Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie
“Ah!” said Poirot, and seemed satisfied with the fact.
As we descended to the flat again he remarked in a low tone:
“We have decidedly to do with a man of method.”
“Do you mean the murderer, or Count Foscatini?”
“The latter was undoubtedly an orderly gentleman. After imploring help and announcing his approaching demise, he carefully hung up the telephone receiver.”
I stared at Poirot. His words now and his recent inquiries gave me the glimmering of an idea.
“You suspect poison?” I breathed. “The blow on the head was a blind.”
Poirot merely smiled.
We reentered the flat to find the local inspector of police had arrived with two constables. He was inclined to resent our appearance, but Poirot calmed him with the mention of our Scotland Yard friend, Inspector Japp, and we were accorded a grudging permission to remain. It was a lucky thing we were, for we had not been back five minutes before an agitated middle-aged man came rushing into the room with every appearance of grief and agitation.
This was Graves, valet-butler to the late Count Foscatini. The story he had to tell was a sensational one.
On the previous morning, two gentlemen had called to see his master. They were Italians, and the elder of the two, a man of about forty, gave his name as Signor Ascanio. The younger was a well-dressed lad of about twenty-four.
Count Foscatini was evidently prepared for their visit and immediately sent Graves out upon some trivial errand. Here the man paused and hesitated in his story. In the end, however, he admitted that, curious as to the purport of the interview, he had not obeyed immediately, but had lingered about endeavouring to hear something of what was going on.
The conversation was carried on in so low a tone that he was not as successful as he had hoped; but he gathered enough to make it clear that some kind of monetary proposition was being discussed, and that the basis of it was a threat. The discussion was anything but amicable. In the end, Count Foscatini raised his voice slightly, and the listener heard these words clearly:
“I have no time to argue further now, gentlemen. If you will dine with me tomorrow night at eight o’clock, we will resume the discussion.”
Afraid of being discovered listening, Graves had then hurried out to do his master’s errand. This evening the two men had arrived punctually at eight. During dinner they had talked of indifferent matters—politics, the weather, and the theatrical world. When Graves had placed the port upon the table and brought in the coffee his master told him that he might have the evening off.
“Was that a usual proceeding of his when he had guests?” asked the inspector.
“No, sir; it wasn’t. That’s what made me think it must be some business of a very unusual kind that he was going to discuss with these gentlemen.”
That finished Graves’s story. He had gone out about 8:30, and meeting a friend, had accompanied him to the Metropolitan Music Hall in Edgware Road.
Nobody had seen the two men leave, but the time of the murder was fixed clearly enough at 8:47. A small clock on the writing-table had been swept off by Foscatini’s arm, and had stopped at that hour, which agreed with Miss Rider’s telephone
summons.
The police surgeon had made his examination of the body, and it was now lying on the couch. I saw the face for the first time—the olive complexion, the long nose, the luxuriant black moustache, and the full red lips drawn back from the dazzlingly white teeth. Not altogether a pleasant face.
“Well,” said the inspector, refastening his notebook. “The case seems clear enough. The only difficulty will be to lay our hands on this Signor Ascanio. I suppose his address is not in the dead man’s pocketbook by any chance?”
As Poirot had said, the late Foscatini was an orderly man. Neatly written in small, precise handwriting was the inscription, “Signor Paolo Ascanio, Grosvenor Hotel.”
The inspector busied himself with the telephone, then turned to us with a grin.
“Just in time. Our fine gentleman was off to catch the boat train to the Continent. Well, gentlemen, that’s about all we can do here. It’s a bad business, but straightforward enough. One of these Italian vendetta things, as likely as not.”
Thus airily dismissed, we found our way downstairs. Dr. Hawker was full of excitement.
“Like the beginning of a novel, eh? Real exciting stuff. Wouldn’t believe it if you read about it.”
Poirot did not speak. He was very thoughtful. All the evening he had hardly opened his lips.
“What says the master detective, eh?” asked Hawker, clapping him on the back. “Nothing to work your grey cells over this time.”
“You think not?”
“What could there be?”
“Well, for example, there is the window.”
“The window? But it was fastened. Nobody could have got out or in that way. I noticed it specially.”
“And why were you able to notice it?”
The doctor looked puzzled. Poirot hastened to explain.
“It is to the curtains that I refer. They were not drawn. A little odd, that. And then there was the coffee. It was very black coffee.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Very black,” repeated Poirot. “In conjunction with that let us remember that very little of the rice soufflé was eaten, and we get—what?”
“Moonshine,” laughed the doctor. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Never do I pull the leg. Hastings here knows that I am perfectly serious.”
“I don’t know what you are getting at, all the same,” I confessed. “You don’t suspect the manservant, do you? He might have been in with the gang, and put some dope in the coffee. I suppose they’ll test his alibi?”
“Without doubt, my friend; but it is the alibi of Signor Ascanio that interests me.”
“You think he has an alibi?”
“That is just what worries me. I have no doubt that we shall soon be enlightened on that point.”
The Daily Newsmonger enabled us to become conversant with succeeding events.
Signor Ascanio was arrested and charged with the murder of Count Foscatini. When arrested, he denied knowing the Count, and declared he had never been near Regent’s Court either on the evening of the crime or on the previous morning. The younger man had disappeared entirely. Signor Ascanio had arrived alone at the Grosvenor Hotel from the Continent two days before the murder. All efforts to trace the second man failed.
Ascanio, however, was not sent for trial. No less a personage than the Italian Ambassador himself came forward and testified at the police court proceedings that Ascanio had been with him at the Embassy from eight till nine that evening. The prisoner was discharged. Naturally, a lot of people thought that the crime was a political one, and was being deliberately hushed up.
Poirot had taken a keen interest in all these points. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised when he suddenly informed me one morning that he was expecting a visitor at eleven o’clock, and that the visitor was none other than Ascanio himself.
“He wishes to consult you?”
“Du tout, Hastings, I wish to consult him.”
“What about?”
“The Regent’s Court murder.”
“You are going to prove that he did it?”
“A man cannot be tried twice for murder, Hastings. Endeavour to have the common sense. Ah, that is our friend’s ring.”
A few minutes later Signor Ascanio was ushered in—a small, thin man with a secretive and furtive glance in his eyes. He remained standing, darting suspicious glances from one to the other of us.
“Monsieur Poirot?”
My little friend tapped himself gently on the chest.
“Be seated, signor. You received my note. I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. In some small measure you can aid me. Let us commence. You—in company with a friend—visited the late Count Foscatini on the morning of Tuesday the 9th—”
“I did nothing of the sort. I have sworn in court—”
“Précisément—and I have a little idea that you have sworn falsely.”
“You threaten me? Bah! I have nothing to fear from you. I have been acquitted.”
“Exactly; and as I am not an imbecile, it is not with the gallows I threaten you—but with publicity. Publicity! I see that you do not like the word. I had an idea that you would not. My little ideas, you know, they are very valuable to me. Come, signor, your only chance is to be frank with me. I do not ask to know whose indiscretions brought you to England. I know this much, you came for the special purpose of seeing Count Foscatini.”
“He was not a count,” growled the Italian.
“I have already noted the fact that his name does not appear in the Almanach de Gotha. Never mind, the title of count is often useful in the profession of blackmailing.”
“I suppose I might as well be frank. You seem to know a good deal.”
“I have employed my grey cells to some advantage. Come, Signor Ascanio, you visited the dead man on the Tuesday morning—that is so, is it not?”
“Yes; but I never went there on the following evening. There was no need. I will tell you all. Certain information concerning a man of great position in Italy had come into this scoundrel’s possession. He demanded a big sum of money in return for the papers. I came over to England to arrange the matter. I called upon him by appointment that morning. One of the young secretaries of the Embassy was with me. The Count was more reasonable than I had hoped, although even then the sum of money I paid him was a huge one.”
“Pardon, how was it paid?”
“In Italian notes of comparatively small denomination. I paid over the money then and there. He handed me the incriminating papers. I never saw him again.”
“Why did you not say all this when you were arrested?”
“In my delicate position I was forced to deny any association with the man.”
“And how do you account for the events of the evening then?”
“I can only think that someone must have deliberately impersonated me. I understand that no money was found in the flat.”
Poirot looked at him and shook his head.
“Strange,” he murmured. “We all have the little grey cells. And so few of us know how to use them. Good morning, Signor Ascanio. I believe your story. It is very much as I had imagined. But I had to make sure.”
After bowing his guest out, Poirot returned to his armchair and smiled at me.
“Let us hear M. le Capitaine Hastings on the case.”
“Well, I suppose Ascanio is right—somebody impersonated him.”
“Never, never will you use the brains the good God has given you. Recall to yourself some words I uttered after leaving the flat that night. I referred to the window curtains not being drawn. We are in the month of June. It is still light at eight o’clock. The light is failing by half past. Ça vous dit quelque chose? I perceive a struggling impression that you will arrive some day. Now let us continue. The coffee was, as I said, very black. Count Foscatini’s teeth were magnificently white. Coffee stains the teeth. We reason from that that Count Foscatini did not drink any coffee. Yet there was coffee in all three cups. Why should anyone pretend Count Foscatini had drunk coffee when he had not done so?”
I shook my head, utterly bewildered.
“Come, I will help you. What evidence have we that Ascanio and his friend, or two men posing as them, ever came to the flat that night? Nobody saw them go in; nobody saw them go out. We have the evidence of one man and of a host of inanimate objects.”
“You mean?”
“I mean knives and forks and plates and empty dishes. Ah, but it was a clever idea! Graves is a thief and a scoundrel, but what a man of method! He overhears a portion of the conversation in the morning, enough to realize that Ascanio will be in an awkward position to defend himself. The following evening, about eight o’clock, he tells his master he is wanted at the telephone. Foscatini sits down, stretches out his hand to the telephone, and from behind Graves strikes him down with the marble figure. Then quickly to the service telephone—dinner for three! It comes, he lays the table, dirties the plates, knives, and forks, etc. But he has to get rid of the food too. Not only is he a man of brain; he has a resolute and capacious stomach! But after eating three tournedos, the rice soufflé is too much for him! He even smokes a cigar and two cigarettes to carry out the illusion. Ah, but it was magnificently thorough! Then, having moved on the hands of the clock to 8:47, he smashes it and stops it. The one thing he does not do is to draw the curtains. But if there had been a real dinner party the curtains would have been drawn as soon as the light began to fail. Then he hurries out, mentioning the guests to the lift man in passing. He hurries to a telephone box, and as near as possible to 8:47 rings up the doctor with his master’s dying cry. So successful is his idea that no one ever inquires if a call was put through from Flat 11 at that time.”
“Except Hercule Poirot, I suppose?” I said sarcastically.
“Not even Hercule Poirot,” said my friend, with a smile. “I am about to inquire now. I had to prove my point to you first. But you will see, I shall be right; and then Japp, to whom I have already given a hint, will be able to arrest the respectable Graves. I wonder how much of the money he has spent.”
Poirot was right. He always is, confound him!
Eleven
THE CASE OF THE MISSING WILL
The problem presented to us by Miss Violet Marsh made rather a pleasant change from our usual routine work. Poirot had received a brisk and businesslike note from the lady asking for an appointment, and had replied asking her to call upon him at eleven o’clock the following day.
She arrived punctually—a tall, handsome young woman, plainly but neatly dressed, with an assured and businesslike manner. Clearly a young woman who meant to get on in the world. I am not a great admirer of the so-called New Woman myself, and, in spite of her good looks, I was not particularly prepossessed in her favour.
“My business is of a somewhat unusual nature, Monsieur Poirot,” she began, after she had accepted a chair. “I had better begin at the beginning and tell you the whole story.”
“If you please, mademoiselle.”
“I am an orphan. My father was one of two brothers, sons of a small yeoman farmer in Devonshire. The farm was a poor one, and the elder brother, Andrew, emigrated to Australia, where he did very well indeed, and by means of successful speculation in land became a very rich man. The younger brother, Roger (my father), had no leanings towards the agricultural life. He managed to educate himself a little, and obtained a post as clerk with a small firm. He married slightly above him; my mother was the daughter of a poor artist. My father died when I was six years old. When I was fourteen, my mother followed him to the grave. My only living relation then was my uncle Andrew, who had recently returned from Australia and bought a small place, Crabtree Manor, in his native county. He was exceedingly kind to his brother’s orphan child, took me to live with him, and treated me in every way as though I was his own daughter.
“Crabtree Manor, in spite of its name, is really only an old farmhouse. Farming was in my uncle’s blood, and he was intensely interested in various modern farming experiments. Although kindness itself to me, he had certain peculiar and deeply-rooted ideas as to the upbringing of women. Himself a man of little or no education, though possessing remarkable shrewdness, he placed little value on what he called ‘book knowledge.’ He was especially opposed to the education of women. In his opinion, girls should learn practical housework and dairy work, be useful about the home, and have as little to do with book learning as possible. He proposed to bring me up on these lines, to my bitter disappointment and annoyance. I rebelled frankly. I knew that I possessed a good brain, and had absolutely no talent for domestic duties. My uncle and I had many bitter arguments on the subject, for, though much attached to each other, we were both
“That was nine years ago. I have stayed with him for a weekend occasionally, and our relations were perfectly amicable, though his views remained unaltered. He never referred to my having matriculated, nor to my BSc. For the last three years his health had been failing, and a month ago he died.
“I am now coming to the point of my visit. My uncle left a most extraordinary will. By its terms, Crabtree Manor and its contents are to be at my disposal for a year from his death—‘during which time my clever niece may prove her wits,’ the actual words run. At the end of that period, ‘my wits having been proved better than hers,’ the house and all my uncle’s large fortune pass to various charitable institutions.”
“That is a little hard on you, mademoiselle, seeing that you were Mr. Marsh’s only blood relation.”
“I do not look on it in that way. Uncle Andrew warned me fairly, and I chose my own path. Since I would not fall in with his wishes, he was at perfect liberty to leave his money to whom he pleased.”
“Was the will drawn up by a lawyer?”
“No; it was written on a printed will-form and witnessed by the man and his wife who live at the house and do for my uncle.”
“There might be a possibility of upsetting such a will?”
“I would not even attempt to do such a thing.”