 'She's played fast and loose with every man for twenty miles round. Someone will murder her one of these days.'
He wiped his brow with a handkerchief, oblivious of the keen interest with which the other was regarding him.
'And this young lady is -'
'She's Lytcham-Roche's adopted daughter. A great disappointment when he and his wife had no children. They adopted Diana Cleves - she was some kind of cousin. Hubert was devoted to her, simply worshipped her.'
'Doubtless he would dislike the idea of her marrying?' suggested Poirot.
'Not if she married the right person.'
'And the right person was - you, monsieur?'
Barling started and flushed.
'I never said -'
'Mais, non, mais, non! You said nothing. But it was so, was it not?'
'I fell in love with her - yes. Lytcham-Roche was pleased about it. It fitted in with his ideas for her.'
'And mademoiselle herself?'
'I told you - she's the devil incarnate.'
'I comprehend. She has her own ideas of amusement, is it not so? But Captain Marshall, where does he come in?'
'Well, she's been seeing a lot of him. People talked. Not that I think there's anything in it. Another scalp, that's all.'
Poirot nodded.
'But supposing there had been something in it - well, then, it might explain why M. Lytcham-Roche wanted to proceed cautiously.'
'You do understand, don't you, that there's no earthly reason for suspecting Marshall of defalcation.'
'Oh, parfaitement, parfaitement! It might be an affair of a forged cheque with someone in the household involved. This young Mr Dalehouse, who is he?'
'A nephew.'
'He will inherit, yes?'
'He's a sister's son. Of course he might take the name - there's not a Lytcham-Roche left.'
'I see.'
'The place isn't exactly entailed, though it's always gone from father to son. I've always imagined that he'd leave the place to his wife for her lifetime and then perhaps to Diana if he approved of her marriage. You see, her husband could take the name.'
'I comprehend,' said Poirot. 'You have been most kind and helpful to me, monsieur. May I ask you one thing further - to explain to Madame Lytcham-Roche all that I have told you, and beg of her that she accord me a minute?'
Sooner than he had thought likely, the door opened and Mrs Lytcham-Roche entered. She floated to a chair.
'Mr Barling has explained everything to me,' she said. 'We mustn't have any scandal, of course. Though I do feel really it's fate, don't you? I mean with the mirror and everything.'
'Comment - the mirror?'
'The moment I saw it - it seemed a symbol. Of Hubert! A curse, you know. I think old families have a curse very often.
Hubert was always very strange. Lately he has been stranger than ever.'
'You will forgive me for asking, madame, but you are not in any way short of money?'
'Money? I never think of money.'
'Do you know what they say, madame? Those who never think of money need a great deal of it.'
He ventured a tiny laugh. She did not respond. Her eyes were far away.
'I thank you, madame,' he said, and the interview came to an end.
Poirot rang, and Digby answered.
'I shall require you to answer a few questions,' said Poirot. 'I am a private detective sent for by your master before he died.'
'A detective!' the butler gasped. 'Why?'
'You will please answer my questions. As to the shot now -'
He listened to the butler's account.
'So there were four of you in the hall?'
'Yes, sir; Mr Dalehouse and Miss Ashby and Mr Keene came from the drawing room.'
'Where were the others?'
'The others, sir?'
'Yes, Mrs Lytcham-Roche, Miss Cleves and Mr Barling.'
'Mrs Lytcham-Roche and Mr Barling came down later, sir.'
'And Miss Cleves?'
'I think Miss Cleves was in the drawing room, sir.'
Poirot asked a few more questions, then dismissed the butler with the command to request Miss Cleves to come to him.
She came immediately, and he studied her attentively in view of Barling's revelations. She was certainly beautiful in her white satin frock with the rosebud on the shoulder.
He explained the circumstances which had brought him to Lytcham Close, eyeing her very closely, but she showed only what seemed to be genuine astonishment, with no signs of uneasiness. She spoke of Marshall indifferently with tepid approval. Only at mention of Barling did she approach animation.
'That man's a crook,' she said sharply. 'I told the Old Man so, but he wouldn't listen - went on putting money into his rotten concerns.'
'Are you sorry, mademoiselle, that your - father is dead?'
She stared at him.
'Of course. I'm modern, you know, M. Poirot. I don't indulge in sob stuff. I was fond of the Old Man. Though, of course, it's best for him.'
'Best for him?'
'Yes. One of these days he would have had to be locked up. It was growing on him - this belief that the last Lytcham-Roche of Lytcham Close was omnipotent.'