Mrs. Davidson still looked a bit doubtful.
"I"ve heard of reconstructing a crime, of course," she said. "But I didn"t know you were so particular about details. But I"ll fetch the dress now."
She left the room and returned almost immediately with a dainty wisp of white satin and green. Poirot took it from her and examined it, handing it back with a bow.
"Merci, madame! I see you have had the misfortune to lose one of your green pompons, the one on the shoulder here."
"Yes, it got torn off at the ball. I picked it up and gave it to poor Lord Cronshaw to keep for me."
"That was after supper?"
"Yes."
"Not long before the tragedy, perhaps?"
A faint look of alarm came into Mrs. Davidson"s pale eyes, and she replied quickly: "Oh no-long before that. Quite soon after supper, in fact."
"I see. Well, that is all. I will not derange you further. Bonjour, madame."
"Well," I said as we emerged from the building, "that explains the mystery of the green pompon."
"I wonder."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"You saw me examine the dress, Hastings?"
"Yes?"
"Eh bien, the pompon that was missing had not been wrenched off, as the lady said. On the contrary, it had been cut off, my friend, cut off with scissors. The threads were all quite even."
"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "This becomes more and more involved."
"On the contrary," replied Poirot placidly, "it becomes more and more simple."
"Poirot," I cried, "one day I shall murder you! Your habit of finding everything perfectly simple is aggravating to the last degree!"
"But when I explain, mon ami, is it not always perfectly simple?"
"Yes; that is the annoying part of it! I feel then that I could have done it myself."
"And so you could, Hastings, so you could. If you would but take the trouble of arranging your ideas! Without method-"
"Yes, yes," I said hastily, for I knew Poirot"s eloquence when started on his favourite theme only too well. "Tell me, what do we do next? Are you really going to reconstruct the crime?"
"Hardly that. Shall we say that the drama is over, but that I propose to add a-harlequinade?"
IV.
The following Tuesday was fixed upon by Poirot as the day for this mysterious performance. The preparations greatly intrigued me. A white screen was erected at one side of the room, flanked by heavy curtains at either side. A man with some lighting apparatus arrived next, and finally a group of members of the theatrical profession, who disappeared into Poirot"s bedroom, which had been rigged up as a temporary dressing room.
Shortly before eight, j.a.pp arrived, in no very cheerful mood. I gathered that the official detective hardly approved of Poirot"s plan.
"Bit melodramatic, like all his ideas. But there, it can do no harm, and as he says, it might save us a good bit of trouble. He"s been very smart over the case. I was on the same scent myself, of course-" I felt instinctively that j.a.pp was straining the truth here- "but there, I promised to let him play the thing out his own way. Ah! Here is the crowd."
His Lordship arrived first, escorting Mrs. Mallaby, whom I had not as yet seen. She was a pretty, dark-haired woman, and appeared perceptibly nervous. The Davidsons followed. Chris Davidson also I saw for the first time. He was handsome enough in a rather obvious style, tall and dark, with the easy grace of the actor.
Poirot had arranged seats for the party facing the screen. This was illuminated by a bright light. Poirot switched out the other lights so that the room was in darkness except for the screen. Poirot"s voice rose out of the gloom.
"Messieurs, mesdames, a word of explanation. Six figures in turn will pa.s.s across the screen. They are familiar to you. Pierrot and his Pierrette; Punchinello the buffoon, and elegant Pulcinella; beautiful Columbine, lightly dancing, Harlequin, the sprite, invisible to man!"
With these words of introduction, the show began. In turn each figure that Poirot had mentioned bounded before the screen, stayed there a moment poised, and then vanished. The lights went up, and a sigh of relief went round. Everyone had been nervous, fearing they knew not what. It seemed to me that the proceedings had gone singularly flat. If the criminal was among us, and Poirot expected him to break down at the mere sight of a familiar figure the device had failed signally-as it was almost bound to do. Poirot, however, appeared not a whit discomposed. He stepped forward, beaming.
"Now, messieurs and mesdames, will you be so good as to tell me, one at a time, what it is that we have just seen? Will you begin, milor"?"
The gentleman looked rather puzzled. "I"m afraid I don"t quite understand."
"Just tell me what we have been seeing."
"I-er-well, I should say we have seen six figures pa.s.sing in front of a screen and dressed to represent the personages in the old Italian Comedy, or-er-ourselves the other night."
"Never mind the other night, milor"," broke in Poirot. "The first part of your speech was what I wanted. Madame, you agree with Milor" Cronshaw?"
He had turned as he spoke to Mrs. Mallaby.
"I-er-yes, of course."
"You agree that you have seen six figures representing the Italian Comedy?"
"Why, certainly."
"Monsieur Davidson? You too?"
"Yes."
"Madame?"
"Yes."
"Hastings? j.a.pp? Yes? You are all in accord?"
He looked around upon us; his face grew rather pale, and his eyes were green as any cat"s.
"And yet-you are all wrong! Your eyes have lied to you-as they lied to you on the night of the Victory Ball. To "see" things with your eyes, as they say, is not always to see the truth. One must see with the eyes of the mind; one must employ the little cells of grey! Know, then, that tonight and on the night of the Victory Ball, you saw not six figures but five! See!"
The lights went out again. A figure bounded in front of the screen-Pierrot!
"Who is that?" demanded Poirot. "Is it Pierrot?"
"Yes," we all cried.
"Look again!"
With a swift movement the man divested himself of his loose Pierrot garb. There in the limelight stood glittering Harlequin! At the same moment there was a cry and an overturned chair.
"Curse you," snarled Davidson"s voice. "Curse you! How did you guess?"
Then came the clink of handcuffs and j.a.pp"s calm official voice. "I arrest you, Christopher Davidson-charge of murdering Viscount Cronshaw-anything you say will be used in evidence against you."
V.
It was a quarter of an hour later. A recherche little supper had appeared; and Poirot, beaming all over his face, was dispensing hospitality and answering our eager questions.
"It was all very simple. The circ.u.mstances in which the green pompon was found suggested at once that it had been torn from the costume of the murderer. I dismissed Pierrette from my mind (since it takes considerable strength to drive a table-knife home) and fixed upon Pierrot as the criminal. But Pierrot left the ball nearly two hours before the murder was committed. So he must either have returned to the ball later to kill Lord Cronshaw, or-eh bien, he must have killed him before he left! Was that impossible? Who had seen Lord Cronshaw after supper that evening? Only Mrs. Davidson, whose statement, I suspected, was a deliberate fabrication uttered with the object of accounting for the missing pompon, which, of course, she cut from her own dress to replace the one missing on her husband"s costume. But then, Harlequin, who was seen in the box at one-thirty, must have been an impersonation. For a moment, earlier, I had considered the possibility of Mr. Beltane being the guilty party. But with his elaborate costume, it was clearly impossible that he could have doubled the roles of Punchinello and Harlequin. On the other hand, to Davidson, a young man of about the same height as the murdered man and an actor by profession, the thing was simplicity itself.
"But one thing worried me. Surely a doctor could not fail to perceive the difference between a man who had been dead two hours and one who had been dead ten minutes! Eh bien, the doctor did perceive it! But he was not taken to the body and asked, "How long has this man been dead?" On the contrary, he was informed that the man had been seen alive ten minutes ago, and so he merely commented at the inquest on the abnormal stiffening of the limbs for which he was quite unable to account!
"All was now marching famously for my theory. Davidson had killed Lord Cronshaw immediately after supper, when, as you remember, he was seen to draw him back into the supper room. Then he departed with Miss Courtenay, left her at the door of her flat (instead of going in and trying to pacify her as he affirmed) and returned posthaste to the Colossus-but as Harlequin, not Pierrot-a simple transformation effected by removing his outer costume."
VI.
The uncle of the dead man leaned forward, his eyes perplexed.
"But if so, he must have come to the ball prepared to kill his victim. What earthly motive could he have had? The motive, that"s what I can"t get."
"Ah! There we come to the second tragedy-that of Miss Courtenay. There was one simple point which everyone overlooked. Miss Courtenay died of cocaine poisoning-but her supply of the drug was in the enamel box which was found on Lord Cronshaw"s body. Where, then, did she obtain the dose which killed her? Only one person could have supplied her with it-Davidson. And that explains everything. It accounts for her friendship with the Davidsons and her demand that Davidson should escort her home. Lord Cronshaw, who was almost fanatically opposed to drug-taking, discovered that she was addicted to cocaine, and suspected that Davidson supplied her with it. Davidson doubtless denied this, but Lord Cronshaw determined to get the truth from Miss Courtenay at the ball. He could forgive the wretched girl, but he would certainly have no mercy on the man who made a living by trafficking in drugs. Exposure and ruin confronted Davidson. He went to the ball determined that Cronshaw"s silence must be obtained at any cost."
"Was Coco"s death an accident, then?"
"I suspect that it was an accident cleverly engineered by Davidson. She was furiously angry with Cronshaw, first for his reproaches, and secondly for taking her cocaine from her. Davidson supplied her with more, and probably suggested her augmenting the dose as a defiance to "old Cronch!" "
"One other thing," I said. "The recess and the curtain? How did you know about them?"
"Why, mon ami, that was the most simple of all. Waiters had been in and out of that little room, so, obviously, the body could not have been lying where it was found on the floor. There must be some place in the room where it could be hidden. I deduced a curtain and a recess behind it. Davidson dragged the body there, and later, after drawing attention to himself in the box, he dragged it out again before finally leaving the Hall. It was one of his best moves. He is a clever fellow!"
But in Poirot"s green eyes I read unmistakably the unspoken remark: "But not quite so clever as Hercule Poirot!"
Four.
THE MARKET BASING MYSTERY.
I.
After all, there"s nothing like the country, is there?" said Inspector j.a.pp, breathing in heavily through his nose and out through his mouth in the most approved fashion.
Poirot and I applauded the sentiment heartily. It had been the Scotland Yard inspector"s idea that we should all go for the weekend to the little country town of Market Basing. When off duty, j.a.pp was an ardent botanist, and discoursed upon minute flowers possessed of unbelievably lengthy Latin names (somewhat strangely p.r.o.nounced) with an enthusiasm even greater than that he gave to his cases.
"n.o.body knows us, and we know n.o.body," explained j.a.pp. "That"s the idea."
This was not to prove quite the case, however, for the local constable happened to have been transferred from a village fifteen miles away where a case of a.r.s.enical poisoning had brought him into contact with the Scotland Yard man. However, his delighted recognition of the great man only enhanced j.a.pp"s sense of well-being, and as we sat down to breakfast on Sunday morning in the parlour of the village inn, with the sun shining, and tendrils of honeysuckle thrusting themselves in at the window, we were all in the best of spirits. The bacon and eggs were excellent, the coffee not so good, but pa.s.sable and boiling hot.
"This is the life," said j.a.pp. "When I retire, I shall have a little place in the country. Far from crime, like this!"
"Le crime, il est partout," remarked Poirot, helping himself to a neat square of bread, and frowning at a sparrow which had balanced itself impertinently on the windowsill.
I quoted lightly: "That rabbit has a pleasant face, His private life is a disgrace I really could not tell to you The awful things that rabbits do."
"Lord," said j.a.pp, stretching himself backward, "I believe I could manage another egg, and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon. What do you say, Captain?"
"I"m with you," I returned heartily. "What about you, Poirot?"
Poirot shook his head.
"One must not so replenish the stomach that the brain refuses to function," he remarked.
"I"ll risk replenishing the stomach a bit more," laughed j.a.pp. "I take a large size in stomachs; and by the way, you"re getting stout yourself, M. Poirot. Here, miss, eggs and bacon twice."
At that moment, however, an imposing form blocked the doorway. It was Constable Pollard.
"I hope you"ll excuse me troubling the inspector, gentlemen, but I"d be glad of his advice."
"I"m on holiday," said j.a.pp hastily. "No work for me. What is the case?"
"Gentleman up at Leigh House-shot himself-through the head."
"Well, they will do it," said j.a.pp prosaically. "Debt, or a woman, I suppose. Sorry I can"t help you, Pollard."
"The point is," said the constable, "that he can"t have shot himself. Leastways, that"s what Dr. Giles says."
j.a.pp put down his cup.
"Can"t have shot himself? What do you mean?"
"That"s what Dr. Giles says," repeated Pollard. "He says it"s plumb impossible. He"s puzzled to death, the door being locked on the inside and the windows bolted; but he sticks to it that the man couldn"t have committed suicide."
That settled it. The further supply of bacon and eggs was waved aside, and a few minutes later we were all walking as fast as we could in the direction of Leigh House, j.a.pp eagerly questioning the constable.
The name of the deceased was Walter Protheroe; he was a man of middle age and something of a recluse. He had come to Market Basing eight years ago and rented Leigh House, a rambling, dilapidated old mansion fast falling into ruin. He lived in a corner of it, his wants attended to by a housekeeper whom he had brought with him. Miss Clegg was her name, and she was a very superior woman and highly thought of in the village. Just lately Mr. Protheroe had had visitors staying with him, a Mr. and Mrs. Parker from London. This morning, unable to get a reply when she went to call her master, and finding the door locked, Miss Clegg became alarmed, and telephoned for the police and the doctor. Constable Pollard and Dr. Giles had arrived at the same moment. Their united efforts had succeeded in breaking down the oak door of his bedroom.
Mr. Protheroe was lying on the floor, shot through the head, and the pistol was clasped in his right hand. It looked a clear case of suicide.
After examining the body, however, Dr. Giles became clearly perplexed, and finally he drew the constable aside, and communicated his perplexities to him; whereupon Pollard had at once thought of j.a.pp. Leaving the doctor in charge, he had hurried down to the inn.