Two

Hercule Poirot sat in the corner of a first-class carriage speeding through the English countryside.

Meditatively¹ he took from his pocket a neatly² folded telegram, which he opened and reread:

Take four-thirty from St.?Pancras instruct guard have express stopped atWhimperley.

Chevenix-Gore.

He folded up the telegram again and put it back in his pocket.

The guard on the train had been obsequious³. The gentleman was going to HamboroughClose? Oh, yes, Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore’s guests always had the express stopped atWhimperley. “A special kind of prerogative⁴, I think it is, sir.”

Since then the guard had paid two visits to the carriage—the first in order to assure thetraveller that everything would be done to keep the carriage for himself, the second to announcethat the express was running ten minutes late.

The train was due to arrive at 7:50, but it was exactly two minutes past eight when HerculePoirot descended⁵ on to the platform of the little country station and pressed the expected halfcrown into the attentive⁶ guard’s hand.

There was a whistle from the engine, and the Northern Express began to move once more. Atall chauffeur⁷ in dark green uniform stepped up to Poirot.

“Mr.?Poirot? For Hamborough Close?”

He picked up the detective’s neat valise and led the way out of the station. A big Rolls waswaiting. The chauffeur held the door open for Poirot to get in, arranged a sumptuous⁸ fur rug overhis knees, and they drove off.

After some ten minutes of cross-country driving, round sharp corners and down countrylanes, the car turned in at a wide gateway⁹ flanked with huge stone griffons.

They drove through a park and up to the house. The door of it was opened as they drew up,and a butler of imposing¹⁰ proportions showed himself upon the front step.

“Mr.?Poirot? This way, sir.”

He led the way along the hall and threw open a door halfway¹¹ along it on the right.

“Mr.?Hercule Poirot,” he announced.

The room contained a number of people in evening dress, and as Poirot walked in his quickeyes perceived at once that his appearance was not expected. The eyes of all present rested on himin unfeigned surprise.

Then a tall woman, whose dark hair was threaded with grey, made an uncertain advancetowards him.

Poirot bowed over her hand.

“My apologies, madame,” he said. “I fear that my train was late.”

“Not at all,” said Lady Chevenix-Gore vaguely¹². Her eyes still stared at him in a puzzledfashion. “Not at all, Mr.—er—I didn’t quite hear—”

“Hercule Poirot.”

He said the name clearly and distinctly.

Somewhere behind him he heard a sudden sharp intake¹³ of breath.

At the same time he realized that clearly his host could not be in the room. He murmuredgently:

“You knew I was coming, madame?”

“Oh—oh, yes . . .” Her manner was not convincing. “I think—I mean I suppose so, but I amso terribly impractical¹⁴, M.?Poirot. I forget everything.” Her tone held a melancholy¹⁵ pleasure in thefact. “I am told things. I appear to take them in—but they just pass through my brain and are gone!

Vanished! As though they had never been.”

Then, with a slight air of performing a duty long overdue¹⁶, she glanced round her vaguely andmurmured:

“I expect you know everybody.”

Though this was patently not the case, the phrase was clearly a well-worn formula by meansof which Lady Chevenix-Gore spared herself the trouble of introduction and the strain ofremembering people’s right names.

Making a supreme¹⁷ effort to meet the difficulties of this particular case, she added:

“My daughter—Ruth.”

The girl who stood before him was also tall and dark, but she was of a very different type.

Instead of the flattish, indeterminate features of Lady Chevenix-Gore, she had a well-chisellednose, slightly aquiline¹⁸, and a clear, sharp line of jaw¹⁹. Her black hair swept back from her face intoa mass of little tight curls. Her colouring was of carnation²⁰ clearness and brilliance²¹, and owed littleto makeup²². She was, so Hercule Poirot thought, one of the loveliest girls he had seen.

He recognized, too, that she had brains as well as beauty, and guessed at certain qualities ofpride and temper. Her voice, when she spoke²³, came with a slight drawl that struck him asdeliberately put on.

“How exciting,” she said, “to entertain M. Hercule Poirot! The old man arranged a littlesurprise for us, I suppose.”

“So you did not know I was coming, mademoiselle?” he said quickly.

“I hadn’t an idea of it. As it is, I must postpone²⁴ getting my autograph book until after dinner.”

The notes of a gong sounded from the hall, then the butler opened the door and announced:

“Dinner is served.”

And then, almost before the last word, “served,” had been uttered, something very curioushappened. The pontificial domestic figure became, just for one moment, a highly astonishedhuman being. . . .

The metamorphosis was so quick and the mask of the well-trained servant was back again sosoon, that anyone who had not happened to be looking would not have noticed the change. Poirot,however, had happened to be looking. He wondered.

The butler hesitated in the doorway²⁵. Though his face was again correctly expressionless, anair of tension hung about his

figure.

Lady Chevenix-Gore said uncertainly:

“Oh, dear—this is most extraordinary. Really, I—one hardly knows what to do.”

Ruth said to Poirot:

“This singular consternation²⁶, M. Poirot, is occasioned by the fact that my father, for the firsttime for at least twenty years, is late for dinner.”

“It is most extraordinary—” wailed²⁷ Lady Chevenix-Gore. “Gervase never—”

An elderly man of upright soldierly carriage came to her side. He laughed genially²⁸.

“Good old Gervase! Late at last! Upon my word, we’ll rag him over this. Elusive²⁹ collar stud,d’you think? Or is Gervase immune from our common weaknesses?”

Lady Chevenix-Gore said in a low, puzzled voice:

“But Gervase is never late.”

It was almost ludicrous, the consternation caused by this simple contretemps. And yet, toHercule Poirot, it was not ludicrous . . . Behind the consternation he felt uneasiness—perhaps evenapprehension. And he, too, found it strange that Gervase Chevenix-Gore should not appear togreet the guest he had summoned in such a mysterious manner.

In the meantime, it was clear that nobody knew quite what to do. An unprecedented³⁰ situationhad arisen with which nobody knew how to deal.

Lady Chevenix-Gore at last took the initiative, if initiative it can be called. Certainly hermanner was vague in the extreme.

“Snell,” she said, “is your master—?”

She did not finish the sentence, merely looked at the butler expectantly.

Snell, who was clearly used to his mistress’s methods of seeking information, repliedpromptly to the unspecified question:

“Sir Gervase came downstairs at five minutes to eight, m’lady, and went straight to thestudy.”

“Oh, I see—” Her mouth remained open, her eyes seemed far away. “You don’t think—Imean—he heard the gong?”

“I think he must have done so, m’lady, the gong being immediately outside the study door. Idid not, of course, know that Sir Gervase was still in the study, otherwise I should have announcedto him that dinner was ready. Shall I do so now, m’lady?”

Lady Chevenix-Gore seized on the suggestion with manifest relief.

“Oh, thank you, Snell. Yes, please do. Yes, certainly.”

She said, as the butler left the room:

“Snell is such a treasure. I rely on him absolutely. I really don’t know what I should dowithout Snell.”

Somebody murmured a sympathetic assent³¹, but nobody spoke. Hercule Poirot, watching thatroom full of people with suddenly sharpened attention, had an idea that one and all were in a stateof tension. His eyes ran quickly over them, tabulating³² them roughly. Two elderly men, thesoldierly one who had spoken just now, and a thin, spare, grey-haired man with closely pinchedlegal lips. Two youngish men—very different in type from each other. One with a moustache andan air of modest arrogance³³, he guessed to be possibly Sir Gervase’s nephew, the one in the Blues³⁴.

The other, with sleek³⁵ brushed-back hair and a rather obvious style of good looks, he put down asof a definitely inferior social class. There was a small middle-aged³⁶ woman with pince-nez andintelligent eyes, and there was a girl with flaming red hair.

Snell appeared at the door. His manner was perfect, but once again the veneer³⁷ of theimpersonal butler showed signs of the perturbed³⁸ human being beneath the surface.

“Excuse me, m’lady, the study door is locked.”

“Locked?”

It was a man’s voice—young, alert, with a ring of excitement in it. It was the good-lookingyoung man with the slicked-back hair who had spoken. He went on, hurrying forward:

“Shall I go and see—?”

But very quietly Hercule Poirot took command. He did it so naturally that no one thought itodd that this stranger, who had just arrived, should suddenly assume charge of the situation.

“Come,” he said. “Let us go to the study.”

He continued, speaking to Snell:

“Lead the way, if you please.”

Snell obeyed. Poirot followed close behind him, and, like a flock of sheep, everyone elsefollowed.

Snell led the way through the big hall, past the great branching curve of the staircase, past anenormous grandfather clock and a recess³⁹ in which stood a gong, along a narrow passage whichended in a door.

Here Poirot passed Snell and gently tried the handle. It turned, but the door did not open.

Poirot rapped gently with his knuckles⁴⁰ on the panel of the door. He rapped louder and louder.

Then, suddenly desisting, he dropped to his knees and applied⁴¹ his eye to the keyhole.

Slowly he rose to his feet and looked round. His face was stern.

“Gentlemen!” he said. “This door must be broken open immediately!”

Under his direction the two young men, who were both tall and powerfully built, attacked thedoor. It was no easy matter. The doors of Hamborough Close were solidly built.

At last, however, the lock gave, and the door swung inwards with a noise of splintering,rending wood.

And then, for a moment, everyone stood still, huddled⁴² in the doorway looking at the sceneinside. The lights were on. Along the left-hand wall was a big writing table, a massive affair ofsolid mahogany. Sitting, not at the table, but sideways to it, so that his back was directly towardsthem, was a big man slouched down in a chair. His head and the upper part of his body hung downover the right side of the chair, and his right hand and arm hung limply down. Just below it on thecarpet was a small, gleaming pistol. . . .

There was no need of speculation⁴³. The picture was clear. Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore hadshot himself.

 

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