Five

“Sit down, Snell,” said Major Riddle¹ in a friendly tone. “I’ve a good many questions to ask you,and I expect this has been a shock to you.”

“Oh, it has indeed, sir. Thank you, sir.” Snell sat down with such a discreet² air that it waspractically the same as though he had remained on his feet.

“Been here a good long time, haven’t you?”

“Sixteen years, sir, ever since Sir Gervase—er—settled down, so to speak.”

“Ah, yes, of course, your master was a great traveller in his day.”

“Yes, sir. He went on an expedition to the Pole and many other interesting places.”

“Now, Snell, can you tell me when you last saw your master this evening?”

“I was in the dining room, sir, seeing that the table arrangements were all complete. The doorinto the hall was open, and I saw Sir Gervase come down the stairs, cross the hall and go along thepassage to the study.”

“That was at what time?”

“Just before eight o’clock. It might have been as much as five minutes before eight.”

“And that was the last you saw of him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you hear a shot?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, sir; but of course I had no idea at the time—how should I have had?”

“What did you think it was?”

“I thought it was a car, sir. The road runs quite near the park wall. Or it might have been ashot in the woods—a poacher, perhaps. I never dreamed—”

Major Riddle cut him short.

“What time was that?”

“It was exactly eight minutes past eight, sir.”

The chief constable³ said sharply:

“How is it you can fix the time to a minute?”

“That’s easy, sir. I had just sounded the first going.”

“The first gong?”

“Yes, sir. By Sir Gervase’s orders, a gong was always to be sounded seven minutes beforethe actual dinner gong. Very particular he was, sir, that everyone should be assembled ready in thedrawing room when the second gong went. As soon as I had sounded the second gong, I went tothe drawing room and announced dinner, and everyone went in.”

“I begin to understand,” said Hercule Poirot, “why you looked so surprised when youannounced dinner this evening. It was usual for Sir Gervase to be in the drawing room?”

“I’d never known him not be there before, sir. It was quite a shock. I little thought—”

Again Major Riddle interrupted adroitly⁴:

“And were the others also usually there?”

Snell coughed.

“Anyone who was late for dinner, sir, was never asked to the house again.”

“H’m, very drastic.”

“Sir Gervase, sir, employed a chef who was formerly⁵ with the Emperor of Moravia. He usedto say, sir, that dinner was as important as a religious ritual.”

“And what about his own family?”

“Lady Chevenix-Gore was always very particular not to upset him, sir, and even Miss?Ruthdared not be late for dinner.”

“Interesting,” murmured Hercule Poirot.

“I see,” said Riddle. “So, dinner being at a quarter past eight, you sounded the first gong ateight minutes past as usual?”

“That is so, sir—but it wasn’t as usual. Dinner was usually at eight. Sir Gervase gave ordersthat dinner was to be a quarter of an hour later this evening, as he was expecting a gentleman bythe late train.”

Snell made a little bow towards Poirot as he spoke⁶.

“When your master went to the study, did he look upset or worried in any way?”

“I could not say, sir. It was too far for me to judge of his expression. I just noticed him, thatwas all.”

“Was he left alone when he went to the study?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did anyone go to the study after that?”

“I could not say, sir. I went to the butler’s pantry after that, and was there until I sounded thefirst gong at eight minutes past eight.”

“That was when you heard the shot?”

“Yes, sir.”

Poirot gently interposed a question.

“There were others, I think, who also heard the shot?”

“Yes, sir. Mr.?Hugo and Miss?Cardwell. And Miss?Lingard.”

“These people were also in the hall?”

“Miss?Lingard came out from the drawing room, and Miss Cardwell and Mr.?Hugo were justcoming down the stairs.”

Poirot asked:

“Was there any conversation about the matter?”

“Well, sir, Mr.?Hugo asked if there was champagne⁷ for dinner. I told him that sherry, hockand burgundy were being served.”

“He thought it was a champagne cork⁸?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But nobody took it seriously?”

“Oh, no, sir. They all went into the drawing room talking and laughing.”

“Where were the other members of the household?”

“I could not say, sir.”

Major Riddle said:

“Do you know anything about this pistol?” He held it out as he spoke.

“Oh, yes, sir. That belonged to Sir Gervase. He always kept it in the drawer of his desk inhere.”

“Was it usually loaded?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

Major Riddle laid down the pistol and cleared his throat.

“Now, Snell, I’m going to ask you a rather important question. I hope you will answer it astruthfully as you can. Do you know of any reason which might lead your master to commitsuicide?”

“No, sir. I know of nothing.”

“Sir Gervase had not been odd in his manner of late? Not depressed⁹? Or worried?”

Snell coughed apologetically.

“You’ll excuse my saying it, sir, but Sir Gervase was always what might have seemed tostrangers a little odd in his manner. He was a highly original gentleman, sir.”

“Yes, yes, I am quite aware of that.”

“Outsiders, sir, did not always Understand Sir Gervase.”

Snell gave the phrase a definite value of capital letter.

“I know. I know. But there was nothing that you would have called unusual?”

The butler hesitated.

“I think, sir, that Sir Gervase was worried about something,” he said at last.

“Worried and depressed?”

“I shouldn’t say depressed, sir. But worried, yes.”

“Have you any idea of the cause of that worry?”

“No, sir.”

“Was it connected with any particular person, for instance?”

“I could not say at all, sir. In any case, it is only an impression of mine.”

Poirot spoke again.

“You were surprised at his suicide?”

“Very surprised, sir. It has been a terrible shock to me. I never dreamed of such a thing.”

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

Riddle glanced at him, then he said:

“Well, Snell, I think that is all we want to ask you. You are quite sure that there is nothingelse you can tell us—no unusual incident, for instance, that has happened in the last few days?”

The butler, rising to his feet, shook his head.

“There is nothing, sir, nothing whatever.”

“Then you can go.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Moving towards the doorway¹⁰, Snell drew back and stood aside. Lady Chevenix-Gore floatedinto the room.

She was wearing an oriental-looking garment of purple and orange silk wound tightly roundher body. Her face was serene¹¹ and her manner collected and calm.

“Lady Chevenix-Gore.” Major Riddle sprang to his feet.

She said:

“They told me you would like to talk to me, so I came.”

“Shall we go into another room? This must be painful for you in the extreme.”

Lady Chevenix-Gore shook her head and sat down on one of the Chippendale chairs. Shemurmured:

“Oh, no, what does it matter?”

“It is very good of you, Lady Chevenix-Gore, to put your feelings aside. I know what afrightful shock this must have

been?and—”

She interrupted him.

“It was rather a shock at first,” she admitted. Her tone was easy and conversational¹². “Butthere is no such thing as Death, really, you know, only Change.” She added: “As a matter of fact,Gervase is standing¹³ just behind your left shoulder now. I can see him distinctly.”

Major Riddle’s left shoulder twitched¹⁴ slightly. He looked at Lady Chevenix-Gore ratherdoubtfully.

She smiled at him, a vague, happy smile.

“You don’t believe, of course! So few people will. To me, the spirit world is quite as real asthis one. But please ask me anything you like, and don’t worry about distressing¹⁵ me. I’m not in theleast distressed¹⁶. Everything, you see, is Fate. One cannot escape one’s Karma. It all fits in—themirror—everything.”

“The mirror, madame?” asked Poirot.

She nodded her head towards it vaguely¹⁷.

“Yes. It’s splintered, you see. A symbol! You know Tennyson’s poem? I used to read it as agirl—though, of course, I didn’t realise then the esoteric side of it. ‘The mirror cracked from sideto side. “The curse is come upon me!” cried the Lady of Shalott.’ That’s what happened toGervase. The Curse came upon him suddenly. I think, you know, most very old families have acurse . . . the mirror cracked. He knew that he was doomed¹⁸! The Curse had come!”

“But, madame, it was not a curse that cracked the mirror—it was a bullet!”

Lady Chevenix-Gore said, still in the same sweet vague manner:

“It’s all the same thing, really . . . It was Fate.”

“But your husband shot himself.”

Lady Chevenix-Gore smiled indulgently.

“He shouldn’t have done that, of course. But Gervase was always impatient. He could neverwait. His hour had come—he went forward to meet it. It’s all so simple, really.”

Major Riddle, clearing his throat in exasperation¹⁹, said sharply:

“Then you weren’t surprised at your husband’s taking his own life? Had you been expectingsuch a thing to happen?”

“Oh, no.” Her eyes opened wide. “One can’t always foresee the future. Gervase, of course,was a very strange man, a very unusual man. He was quite unlike anyone else. He was one of theGreat Ones born again. I’ve known that for some time. I think he knew it himself. He found it veryhard to conform to the silly little standards of the everyday world.” She added, looking over MajorRiddle’s shoulder, “He’s smiling now. He’s thinking how foolish we all are. So we are really. Justlike children. Pretending that life is real and that it matters . . . Life is only one of the GreatIllusions.”

Feeling that he was fighting a losing battle, Major Riddle asked desperately²⁰:

“You can’t help us at all as to why your husband should have taken his life?”

She shrugged²¹ her thin shoulders.

“Forces move us—they move us . . . You cannot understand. You move only on the materialplane.”

Poirot coughed.

“Talking of the material plane, have you any idea, madame, as to how your husband has lefthis money?”

“Money?” she stared at him. “I never think of money.”

Her tone was disdainful.

Poirot switched to another point.

“At what time did you come downstairs to dinner tonight?”

“Time? What is Time? Infinite, that is the answer. Time is infinite.”

Poirot murmured:

“But your husband, madame, was rather particular about time—especially, so I have beentold, as regards the dinner hour.”

“Dear Gervase,” she smiled indulgently. “He was very foolish about that. But it made himhappy. So we were never late.”

“Were you in the drawing room, madame, when the first gong went?”

“No, I was in my room then.”

“Do you remember who was in the drawing room when you did come down?”

“Nearly everybody, I think,” said Lady Chevenix-Gore vaguely. “Does it matter?”

“Possibly not,” admitted Poirot. “Then there is something else. Did your husband ever tellyou that he suspected he was being robbed?”

Lady Chevenix-Gore did not seem much interested in the question.

“Robbed? No, I don’t think so.”

“Robbed, swindled—victimized in some way—?”

“No—no—I don’t think so . . . Gervase would have been very angry if anybody had dared todo anything like that.”

“At any rate he said nothing about it to you?”

“No—no.” Lady Chevenix-Gore shook her head, still without much real interest. “I shouldhave remembered. . . .”

“When did you last see your husband alive?”

“He looked in, as usual, on his way downstairs before dinner. My maid was there. He justsaid he was going down.”

“What has he talked about most in the last few weeks?”

“Oh, the family history. He was getting on so well with it. He found that funny old thing,Miss?Lingard, quite invaluable²². She looked up things for him in the British Museum—all that sortof thing. She worked with Lord Mulcaster on his book, you know. And she was tactful—I mean,she didn’t look up the wrong things. After all, there are ancestors one doesn’t want raked up.

Gervase was very sensitive. She helped me, too. She got a lot of information for me aboutHatshepsut. I am a reincarnation of Hatshepsut, you know.”

Lady Chevenix-Gore made this announcement in a calm voice.

“Before that,” she went on, “I was a Priestess in Atlantis.”

Major Riddle shifted a little in his chair.

“Er—er—very interesting,” he said. “Well, really, Lady Chevenix-Gore, I think that will beall. Very kind of you.”

Lady Chevenix-Gore rose, clasping her oriental robesabout?her.

“Goodnight,” she said. And then, her eyes shifting to a point behind Major Riddle.

“Goodnight, Gervase dear. I wish you could come, but I know you have to stay here.” She addedin an explanatory fashion, “You have to stay in the place where you’ve passed over for at leasttwenty-four hours. It’s some time before you can move about freely and communicate.”

She trailed out of the room.

Major Riddle wiped his brow.

“Phew,” he murmured. “She’s a great deal madder than I ever thought. Does she reallybelieve all that nonsense?”

Poirot shook his head thoughtfully.

“It is possible that she finds it helpful,” he said. “She needs, at this moment, to create forherself a world of illusion so that she can escape the stark²⁴ reality of her husband’s death.”

“She seems almost certifiable to me,” said Major Riddle. “A long farrago of nonsense withoutone word of sense in it.”

“No, no, my friend. The interesting thing is, as Mr.?Hugo Trent casually²⁵ remarked to me, thatamidst all the vapouring there is an occasional shrewd thrust. She showed it by her remark aboutMiss?Lingard’s tact²³ in not stressing undesirable²⁶ ancestors. Believe me, Lady Chevenix-Gore is nofool.”

He got up and paced up and down the room.

“There are things in this affair that I do not like. No, I do not like them at all.”

Riddle looked at him curiously²⁷.

“You mean the motive²⁸ for his suicide?”

“Suicide—suicide! It is all wrong, I tell you. It is wrong psychologically. How did Chevenix-Gore think of himself? As a Colossus, as an immensely important person, as the centre of theuniverse! Does such a man destroy himself? Surely not. He is far more likely to destroy someoneelse—some miserable²⁹ crawling ant of a human being who had dared to cause him annoyance³⁰ . . .

Such an act he might regard as necessary—as sanctified! But self-destruction? The destruction ofsuch a Self?”

“It’s all very well, Poirot. But the evidence is clear enough. Door locked, key in his ownpocket. Window closed and fastened. I know these things happen in books—but I’ve never comeacross them in real life. Anything else?”

“But yes, there is something else.” Poirot sat down in the chair. “Here I am. I am Chevenix-Gore. I am sitting at my desk. I am determined³¹ to kill myself—because, let us say, I have made adiscovery concerning some terrific dishonour³² to the family name. It is not very convincing, that,but it must suffice.

“Eh bien, what do I do? I scrawl³³ on a piece of paper the word SORRY. Yes, that is quitepossible. Then I open a drawer of the desk, take out the pistol which I keep there, load it, if it isnot loaded, and then—do I proceed to shoot myself? No, I first turn my chair round—so, and Ilean over a little to the right—so—and then I put the pistol to my temple and fire!”

Poirot sprang up from his chair, and wheeling round, demanded:

“I ask you, does that make sense? Why turn the chair round? If, for instance, there had been apicture on the wall there, then, yes, there might be an explanation. Some portrait which a dyingman might wish to be the last thing on earth his eyes would see, but a window curtain—ah non,that does not make sense.”

“He might have wished to look out of the window. Last view out over the estate.”

“My dear friend, you do not suggest that with any conviction. In fact, you know it isnonsense. At eight minutes past eight it was dark, and in any case the curtains are drawn³⁴. No, theremust be some other explanation. . . .”

“There’s only one as far as I can see. Gervase Chevenix-Gore was mad.”

Poirot shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.

Major Riddle rose.

“Come,” he said. “Let us go and interview the rest of the party. We may get at something thatway.”

 

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