Poirot's Early Cases - Christie Agatha (книги txt) 📗

'No, no, mademoiselle, you don't appreciate the point I'm trying to make. I'm not worried as to how he got out, but as to how he got in.'

'The window of course.'

'C'est possible. But it would be a very narrow fit - and there were people passing up and down the deck all the time, remember.' 'Then through the door,' said Miss Henderson impatiently.

'But you forget, mademoiselle. Mrs Clapperton had loehed the door on the ira/de. She had done so before Colonel Clapperton left the boat this morning. He actually tried it - so we knoro that is ao.'

'Nonsense. It probably stuck - or he didn't turn the handle properly.'

'But it does not rest on his word. We actually heard Mrs

Clapperton herself say so.'

'We?'

'Miss Mooney, Miss Cregan, Colonel Clapperton and myself.' Ellie Henderson tapped a neatly shod foot. She did not speak for a moment or two. Then she said in a slightly irritable tone: 'Well - what exactly do you deduce from that? If Mrs Clapperton could lock the door she could unlock it too, I suppose.'

'Precisely, precisely.' Poirot turned a beaming face upon her.

'And you see where that leads us. Mrs Clapperton unlocked the door and let the murderer in. Now would she be likely to do that for a bead seller?'

Ellie objected: 'She might not have known who it was. He may have knocked - she got up and opened the door - and he forced his way in and killed her.'

Poirot shook his head. '.4u contraire. She was lying peacefully in bed when she was stabbed.'

Miss Henderson stared at him. 'What's your idea?' she asked abruptly.

Poirot smiled. 'Well, it looks, does it not, as though she knew the person she admitted…'

'You mean,' said Miss Henderson and her voice sounded a little harsh, 'that the murderer is a passenger on the ship?' Poirot nodded. 'It seems indicated.' 'And the string of beads left on the floor was a blind?' 'Precisely.' 'The theft of the money also?' 'Exactly.' There was a pause, then Miss Henderson said slowly: 'I thought Mrs Clapperton a very unpleasant woman and I don't think anyone on board really liked her - but there wasn't anyone who had any reason to kill her.' 'Except her husband, perhaps,' said Poirot.

'You don't really think - ' She stopped.

'It is the opinion of every person on this ship that Colonel Clapperton would have been quite justified in "taking a hatchet to her". That was, I think, the expression used.' Ellie Henderson looked at him - waiting.

'But I am bound to say,' went on Poirot, 'that I myself have not noted any signs of exasperation on the good Colonel's part. Also, what is more important, he had an alibi. He was with those two girls all day and did not return to the ship till four o'clock. By then, Mrs Clapperton had been dead many hours.' There was another minute of silence. Ellie Henderson said softly: 'But you still think - a passenger on the ship?' Poirot bowed his head.

Ellie Henderson laughed suddenly - a reckless defiant laugh.

'Your theory may be difficult to prove, M. Poirot. There are a good many passengers on this ship.' Poirot bowed to her. 'I will use a phrase from one of your detective story writers. "I have my methods, Watson." '

The following evening, at dinner, every passenger found a typewritten slip by his plate requesting him to be in the main loung at 8.30. When the company were assembled, the Captain stepped on to the raised platform where the orchestra usually played and addressed them.

'Ladies and gentlemen, you all know of the tragedy which took place yesterday. I am sure you all wish to co-operate in bringing the perpetrator of that foul crime to justice.' He paused and cleared his throat. 'We have on board with us M. Hercule Poirot who is probably known to you all as a man who has had wide experience in - er - such matters. I hope you will listen carefully to what he has to say.'

It was at this minute that Colonel Clapperton, who had not been at dinner, came in and sat down next to General Forbes. He looked like a man bewildered by sorrow - not at all like a man conscious of great relief. Either he was a very good actor or else he had been genuinely fond of his disagreeable wife.

'M. Hercule Poirot,' said the Captain and stepped down. Poirot took his place. He looked comically serf-important as he beamed on his audience.

'Messieurs, mesdames,' he began. 'It is most kind of you to be so indulgent as to listen to me. M. le Cataine has told you that I have had a certain experience in these matters. I have, it is true, a littie idea of my own about how to get to the bottom of this particular case.' He made a sign and a steward pushed forward and passed on to him a bulky, shapeless object wrapped in a sheet.

'What I am about to do may surprise you a little,' Poirot warned them. 'It may occur to you that I am eccentric, perhaps mad.

Nevertheless I assure you that behind my madness there is - as you English say - a method.'

His eyes met those of Miss Henderson for just a minute. He began unwrapping the bulky object.

'I have here, mesdeurs and mesdames, an important witness to the truth of who killed Mrs Clapperton.' With a deft hand he whisked away the last enveloping cloth, and the object it concealed was revealed - an almost life-sized wooden doll, dressed in a velvet suit and lace collar.

'Now, Arthur,' said Poirot and his voice changed subtly - it was no longer foreign - it had instead a confident English, a slightly Cockney inflection. 'Can you tell me - I repeat - can you tell me - anything at all about the death of Mrs Clapperton?'

The doll's neck oscillated a little, its wooden lower jaw dropped and wavered and a shrill high-pitched woman's voice spoke:

'What is it, John? The door's locked. I don't want to be disturbed by the stewards…' There was a cry - an overturned chair - a man stood swaying, his hand to his throat - trying to speak - trying… Then suddenly, his figure seemed to crumple up. He pitched headlong.

It was Colonel Clapperton.

Poirot and the ship's doctor rose from their knees by the prostrate figure.

'All over, I'm afraid. Heart,' said the doctor briefly.

Poirot nodded. 'The shock of having his trick seen through,' he said.

He turned to General Forbes. 'It was you, General, who gave me a valuable hint with your mention of the music hall stage. I puzzle - I think - and then it comes to me. Supposing that before the war Clapperton was a ventriloquist. In that case, it would be perfectly possible for three people to hear Mrs Clapperton speak from inside her cabin when she was already dead…' Ellie Henderson was beside him. Her eyes were dark and full of pain. 'Did you know his heart was weak?' she asked.

'I guessed it… Mrs Clapperton talked of her own heart being affected, but she struck me as the type of woman who likes to be thought ill. Then I picked up a torn prescription with a very strong dose of digitalin in it. Digitalin is a heart medicine but it couldn't be Mrs Clapperton's because digitalin dilates the pupils of the eyes. I had never noticed such a phenomenon with her but when I looked at his eyes I saw the signs at once.' Ellie murmured: 'So you thought - it might end - this way?' 'The best way, don't you think, mademoiselle?' he said gently.

He saw the tears rise in her eys. She said: 'You've known. You've known all along… That I cared… But he didn't do it for me… It was those girls - youth - it made him feel his slavery. He wanted to be free before it was too late… Yes, I'm sure that's how it was ·… When did you guess - that it was he?' 'His self-control was too perfect,' said Poirot simply. 'No matter how galling his wife's conduct, it never seemed to touch him.

That meant either that he was so used to it that it no longer stung him, or else - eh b/eh - I decided on the latter alternative… And I was right…

'And then there was his insistence on his conjuring ability - the evening before the crime he pretended to give himself away. But a man like Clapperton doesn't give himself away. There must be a reason. So long as people thought he had been a conjuror they weren't likely to think of his having been a ventriloquist.'