Peril at End House. Agatha Christie
‘Poirot,’ I said, as soon as we were out upon the road. ‘There is one thing I think you ought to know.’
‘And what is that, mon ami?’
I told him of Mrs Rice’s version of the trouble with the motor.
‘Tiens! C’est intéressant, ça. There is, of course, a type, vain, hysterical, that seeks to make itself interesting by having marvellous escapes from death and which will recount to you surprising histories that never happened! Yes, it is well known, that type there. Such people will even do themselves grave bodily injury to sustain the fiction.’
‘You don’t think that—’
‘That Mademoiselle Nick is of that type? No, indeed. You observed, Hastings, that we had great difficulty in convincing her of her danger. And right to the end she kept up the farce of a half-mocking disbelief. She is of her generation, that little one. All the same, it is interesting—what Madame Rice said. Why should she say it? Why say it even if it were true? It was unnecessary—almost gauche.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s true. She dragged it into the conversation neck and crop—for no earthly reason that I could see.’
‘That is curious. Yes, that is curious. The little facts that are curious, I like to see them appear. They are significant. They point the way.’
‘The way—where?’
‘You put your finger on the weak spot, my excellent Hastings. Where? Where indeed! Alas, we shall not know till we get there.’
‘Tell me, Poirot,’ I said. ‘Why did you insist on her getting this cousin to stay?’
Poirot stopped and waved an excited forefinger at me.
‘Consider,’ he cried. ‘Consider for one little moment, Hastings. How are we handicapped! How are our hands tied! To hunt down a murderer after a crime has been committed—c’est tout simple! Or at least it is simple to one of my ability. The murderer has, so to speak, signed his name by committing the crime. But here there is no crime—and what is more we do not want a crime. To detect a crime before it has been committed—that is indeed of a rare difficulty.
‘What is our first aim? The safety of Mademoiselle. And that is not easy. No, it is not easy, Hastings. We cannot watch over her day and night—we cannot even send a policeman in big boots to watch over her. We cannot pass the night in a young lady’s sleeping chamber. The affair bristles with difficulties.
‘But we can do one thing. We can make it more difficult for our assassin. We can put Mademoiselle upon her guard and we can introduce a perfectly impartial witness. It will take a very clever man to get round those two circumstances.’
He paused, and then said in an entirely different tone of voice:
‘But what I am afraid of, Hastings—’
‘Yes?’
‘What I am afraid of is—that he is a very clever man. And I am not easy in my mind. No, I am not easy at all.’
‘Poirot,’ I said. ‘You’re making me feel quite nervous.’
‘So am I nervous. Listen, my friend, that paper, the St Loo Weekly Herald. It was open and folded back at—where do you think? A little paragraph which said, “Among the guests staying at the Majestic Hotel are M. Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings.” Supposing—just supposing that someone had read that paragraph. They know my name—everyone knows my name—’
‘Miss Buckley didn’t,’ I said, with a grin.
‘She is a scatterbrain—she does not count. A serious man—a criminal—would know my name. And he would be afraid! He would wonder! He would ask himself questions. Three times he has attempted the life of Mademoiselle and now Hercule Poirot arrives in the neighbourhood. “Is that coincidence?” he would ask himself. And he would fear that it might not be coincidence. What would he do then?’
‘Lie low and hide his tracks,’ I suggested.
‘Yes—yes—or else—if he had real audacity, he would strike quickly—without loss of time. Before I had time to make inquiries—pouf, Mademoiselle is dead. That is what a man of audacity would do.’
‘But why do you think that somebody read that paragraph other than Miss Buckley?’
‘It was not Miss Buckley who read that paragraph. When I mentioned my name it meant nothing to her. It was not even familiar. Her face did not change. Besides she told us—she opened the paper to look at the tides—nothing else. Well, there was no tide table on that page.’
‘You think someone in the house—’
‘Someone in the house or who has access to it. And that last is easy—the window stands open. Without doubt Miss Buckley’s friends pass in and out.’
‘Have you any idea? Any suspicion?’
Poirot flung out his hands.
‘Nothing. Whatever the motive, it is, as I predicted, not an obvious one. That is the would-be murderer’s security—that is why he could act so daringly this morning. On the face of it, no one seems to have any reason for desiring the little Nick’s death. The property? End House? That passes to the cousin—but does he particularly want a heavily mortgaged and very dilapidated old house? It is not even a family place so far as he is concerned. He is not a Buckley, remember. We must see this Charles Vyse, certainly, but the idea seems fantastic.
‘Then there is Madame—the bosom friend—with her strange eyes and her air of a lost Madonna—’
‘You felt that too?’ I asked, startled.
‘What is her concern in the business? She tells you that her friend is a liar. C’est gentille, ça! Why does she tell you? Is she afraid of something that Nick may say? Is that something connected with the car? Or did she use that as an instance, and was her real fear of something else? Did anyone tamper with the car, and if so, who? And does she know about it?
‘Then the handsome blond, M. Lazarus. Where does he fit in? With his marvellous automobile and his money. Can he possibly be concerned in any way? Commander Challenger—’
‘He’s all right,’ I put in quickly. ‘I’m sure of that. A real pukka sahib.’
‘Doubtless he has been to what you consider the right school. Happily, being a foreigner, I am free from these prejudices, and can make investigations unhampered by them. But I will admit that I find it hard to connect Commander Challenger with the case. In fact, I do not see that he can be connected.’
‘Of course he can’t,’ I said warmly.
Poirot looked at me meditatively.
‘You have an extraordinary effect on me, Hastings. You have so strongly the flair in the wrong direction that I am almost tempted to go by it! You are that wholly admirable type of man, honest, credulous, honourable, who is invariably taken in by any scoundrel. You are the type of man who invests in doubtful oil fields, and non-existent gold mines. From hundreds like you, the swindler makes his daily bread. Ah, well—I shall study this Commander Challenger. You have awakened my doubts.’
‘My dear Poirot,’ I cried, angrily. ‘You are perfectly absurd. A man who has knocked about the world like I have—’
‘Never learns,’ said Poirot, sadly. ‘It is amazing—but there it is.’
‘Do you suppose I’d have made a success of my ranch out in the Argentine if I were the kind of credulous fool you make out?’
‘Do not enrage yourself, mon ami. You have made a great success of it—you and your wife.’
‘Bella,’ I said, ‘always goes by my judgement.’
‘She is as