"Would I get her a two-pound box of Fuller"s chocolates."
"How did her voice sound-weak?"
"No-not at all. Quite strong. But different somehow. I didn"t realize it was she speaking at first."
"Until she told you who she was?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure, Madame, that it was your friend?"
Frederica looked startled.
"I-I-why, of course it was. Who else could it have been?"
"That is an interesting question, Madame."
"You don"t mean-"
"Could you swear, Madame, that it was your friend"s voice-apart from what she said?"
"No," said Frederica, slowly, "I couldn"t. Her voice was certainly different. I thought it was the phone-or perhaps being ill..."
"If she had not told you who she was, you would not have recognized it?"
"No, no, I don"t think I should. Who was it, M. Poirot? Who was it?"
"That is what I mean to know, Madame."
The graveness of his face seemed to awaken her suspicions.
"Is Nick-has anything happened?" she asked, breathlessly.
Poirot nodded.
"She is ill-dangerously ill. Those chocolates, Madame-were poisoned."
"The chocolates I sent her? But that"s impossible-impossible!"
"Not impossible, Madame, since Mademoiselle is at death"s door."
"Oh, my G.o.d." She hid her face in her hands, then raised it white and quivering. "I don"t understand-I don"t understand. The other, yes, but not this. They couldn"t be poisoned. n.o.body ever touched them but me and Jim. You"re making some dreadful mistake, M. Poirot."
"It is not I that make a mistake-even though my name was in the box." She stared at him blankly.
"If Mademoiselle Nick dies-" he said, and made a threatening gesture with his hand.
She gave a low cry.
He turned away, and taking me by the arm, went up to the sitting-room.
He flung his hat on the table.
"I understand nothing-but nothing! I am in the dark. I am a little child. Who stands to gain by Mademoiselle"s death? Madame Rice. Who buys the chocolates and admits it and tells a story of being rung up on the telephone that cannot hold water for a minute? Madame Rice. It is too simple-too stupid. And she is not stupid-no."
"Well, then-"
"But she takes cocaine, Hastings. I am certain she takes cocaine. There is no mistaking it. And there was cocaine in those chocolates. And what did she mean when she said, "The other, yes, but not this." It needs explaining, that! And the sleek M. Lazarus-what is he doing in all this? What does she know, Madame Rice? She knows something. But I cannot make her speak. She is not of those you can frighten into speech. But she knows something, Hastings. Is her tale of the telephone true, or did she invent it? If it is true whose voice was it?
"I tell you, Hastings. This is all very black-very black." "Always darkest before dawn," I said rea.s.suringly. He shook his head.
"Then the other box-that came by post. Can we rule that out? No, we cannot, because Mademoiselle is not sure. It is an annoyance, that!"
He groaned.
I was about to speak when he stopped me.
"No, no. Not another proverb. I cannot bear it. If you would be the good friend-the good helpful friend-"
"Yes," I said eagerly.
"Go out, I beg of you, and buy me some playing cards."
I stared.
"Very well," I said coldly.
I could not but suspect that he was making a deliberate excuse to get rid of me.
Here, however, I misjudged him. That night, when I came into the sitting-room about ten o"clock, I found Poirot carefully building card houses-and I remembered!
It was an old trick of his-soothing his nerves. He smiled at me.
"Yes-you remember. One needs the precision. One card on another-so-in exactly the right place and that supports the weight of the card on top and so on, up and up. Go to bed, Hastings. Leave me here, with my house of cards. I clear the mind."
It was about five in the morning when I was shaken awake. Poirot was standing by my bedside. He looked pleased and happy.
"It was very just what you said, mon ami. Oh! it was very just. More, it was spiritual!"
I blinked at him, being imperfectly awake.
"Always darkest before dawn-that is what you said. It has been very dark-and now it is dawn."
I looked at the window. He was perfectly right.
"No, no, Hastings. In the head! The mind! The little grey cells!"
He paused and then said quietly: "You see, Hastings, Mademoiselle is dead."
"What?" I cried, suddenly wide awake.
"Hush-hush. It is as I say. Not really-bien entendu-but it can be arranged. Yes, for twenty-four hours it can be arranged. I arrange it with the doctor, with the nurses."
"You comprehend, Hastings? The murderer has been successful. Four times he has tried and failed. The fifth time he has succeeded."
"And now, we shall see what happens next.. "It will be very interesting."
Chapter 18 The Face at the Window.
The events of the next day are completely hazy in my memory. I was unfortunate enough to awake with fever on me. I have been liable to these bouts of fever at inconvenient times ever since I once contracted malaria.
In consequence, the events of that day take on in my memory the semblance of a nightmare-with Poirot coming and going as a kind of fantastic clown, making a periodic appearance in a circus.
He was, I fancy, enjoying himself to the the full. His poise of baffled despair was admirable. How he achieved the end he had in view and which he had disclosed to me in the early hours of the morning, I cannot say. But achieve it he did.
It cannot have been easy. The amount of deception and subterfuge involved must have been colossal. The English character is averse to lying on a wholesale scale and that, no less, was what Poirot"s plan required. He had, first, to get Dr Graham converted to the scheme. With Dr Graham on his side, he had to persuade the Matron and some members of the staff of the nursing home to conform to the plan. There again, the difficulties must have been immense. It was probably Dr Graham"s influence that turned the scale.
Then there was the Chief Constable and the police. Here, Poirot would be up against officialdom. Nevertheless he wrung at last an unwilling consent out of Colonel Weston. The Colonel made it clear that it was in no way his responsibility. Poirot and Poirot alone was responsible for the spreading abroad of these lying reports. Poirot agreed. He would have agreed to anything so long as he was permitted to carry out his plan.
I spent most of the day dozing in a large armchair with a rug over my knees. Every two or three hours or so, Poirot would burst in and report progress.
"Comment ca va, mon ami? How I commiserate you. But it is as well, perhaps. The farce, you do not play it as well as I do. I come this moment from ordering a wreath-a wreath immense-stupendous. Lilies, my friend-large quant.i.ties of lilies. "With heartfelt regret. From Hercule Poirot." Ah! what a comedy."
He departed again.
"I come from a most poignant conversation with Madame Rice," was his next piece of information. "Very well dressed in black, that one. Her poor friend-what a tragedy! I groan sympathetically. Nick, she says, was so joyous, so full of life. Impossible to think of her as dead. I agree. "It is," I say, "the irony of death that it takes one like that. The old and useless are left." Oh! lala! I groan again."
"How you are enjoying this," I murmured feebly.
"Du tout. It is part of my plan, that is all. To play the comedy successfully, you must put the heart into it. Well, then, the conventional expressions of regret over, Madame comes to matters nearer home. All night she has lain awake wondering about those sweets. It is impossible-impossible. "Madame," I say, "it is not impossible. You can see the a.n.a.lyst"s report." Then she says, and her voice is far from steady, "It was-cocaine, you say?" I a.s.sent. And she says, "Oh, my G.o.d. I don"t understand.""
"Perhaps that"s true."
"She understands well enough that she is in danger. She is intelligent. I told you that before. Yes, she is in danger, and she knows it."
"And yet it seems to me that for the first time you don"t believe her guilty." Poirot frowned. The excitement of his manner abated.
"It is profound what you say there, Hastings. No-it seems to me that-somehow-the facts no longer fit. These crimes-so far what has marked them most-the subtlety, is it not? And here is no subtlety at all-only the crudity, pure and simple. No, it does not fit."
He sat down at the table.
"Voila-let us examine the facts. There are three possibilities. There are the sweets bought by Madame and delivered by M. Lazarus. And in that case the guilt rests with one or the other or both. And the telephone call, supposedly from Mademoiselle Nick, that is an invention pure and simple. That is the straightforward-the obvious solution."
"Solution 2: The other box of sweets-that which came by post. Anyone may have sent those. Any of the suspects on our list from A. to J. (You remember? A very wide field.) But, if that were the guilty box, what is the point of the telephone call? Why complicate matters with a second box?"
I shook my head feebly. With a temperature of 102, any complication seemed to me quite unnecessary and absurd.
"Solution 3: A poisoned box was subst.i.tuted for the innocent box bought by Madame. In that case the telephone call is ingenious and understandable. Madame is to be what you call the kitten"s paw. She is to pull the roasting chestnuts out of the fire. So Solution 3 is the most logical-but, alas, it is also the most difficult. How be sure of subst.i.tuting a box at the right moment? The orderly might take the box straight upstairs-a hundred and one possibilities might prevent the subst.i.tution being effected. No, it does not seem sense."
"Unless it were Lazarus," I said.
Poirot looked at me.
"You have the fever, my friend. It mounts, does it not?"
I nodded.
"Curious how a few degrees of heat should stimulate the intellect. You have uttered there an observation of profound simplicity. So simple, was it, that I had failed to consider it. But it would suppose a very curious state of affairs. M. Lazarus, the dear friend of Madame, doing his best to get her hanged. It opens up possibilities of a very curious nature. But complex-very complex."
I closed my eyes. I was glad I had been brilliant, but I did not want to think of anything complex. I wanted to go to sleep.
Poirot, I think, went on talking, but I did not listen. His voice was vaguely soothing...
It was late afternoon when I saw him next.
"My little plan, it has made the fortune of flower shops," he announced. "Everybody orders wreaths. M. Croft, M. Vyse, Commander Challenger-"
The last name awoke a chord of compunction in my mind.
"Look here, Poirot," I said. "You must let him in on this. Poor fellow, he will be distracted with grief. It isn"t fair."
"You have always the tenderness for him, Hastings."
"I like him. He"s a thoroughly decent chap. You"ve got to take him into the secret."
Poirot shook his head.
"No, mon ami. I do not make the exceptions."
"But you don"t suspect him to have anything to do with it?"
"I do not make the exceptions."
"Think how he must be suffering."
"On the contrary, I prefer to think of what a joyful surprise I prepare for him. To think the loved one dead-and find her alive! It is a sensation unique-stupendous."
"What a pig-headed old devil you are. He"d keep the secret all right."
"I am not so sure."
"He"s the soul of honour. I"m certain of it."