Three

ANDOVER

I had been impressed at the time by Poirot’s forebodings about the anonymous¹ letter he hadreceived, but I must admit that the matter had passed from my mind when the 21st actually arrivedand the first reminder² of it came with a visit paid to my friend by Chief Inspector³ Japp of ScotlandYard. The CID inspector had been known to us for many years and he gave me a hearty⁴ welcome.

“Well, I never,” he exclaimed. “If it isn’t Captain Hastings back from the wilds of the what doyou call it! Quite like old days seeing you here with Monsieur Poirot. You’re looking well, too.

Just a little bit thin on top, eh? Well, that’s what we’re all coming to. I’m the same.”

I winced⁵ slightly. I was under the impression that owing to the careful way I brushed my hairacross the top of my head the thinness referred to by Japp was quite unnoticeable. However, Japphad never been remarkable⁶ for tact⁷ where I was concerned, so I put a good face upon it and agreedthat we were none of us getting any younger.

“Except Monsieur Poirot here,” said Japp. “Quite a good advertisement for a hair tonic⁸, he’d be.

Face fungus⁹ sprouting¹⁰ finer than ever. Coming out into the limelight, too, in his old age. Mixed upin all the celebrated¹¹ cases of the day. Train mysteries, air mysteries, high society deaths—oh, he’shere, there and everywhere. Never been so celebrated as since he retired¹².”

“I have already told Hastings that I am like the prima donna who makes always one moreappearance,” said Poirot, smiling.

“I shouldn’t wonder if you ended by detecting your own death,” said Japp, laughing heartily¹³.

“That’s 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 inpoor taste. Poirot, poor old chap, is getting on. Jokes about his approaching demise¹⁴ can hardly beagreeable to him.

Perhaps my manner showed my feelings, for Japp changed the subject.

“Have you heard about Monsieur Poirot’s 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 datementioned?”

“The 21st,” said Japp. “That’s what I dropped in about. Yesterday was the 21st and just out ofcuriosity I rang up Andover last night. It was a hoax¹⁵ all right. Nothing doing. One broken shopwindow—kid throwing stones—and a couple of drunk and disorderlies. So just for once ourBelgian friend was barking up the wrong tree.”

“I am relieved, I must confess,” acknowledged Poirot.

“You’d quite got the wind up about it, hadn’t you?” said Japp affectionately. “Bless you, we getdozens of letters like that coming in every day! People with nothing better to do and a bit weak inthe top storey sit down and write ’em. They don’t 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 thehorse that I put my nose into there.”

“You’re mixing up mares and wasps,” said Japp.

“Pardon?”

“Just a couple of proverbs. Well, I must be off. Got a little business in the next street to see to—receiving stolen jewellery. I thought I’d just drop in on my way and put your mind at rest. Pity tolet 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 vindictively¹⁶.

Poirot coughed and said:

“You know, Hastings, there is a little device—my hairdresser is a man of great ingenuity—oneattaches it to the scalp and brushes one’s own hair over it—it is not a wig¹⁷, you comprehend—but—”

“Poirot,” I roared. “Once and for all I will have nothing to do with the beastly inventions ofyour confounded hairdresser. What’s the matter with the top of my head?”

“Nothing—nothing at all.”

“It’s 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 reallygood hair tonic.”

“Précisément.”

“And, anyway, what business is it of Japp’s? He always was an offensive kind of devil. And nosense of humour. The kind of man who laughs when a chair is pulled away just as a man is aboutto sit down.”

“A great many people would laugh at that.”

“It’s utterly¹⁸ 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 touchy¹⁹ about the thinness ofmy hair.) “I’m sorry that anonymous letter business came to nothing.”

“I have indeed been in the wrong over that. About that letter, there was, I thought, the odour ofthe fish. Instead a mere²⁰ stupidity. Alas²¹, I grow old and suspicious like the blind watchdog whogrowls when there is nothing there.”

“If I’m going to cooperate with you, we must look about for some other ‘creamy’ crime,” I saidwith a laugh.

“You remember your remark of the other day? If you could order a crime as one orders adinner, what would you choose?”

I fell in with his humour.

“Let me see now. Let’s review the menu. Robbery? Forgery²²? No, I think not. Rather toovegetarian. It must be murder—red-blooded murder—with trimmings, of course.”

“Naturally. The hors d’oeuvres.”

“Who shall the victim be—man or woman? Man, I think. Some bigwig. American millionaire.

Prime Minister. Newspaper proprietor²³. Scene of the crime—well, what’s wrong with the good oldlibrary? Nothing like it for atmosphere. As for the weapon—well, it might be a curiously²⁴ twisteddagger—or some blunt instrument—a carved stone idol—”

Poirot sighed.

“Or, of course,” I said, “there’s poison—but that’s always so technical. Or a revolver shotechoing 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 suspected—andthere’s some misunderstanding between her and the young man. And then, of course, there mustbe some other suspects—an older woman—dark, dangerous type—and some friend or rival of thedead man’s—and a quiet secretary—dark horse—and a hearty man with a bluff²⁵ manner—and acouple of discharged servants or gamekeepers or somethings—and a damn fool of a detectiverather like Japp—and well—that’s about all.”

“That is your idea of the cream, eh?”

“I gather you don’t agree.”

Poirot looked at me sadly.

“You have made there a very pretty résumé of nearly all the detective stories that have everbeen written.”

“Well,” I said. “What would you order?”

Poirot closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. His voice came purringly from between hislips.

“A very simple crime. A crime with no complications. A crime of quiet domestic life…veryunimpassioned—very intime.”

“How can a crime be intime?”

“Supposing,” murmured Poirot, “that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd manout, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One ofthe four, while he is dummy²⁶, has gone over and killed him, and intent on the play of the hand, theother three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?”

“Well,” I said. “I can’t see any excitement in that!”

Poirot threw me a glance of reproof²⁷.

“No, because there are no curiously twisted daggers²⁸, no blackmail²⁹, no emerald that is the stoleneye of a god, no untraceable Eastern poisons. You have the melodramatic soul, Hastings. Youwould 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 happensin the first chapter, and you have to follow up everybody’s alibi³⁰ until the last page but one—well,it does get a bit tedious.”

The telephone rang and Poirot rose to answer.

“’Allo,” 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….”

“Yes, of course….”

“But yes, we will come….”

“Naturally….”

“It may be as you say….”

“Yes, I will bring it. A tout³¹ à l’heure 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 beenfound murdered.”

I think I felt ever so slightly damped. My interest, quickened by the sound of Andover, suffereda faint check. I had expected something fantastic—out of the way! The murder of an old womanwho kept a little tobacco shop seemed, somehow, sordid³² and uninteresting.

Poirot continued in the same slow, grave voice:

“The Andover police believe they can put their hand on the man who did it—”

I felt a second throb³³ of disappointment.

“It seems the woman was on bad terms with her husband. He drinks and is by way of beingrather a nasty customer. He’s threatened to take her life more than once.

“Nevertheless,” continued Poirot, “in view of what has happened, the police there would like tohave another look at the anonymous letter I received. I have said that you and I will go down toAndover at once.”

My spirits revived a little. After all, sordid as this crime seemed to be, it was a crime, and it wasa long time since I had had any association with crime and criminals.

I hardly listened to the next words Poirot said. But they were to come back to me withsignificance later.

“This is the beginning,” said Hercule Poirot.

 

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