Eight

WHICH OF THEM?

Battle looked from one face to another. Only one person answered his question. Mrs. Oliver, neveraverse to giving her views, rushed into speech.

“The girl or the doctor,” she said.

Battle looked questioningly at the other two. But both the men were unwilling¹ to make apronouncement. Race shook his head. Poirot carefully smoothed his crumpled² bridge scores.

“One of ’em did it,” said Battle musingly³. “One of ’em’s lying like hell. But which? It’s noteasy—no, it’s not easy.”

He was silent for a minute or two, then he said:

“If we’re to go by what they say, the medico thinks Despard did it, Despard thinks the medicodid it, the girl thinks Mrs. Lorrimer did it — and Mrs. Lorrimer won’t say! Nothing veryilluminating there.”

“Perhaps not,” said Poirot.

Battle shot him a quick glance.

“You think there is?”

Poirot waved an airy hand.

“A nuance—nothing more! Nothing to go upon.”

Battle continued:

“You two gentlemen won’t say what you think—”

“No evidence,” said Race curtly⁴.

“Oh, you men!” sighed Mrs. Oliver, despising such reticence⁵.

“Let’s look at the rough possibilities,” said Battle. He considered a minute. “I put the doctorfirst, I think. Specious⁷ sort of customer. Would know the right spot to shove the dagger⁸ in. Butthere’s not much more than that to it. Then take Despard. There’s a man with any amount ofnerve. A man accustomed to quick decisions and a man who’s quite at home doing dangerousthings. Mrs. Lorrmier? She’s got any amount of nerve, too, and she’s the sort of woman whomight have a secret in her life. She looks as though she’s known trouble. On the other hand, I’dsay she’s what I call a high-principled woman—sort of woman who might be headmistress of agirls’ school. It isn’t easy to think of her sticking a knife into anyone. In fact, I don’t think she did.

And lastly, there’s little Miss Meredith. We don’t know anything about her. She seems an ordinarygood-looking, rather shy girl. But one doesn’t know, as I say, anything about her.”

“We know that Shaitana believed she had committed murder,” said Poirot.

“The angelic face masking the demon,” mused⁹ Mrs. Oliver.

“This getting us anywhere, Battle?” asked Colonel Race.

“Unprofitable speculation¹⁰, you think, sir? Well, there’s bound to be speculation in a case likethis.”

“Isn’t it better to find out something about these people?”

Battle smiled.

“Oh, we shall be hard at work on that. I think you could help us there.”

“Certainly. How?”

“As regards Major Despard. He’s been abroad a lot—in South America, in East Africa, in SouthAfrica—you’ve means of knowing those parts. You could get information about him.”

Race nodded.

“It shall be done. I’ll get all available data.”

“Oh,” cried Mrs. Oliver. “I’ve got a plan. There are four of us—four sleuths, as you might say—and four of them! How would it be if we each took one. Backed our fancy! Colonel Race takesMajor Despard, Superintendent¹¹ Battle takes Dr. Roberts, I’ll take Anne Meredith, and M. Poirottakes Mrs. Lorrimer. Each of us to follow our own line!”

Superintendent Battle shook his head decisively.

“Couldn’t quite do that, Mrs. Oliver. That is official, you see. I’m in charge. I’ve got toinvestigate all lines. Besides, it’s all very well to say back your fancy. Two of us might want toback the same horse! Colonel Race hasn’t said he suspects Major Despard. And M. Poirot mayn’tbe putting his money on Mrs. Lorrimer.”

Mrs. Oliver sighed.

“It was such a good plan,” she sighed regretfully. “So neat.” Then she cheered up a little. “Butyou don’t mind me doing a little investigating on my own, do you?”

“No,” said Superintendent Battle slowly. “I can’t say I object to that. In fact, it’s out of mypower to object. Having been at this party tonight, you’re naturally free to do anything your owncuriosity or interest suggests. But I’d like to point out to you, Mrs. Oliver, that you’d better be alittle careful.”

“Discretion itself,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I shan’t breathe a word of—of anything—” she ended alittle lamely¹².

“I do not think that was quite Superintendent Battle’s meaning,” said Hercule Poirot. “He meantthat you will be dealing¹³ with a person who has already, to the best of our belief, killed twice. Aperson, therefore, who will not hesitate to kill a third time—if he considers it necessary.”

Mrs. Oliver looked at him thoughtfully. Then she smiled—an agreeable engaging smile, ratherlike that of an impudent¹⁴ small child.

“YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED,” she quoted. “Thank you, M. Poirot. I’ll watch my step. ButI’m not going to be out of this.”

Poirot bowed gracefully¹⁵.

“Permit me to say—you are the sport, madame.”

“I presume,” said Mrs. Oliver, sitting up very straight and speaking in a businesslike committee-meeting manner, “that all information we receive will be pooled—that is that we will not keep anyknowledge to ourselves. Our own deductions¹⁶ and impressions, of course, we are entitled to keepup our sleeves.”

Superintendent Battle sighed.

“This isn’t a detective story, Mrs. Oliver,” he said.

Race said:

“Naturally, all information must be handed over to the police.”

Having said this in his most “Orderly Room” voice, he added with a slight twinkle in his eye:

“I’m sure you’ll play fair, Mrs. Oliver—the stained glove, the fingerprint¹⁷ on the tooth glass, thefragment of burnt paper—you’ll turn them over to Battle here.”

“You may laugh,” said Mrs. Oliver. “But a woman’s intuition—”

She nodded her head with decision.

Race rose to his feet.

“I’ll have Despard looked up for you. It may take a little time. Anything else I can do?”

“I don’t think so, thank you, sir. You’ve no hints? I’d value anything of that kind.”

“H’m. Well—I’d keep a special lookout¹⁸ for shooting or poison or accidents, but I expect you’reonto that already.”

“I’d made a note of that—yes, sir.”

“Good man, Battle. You don’t need me to teach you your job. Goodnight, Mrs. Oliver.

Goodnight, M. Poirot.”

And with a final nod to Battle, Colonel Race left the room.

“Who is he?” asked Mrs. Oliver.

“Very fine Army record,” said Battle. “Travelled a lot, too. Not many parts of the world hedoesn’t know about.”

“Secret Service, I suppose,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You can’t tell me so—I know; but he wouldn’thave been asked otherwise this evening. The four murderers and the four sleuths—Scotland Yard.

Secret Service. Private. Fiction. A clever idea.”

Poirot shook his head.

“You are in error, madame. It was a very stupid idea. The tiger was alarmed—and the tigersprang.”

“The tiger? Why the tiger?”

“By the tiger I mean the murderer,” said Poirot.

Battle said bluntly:

“What’s your idea of the right line to take, M. Poirot? That’s one question. And I’d also like toknow what you think of the psychology¹⁹ of these four people. You’re rather hot on that.”

Still smoothing his bridge scores, Poirot said:

“You are right—psychology is very important. We know the kind of murder that has beencommitted, the way it was committed. If we have a person who from the psychological point ofview could not have committed that particular type of murder, then we can dismiss that personfrom our calculations. We know something about these people. We have our own impression ofthem, we know the line that each has elected to take, and we know something about their mindsand their characters from what we have learned about them as card players and from the study oftheir handwriting and of these scores. But alas²⁰! it is not too easy to give a definite pronouncement.

This murder required audacity²¹ and nerve—a person who was willing to take a risk. Well, we haveDr. Roberts—a bluffer—an overcaller of his hand—a man with complete confidence in his ownpowers to pull off a risky²² thing. His psychology fits very well with the crime. One might say, then,that that automatically wipes out Miss Meredith. She is timid, frightened of overcalling her hand,careful, economical, prudent²³ and lacking in self-confidence. The last type of person to carry out abold and risky coup²⁴. But a timid person will murder out of fear. A frightened nervous person canbe made desperate, can turn like a rat at bay if driven into a corner. If Miss Meredith hadcommitted a crime in the past, and if she believed that Mr. Shaitana knew the circumstances ofthat crime and was about to deliver her up to justice she would be wild with terror—she wouldstick at nothing to save herself. It would be the same result, though brought about through adifferent reaction—not cool nerve and daring, but desperate panic. Then take Major Despard—acool, resourceful man willing to try a long shot if he believed it absolutely necessary. He wouldweigh the pros²⁵ and cons⁶ and might decide that there was a sporting chance in his favour—and heis the type of man to prefer action to inaction, and a man who would never shrink from taking thedangerous way if he believed there was a reasonable chance of success. Finally, there is Mrs.

Lorrimer, an elderly woman, but a woman in full possession of her wits and faculties²⁶. A coolwoman. A woman with a mathematical brain. She has probably the best brain of the four. I confessthat if Mrs. Lorrimer committed a crime, I should expect it to be a premeditated crime. I can seeher planning a crime slowly and carefully, making sure that there were no flaws in her scheme. Forthat reason she seems to me slightly more unlikely than the other three. She is, however, the mostdominating personality, and whatever she undertook she would probably carry through without aflaw. She is a thoroughly²⁷ efficient woman.”

He paused:

“So you see, that does not help us much. No—there is only one way in this crime. We must goback into the past.”

Battle sighed.

“You’ve said it,” he murmured.

“In the opinion of Mr. Shaitana, each of those four people had committed murder. Had heevidence? Or was it a guess? We cannot tell. It is unlikely, I think, that he could have had actualevidence in all four cases—”

“I agree with you there,” said Battle, nodding his head. “That would be a bit too much of acoincidence.”

“I suggest that it might come about this way—murder or a certain form of murder is mentioned,and Mr. Shaitana surprised a look on someone’s face. He was very quick—very sensitive toexpression. It amuses him to experiment—to probe gently in the course of apparently²⁸ aimlessconversation—he is alert to notice a wince²⁹, a reservation, a desire to turn the conversation. Oh, itis easily done. If you suspect a certain secret, nothing is easier than to confirm your suspicion.

Every time a word goes home you notice it—if you are watching for such a thing.”

“It’s the sort of game that would have amused our late friend,” said Battle, nodding.

“We may assume, then, that such was the procedure in one or more cases. He may have comeacross a piece of actual evidence in another case and followed it up. I doubt whether, in any of thecases, he had sufficient actual knowledge with which, for instance, to have gone to the police.”

“Or it mayn’t have been the kind of case,” said Battle. “Often enough there’s a fishy³⁰ business—we suspect foul³¹ play, but we can’t ever prove it. Anyway, the course is clear. We’ve got to gothrough the records of all these people—and note any deaths that may be significant. I expect younoticed, just as the Colonel did, what Shaitana said at dinner.”

“The black angel,” murmured Mrs. Oliver.

“A neat little reference to poison, to accident, to a doctor’s opportunities, to shooting accidents.

I shouldn’t be surprised if he signed his death warrant when he said those words.”

“It was a nasty sort of pause,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“Yes,” said Poirot. “Those words went home to one person at least—that person probablythought that Shaitana knew far more than he really did. That listener thought that they were theprelude to the end—that the party was a dramatic entertainment arranged by Shaitana leading upto arrest for murder as its climax³²! Yes, as you say, he signed his death warrant when he baited hisguests with those words.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“This will be a long business,” said Battle with a sigh. “We can’t find out all we want in amoment—and we’ve got to be careful. We don’t want any of the four to suspect what we’re doing.

All our questioning and so on must seem to have to do with this murder. There mustn’t be asuspicion that we’ve got any idea of the motive³³ for the crime. And the devil of it is we’ve got tocheck up on four possible murders in the past, not one.”

Poirot demurred³⁴.

“Our friend Mr. Shaitana was not infallible,” he said. “He may—it is just possible—have madea mistake.”

“About all four?”

“No—he was more intelligent than that.”

“Call it fifty-fifty?”

“Not even that. For me, I say one in four.”

“One innocent and three guilty? That’s bad enough. And the devil of it is, even if we get at thetruth it mayn’t help us. Even if somebody did push their great-aunts down the stairs in 1912, itwon’t be much use to us in 1937.”

“Yes, yes, it will be of use to us.” Poirot encouraged him. “You know that. You know it as wellas I do.”

Battle nodded slowly.

“I know what you mean,” he said. “Same hallmark.”

“Do you mean,” said Mrs. Oliver, “that the former victim will have been stabbed with a daggertoo?”

“Not quite as crude as that, Mrs. Oliver,” said Battle turning to her. “But I don’t doubt it will beessentially the same type of crime. The details may be different, but the essentials underlying³⁵ themwill be the same. It’s odd, but a criminal gives himself away every time by that.”

“Man is an unoriginal animal,” said Hercule Poirot.

“Women,” said Mrs. Oliver, “are capable of infinite variation. I should never commit the sametype of murder twice running.”

“Don’t you ever write the same plot twice running?” asked Battle.

“The Lotus Murder,” murmured Poirot. “The Clue of the Candle Wax.”

Mrs. Oliver turned on him, her eyes beaming appreciation³⁶.

“That’s clever of you—that’s really very clever of you. Because, of course, those two areexactly the same plot—but nobody else has seen it. One is stolen papers at an informal weekendparty of the Cabinet, and the other’s a murder in Borneo in a rubber planter’s bungalow³⁷.”

“But the essential point on which the story turns is the same,” said Poirot. “One of your neatesttricks. The rubber planter arranges his own murder—the Cabinet Minister arranges the robbery ofhis own papers. At the last minute the third person steps in and turns deception³⁸ into reality.”

“I enjoyed your last, Mrs. Oliver,” said Superintendent Battle kindly³⁹. “The one where all theChief Constables⁴⁰ were shot simultaneously⁴¹. You just slipped up once or twice on official details. Iknow you’re keen on accuracy, so I wondered if—”

Mrs. Oliver interrupted him.

“As a matter of fact I don’t care two pins about accuracy. Who is accurate? Nobody nowadays.

If a reporter writes that a beautiful girl of twenty-two dies by turning on the gas after looking outover the sea and kissing her favourite labrador, Bob, good-bye, does anybody make a fuss becausethe girl was twenty-six, the room faced inland, and the dog was a Sealyham terrier called Bonnie?

If a journalist can do that sort of thing, I don’t see that it matters if I mix up police ranks and say arevolver when I mean an automatic, and a dictograph when I mean a phonograph, and use a poisonthat just allows you to gasp⁴² one dying sentence and no more. What really matters is plenty ofbodies! If the thing’s getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tellsomething—and then they’re killed first. That always goes down well. It comes in all my books—camouflaged different ways, of course. And people like untraceable poisons, and idiotic⁴³ policeinspectors and girls tied up in cellars with sewer⁴⁴ gas or water pouring in (such a troublesome wayof killing⁴⁵ anyone really) and a hero who can dispose of anything from three to seven villainssingle-handed. I’ve written thirty-two books by now—and of course they’re all exactly the samereally, as M. Poirot seems to have noticed—but nobody else has—and I only regret one thing—making my detective a Finn. I don’t really know anything about Finns and I’m always gettingletters from Finland pointing out something impossible that he’s said or done. They seem to readdetective stories a good deal in Finland. I suppose it’s the long winters with no daylight. InBulgaria and Romania they don’t seem to read at all. I’d have done better to have made him aBulgar.”

She broke off.

“I’m so sorry. I’m talking shop. And this is a real murder.” Her face lit up. “What a good idea itwould be if none of them had murdered him. If he’d asked them all, and then quietly committedsuicide just for the fun of making a schemozzle.”

Poirot nodded approvingly.

“An admirable solution. So neat. So ironic⁴⁶. But, alas, Mr. Shaitana was not that sort of man. Hewas very fond of life.”

“I don’t think he was really a nice man,” said Mrs. Oliver slowly.

“He was not nice, no,” said Poirot. “But he was alive—and now he is dead, and as I told himonce, I have a bourgeois⁴⁷ attitude to murder, I disapprove⁴⁸ of it.”

He added softly:

“And so—I am prepared to go inside the tiger’s cage….”

 

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