Ah, what a comfort that would be !
A comfort? I stared. The word seemed to be a very extraordinary one to use.
A robbery may be a thrill but it can hardly be a comfort! I protested.
Poirot shook his head energetically.
You are in error, my friend. You do not understand my meaning. A robbery would be a relief since it would dispossess my mind of the fear of something else.
Of what?
Murder, said Hercule Poirot.
Chapter 2
(Not from Captain Hastings Personal Narrative)
Mr Alexander Bonaparte Cust rose from his seat and peered near-sightedly round the shabby bedroom. His back was stiff from sitting in a cramped position and as he stretched himself to his full height an onlooker would have realized that he was, in reality, quite a tall man. His stoop and his near-sighted peering gave a delusive impression.
Going to a well-worn overcoat hanging on the back of the door, he took from the pocket a packet of cheap cigarettes and some matches. He lit a cigarette and then returned to the table at which he had been sitting. He picked up a railway guide and consulted it, then he returned to the consideration of a typewritten list of names. With a pen, he made a tick against one of the first names on the list.
It was Thursday, June 20th.
Chapter 3
Andover
I had been impressed at the time by Poirots forebodings about the anonymous letter he had received, but I must admit that the matter had passed from my mind when the 21st actually arrived and the first reminder of it came with a visit paid to my friend by Chief Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard[26]. The CID[27] inspector had been known to us for many years and he gave me a hearty welcome.
Well, I never[28], he exclaimed. If it isnt Captain Hastings back from the wilds of the what do you call it! Quite like old days seeing you here with Monsieur Poirot. Youre looking well, too. Just a little bit thin on top, eh? Well, thats what were all coming to. Im the same.
I winced slightly. I was under the impression that owing to the careful way I brushed my hair across the top of my head the thinness referred to by Japp was quite unnoticeable. However, Japp had never been remarkable for tact where I was concerned, so I put a good face upon it and agreed that we were none of us getting any younger.
Except Monsieur Poirot here, said Japp. Quite a good advertisement for a hair tonic, hed be. Face fungus sprouting finer than ever. Coming out into the limelight[29], too, in his old age. Mixed up in all the celebrated cases of the day. Train mysteries, air mysteries, high society deathsoh, hes here, there and everywhere. Never been so celebrated as since he retired.
Except Monsieur Poirot here, said Japp. Quite a good advertisement for a hair tonic, hed be. Face fungus sprouting finer than ever. Coming out into the limelight[29], too, in his old age. Mixed up in all the celebrated cases of the day. Train mysteries, air mysteries, high society deathsoh, hes here, there and everywhere. Never been so celebrated as since he retired.
I have already told Hastings that I am like the prima donna who makes always one more appearance, said Poirot, smiling.
I shouldnt wonder if you ended by detecting your own death, said Japp, laughing heartily. Thats an idea, that is. Ought to be put in a book.
It will be Hastings who will have to do that, said Poirot, twinkling at me.
Ha ha! That would be a joke, that would, laughed Japp.
I failed to see why the idea was so extremely amusing, and in any case I thought the joke was in poor taste. Poirot, poor old chap, is getting on. Jokes about his approaching demise can hardly be agreeable to him.
Perhaps my manner showed my feelings, for Japp changed the subject.
Have you heard about Monsieur Poirots anonymous letter?
I showed it to Hastings the other day, said my friend.
Of course, I exclaimed. It had quite slipped my memory. Let me see, what was the date mentioned?
The 21st, said Japp. Thats what I dropped in about. Yesterday was the 21st and just out of curiosity I rang up Andover last night. It was a hoax all right. Nothing doing. One broken shop windowkid throwing stonesand a couple of drunk and disorderlies. So just for once our Belgian friend was barking up the wrong tree[30].
I am relieved, I must confess, acknowledged Poirot.
Youd quite got the wind up[31] about it, hadnt you? said Japp affectionately. Bless you, we get dozens of letters like that coming in every day! People with nothing better to do and a bit weak in the top storey[32] sit down and write em[33]. They dont mean any harm! Just a kind of excitement.
I have indeed been foolish to take the matter so seriously, said Poirot. It is the nest of the horse that I put my nose into there.
Youre mixing up mares and wasps[34], said Japp.
Pardon?
Just a couple of proverbs. Well, I must be off. Got a little business in the next street to see toreceiving stolen jewellery. I thought Id just drop in on my way and put your mind at rest. Pity to let those grey cells function unnecessarily.
With which words and a hearty laugh, Japp departed.
He does not change much, the good Japp, eh? asked Poirot.
He looks much older, I said. Getting as grey as a badger, I added vindictively.
Poirot coughed and said:
You know, Hastings, there is a little devicemy hairdresser is a man of great ingenuityone attaches it to the scalp and brushes ones own hair over itit is not a wig, you comprehendbut
Poirot, I roared. Once and for all[35] I will have nothing to do with the beastly inventions of your confounded hairdresser. Whats the matter with the top of my head?
Nothingnothing at all.
Its not as though I were going bald.
Of course not! Of course not!
The hot summers out there naturally cause the hair to fall out a bit. I shall take back a really good hair tonic.
Précisément.[36]
And, anyway, what business is it of Japps? He always was an offensive kind of devil. And no sense of humour. The kind of man who laughs when a chair is pulled away just as a man is about to sit down.
A great many people would laugh at that.
Its utterly senseless.
From the point of view of the man about to sit, certainly it is.
Well, I said, slightly recovering my temper. (I admit that I am touchy about the thinness of my hair.) Im sorry that anonymous letter business came to nothing.
I have indeed been in the wrong[37] over that. About that letter, there was, I thought, the odour of the fish. Instead a mere stupidity. Alas, I grow old and suspicious like the blind watch-dog who growls when there is nothing there.
If Im going to co-operate with you, we must look about for some other creamy crime, I said with a laugh.
You remember your remark of the other day? If you could order a crime as one orders a dinner, what would you choose?
I fell in with[38] his humour.
Let me see now. Lets review the menu. Robbery? Forgery? No, I think not. Rather too vegetarian. It must be murderred-blooded murderwith trimmings, of course.
Naturally. The hors-dœuvres[39].
Who shall the victim beman or woman? Man, I think. Some big-wig. American millionaire. Prime Minister. Newspaper proprietor. Scene of the crimewell, whats wrong with the good old library? Nothing like it for atmosphere. As for the weaponwell, it might be a curiously twisted daggeror some blunt instrumenta carved stone idol
Poirot sighed.
Or, of course, I said, theres poisonbut thats always so technical. Or a revolver shot echoing in the night. Then there must be a beautiful girl or two
With auburn hair, murmured my friend.
Your same old joke. One of the beautiful girls, of course, must be unjustly suspectedand theres some misunderstanding between her and the young man. And then, of course, there must be some other suspectsan older womandark, dangerous typeand some friend or rival of the dead mansand a quiet secretarydark horseand a hearty man with a bluff mannerand a couple of discharged servants or gamekeepers or somethingsand a damn fool of a detective rather like Jappand wellthats about all.
That is your idea of the cream, eh?
I gather you dont agree.
Poirot looked at me sadly.
You have made there a very pretty resume of nearly all the detective stories that have ever been written.
Well, I said. What would you order?
Poirot closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. His voice came purringly from between his lips.
A very simple crime. A crime with no complications. A crime of quiet domestic life very unimpassioned very intime.
How can a crime be intime?
Supposing, murmured Poirot, that four people sit down to play bridge[40] and one, the odd man out[41], sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is dummy[42], has gone over and killed him, and intent on the play of the hand[43], the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?
Well, I said. I cant see any excitement in that!
Poirot threw me a glance of reproof.
No, because there are no curiously twisted daggers, no blackmail, no emerald that is the stolen eye of a god, no untraceable Eastern poisons. You have the melodramatic soul, Hastings. You would like, not one murder, but a series of murders.
I admit, I said, that a second murder in a book often cheers things up. If the murder happens in the first chapter, and you have to follow up everybodys alibi until the last page but onewell, it does get a bit tedious.
The telephone rang and Poirot rose to answer.
Allo[44], he said. Allo. Yes, it is Hercule Poirot speaking.
He listened for a minute or two and then I saw his face change.
His own side of the conversation was short and disjointed.
Mais oui[45]
Yes, of course
But yes, we will come
Naturally
It may be as you say
Yes, I will bring it. À tout à lheure[46] then.
He replaced the receiver and came across the room to me.
That was Japp speaking, Hastings.
Yes?
He had just got back to the Yard. There was a message from Andover
Andover? I cried excitedly.
Poirot said slowly:
An old woman of the name of Ascher who keeps a little tobacco and newspaper shop has been found murdered.
I think I felt ever so slightly damped. My interest, quickened by the sound of Andover, suffered a faint check. I had expected something fantasticout of the way[47]! The murder of an old woman who kept a little tobacco shop seemed, somehow, sordid and uninteresting.