Poirot Investigates
King is not yet appeased? Perhaps to you I seem to be talking
nonsense——”
“No, indeed, Lady Willard,” said Poirot quickly. “I, too, believe
in the force of superstition, one of the greatest forces the world
has ever known.”
I looked at him in surprise. I should never have credited Poirot
with being superstitious. But the little man was obviously in
earnest.
“What you really demand is that I shall protect your son? I will
do my utmost to keep him from harm.”
“Yes, in the ordinary way, but against an occult influence?”
“In volumes of the Middle Ages, Lady Willard, you will find many
ways of counteracting black magic. Perhaps they knew more than we
moderns with all our boasted science. Now let us come to facts,
that I may have guidance. Your husband had always been a devoted
Egyptologist, hadn’t he?”
“Yes, from his youth upwards. He was one of the greatest living
authorities upon the subject.”
“But Mr. Bleibner, I understand, was more or less of an amateur?”
“Oh, quite. He was a very wealthy man who dabbled freely in any
subject that happened to take his fancy. My husband managed to
interest him in Egyptology, and it was his money that was so useful
in financing the expedition.”
“And the nephew? What do you know of his tastes? Was he with the
party at all?”
“I do not think so. In fact I never knew of his existence till I
read of his death in the paper, I do not think he and Mr. Bleibner
can have been at all intimate. He never spoke of having any
relations.”
“Who are the other members of the party?”
“Well, there is Dr. Tosswill, a minor official connected with the
British Museum; Mr. Schneider of the Metropolitan Museum in New
York; a young American secretary; Dr. Ames, who accompanies the
expedition in his professional capacity; and Hassan, my husband’s
devoted native servant.”
“Do you remember the name of the American secretary?”
“Harper, I think, but I cannot be sure. He had not been with Mr.
Bleibner very long, I know. He was a very pleasant young fellow.”
“Thank you, Lady Willard.”
“If there is anything else——?”
“For the moment, nothing. Leave it now in my hands, and be assured
that I will do all that is humanly possible to protect your son.”
They were not exactly reassuring words, and I observed Lady Willard
wince as he uttered them. Yet, at the same time, the fact that he
had not pooh-poohed her fears seemed in itself to be a relief to
her.
For my part I had never before suspected that Poirot had so deep
a vein of superstition in his nature. I tackled him on the subject
as we went homewards. His manner was grave and earnest.
“But yes, Hastings. I believe in these things. You must not
underrate the force of superstition.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“_Toujours pratique_, the good Hastings! _Eh bien_, to begin with
we are going to cable to New York for fuller details of young Mr.
Bleibner’s death.”
He duly sent off his cable. The reply was full and precise. Young
Rupert Bleibner had been in low water for several years. He had
been a beach-comber and a remittance man in several South Sea
islands, but had returned to New York two years ago, where he had
rapidly sunk lower and lower. The most significant thing, to my
mind, was that he had recently managed to borrow enough money to
take him to Egypt. “I’ve a good friend there I can borrow from,”
he had declared. Here, however, his plans had gone awry. He had
returned to New York cursing his skinflint of an uncle who cared
more for the bones of dead and gone kings than his own flesh and
blood. It was during his sojourn in Egypt that the death of Sir
John Willard occurred. Rupert had plunged once more into his life
of dissipation in New York, and then, without warning, he had
committed suicide, leaving behind him a letter which contained some
curious phrases. It seemed written in a sudden fit of remorse. He
referred to himself as a leper and an outcast, and the letter ended
by declaring that such as he were better dead.
A shadowy theory leapt into my brain. I had never really believed
in the vengeance of a long dead Egyptian king. I saw here a more
modern crime. Supposing this young man had decided to do away with
his uncle—preferably by poison. By mistake, Sir John Willard
receives the fatal dose. The young man returns to New York, haunted
by his crime. The news of his uncle’s death reaches him. He realizes
how unnecessary his crime has been, and stricken with remorse takes
his own life.
I outlined my solution to Poirot. He was interested.
“It is ingenious what you have thought of there—decidedly it is
ingenious. It may even be true. But you leave out of count the
fatal influence of the Tomb.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“You still think that has something to do with it?”
“So much so, _mon ami_, that we start for Egypt to-morrow.”
“What?” I cried, astonished.
“I have said it.” An expression of conscious heroism spread over
Poirot’s face. Then he groaned. “But, oh,” he lamented, “the sea!
The hateful sea!”
• • • • • • •
It was a week later. Beneath our feet was the golden sand of the
desert. The hot sun poured down overhead. Poirot, the picture of
misery, wilted by my side. The little man was not a good traveller.
Our four days’ voyage from Marseilles had been one long agony to
him. He had landed at Alexandria the wraith of his former self,
even his usual neatness had deserted him. We had arrived in Cairo
and had driven out at once to the Mena House Hotel, right in the
shadow of the Pyramids.
The charm of Egypt had laid hold of me. Not so Poirot. Dressed
precisely the same as in London, he carried a small clothes-brush
in his pocket and waged an unceasing war on the dust which
accumulated on his dark apparel.
“And my boots,” he wailed. “Regard them, Hastings. My boots, of
the neat patent leather, usually so smart and shining. See, the
sand is inside them, which is painful, and outside them, which
outrages the eyesight. Also the heat, it causes my moustaches to
become limp—but limp!”
“Look at the Sphinx,” I urged. “Even I can feel the mystery and
the charm it exhales.”
Poirot looked at it discontentedly.
“It has not the air happy,” he declared. “How could it, half-buried
in sand in that untidy fashion. Ah, this cursed sand!”
“Come, now, there’s a lot of sand in Belgium,” I reminded him,
mindful of a holiday spent at Knocke-sur-mer in the midst of “_les
dunes impeccables_” as the guide-book had phrased it.
“Not in Brussels,” declared Poirot. He gazed at the Pyramids
thoughtfully. “It is true that they, at least, are of a shape solid
and geometrical, but their surface is of an unevenness most
unpleasing. And the palm-trees I like them not. Not even do they
plant them in rows!”
I cut short his lamentations, by suggesting that we should start
for the camp. We were to ride there on camels, and the beasts were
patiently kneeling, waiting for us to mount, in charge of several
picturesque boys headed by a voluble dragoman.
I pass over the spectacle of Poirot on a camel. He started by
groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and
invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar. In
the end, he descended ignominiously and finished the journey on a
diminutive donkey. I must admit that a trotting camel is no joke
for the amateur. I was stiff for several days.
At last we neared the scene of the excavations. A sunburnt man with
a grey beard, in white clothes and wearing a helmet, came to meet
us.
“Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings? We received your cable. I’m
sorry that there was no one to meet you in Cairo. An unforeseen
event occurred which completely disorganized our plans.”
Poirot paled. His hand, which had stolen to his clothes-brush,
stayed its course.
“Not another death?” he breathed.
“Yes.”
“Sir Guy Willard?” I cried.
“No, Captain Hastings. My American colleague, Mr. Schneider.”
“And the cause?” demanded Poirot.
“Tetanus.”
I blanched. All around me I seemed to feel an atmosphere of evil,
subtle and menacing. A horrible thought flashed across me. Supposing
I were the next?
“_Mon Dieu_,” said Poirot, in a very low voice, “I do not understand
this. It is horrible. Tell me, monsieur, there is no doubt that it
was tetanus?”
“I believe not. But Dr. Ames will tell you more than I can do.”
“Ah, of course, you are not the doctor.”
“My name is Tosswill.”
This, then, was the British expert described by Lady Willard as
being a minor official at the British Museum. There was something
at once grave and steadfast about him that took my fancy.
“If you will come with me,” continued Dr. Tosswill, “I will take
you to Sir Guy Willard. He was most anxious to be informed as soon
as you should arrive.”
We were taken across the camp to a large tent. Dr. Tosswill lifted
up the flap and we entered. Three men were sitting inside.
“Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings have arrived, Sir Guy,” said
Tosswill.
The youngest of the three men jumped up and came forward to greet
us. There was a certain impulsiveness in his manner which reminded
me of his mother. He was not nearly so sunburnt as the others, and
that fact, coupled with a certain haggardness round the eyes, made
him look older than his twenty-two years. He was clearly endeavouring
to bear up under a severe mental strain.
He introduced his two companions, Dr. Ames, a capable looking man
of thirty odd, with a touch of greying hair at the temples, and
Mr. Harper, the secretary, a pleasant lean young man wearing the
national insignia of horn-rimmed spectacles.
After a few minutes’ desultory conversation the latter went out,
and Dr. Tosswill followed him. We were left alone with Sir Guy and
Dr. Ames.
“Please ask any questions you want to ask, Monsieur Poirot,” said
Willard. “We are utterly dumbfounded at this strange series of
disasters, but it isn’t—it can’t be, anything but coincidence.”
There was a nervousness about his manner which rather belied the
words. I saw that Poirot was studying him keenly.
“Your heart is really in this work, Sir Guy?”
“Rather. No matter what happens, or what comes of it, the work is
going on. Make up your mind to that.”
Poirot wheeled round on the other.
“What have you to say to that, _monsieur le docteur_?”
“Well,” drawled the doctor, “I’m not for quitting myself.”
Poirot made one of those expressive grimaces of his.
“Then, _évidemment_, we must find out just how we stand. When did
Mr. Schneider’s death take place?”
“Three days ago.”
“You are sure it was tetanus?”
“Dead sure.”
“It couldn’t have been a case of strychnine poisoning, for
instance?”
“No, Monsieur Poirot. I see what you’re getting at. But it was a
clear case of tetanus.”
“Did you not inject anti-serum?”
“Certainly we did,” said the doctor dryly. “Every conceivable thing
that could be done was tried.”
“Had you the anti-serum with you?”
“No. We procured it from Cairo.”
“Have there been any other cases of tetanus in the camp?”
“No, not one.”
“Are you certain that the death of Mr. Bleibner was not due to
tetanus?”
“Absolutely plumb certain. He had a scratch upon his thumb which
became poisoned, and septicæmia set in. It sounds pretty much the
same to a layman, I dare say, but the two things are entirely
different.”
“Then we have four deaths—all totally dissimilar, one heart failure,
one blood poisoning, one suicide and one tetanus.”
“Exactly, Monsieur Poirot.”
“Are you certain that there is nothing which might link the four
together?”
“I don’t quite understand you?”
“I will put it plainly. Was any act committed by those four men
which might seem to denote disrespect to the spirit of Men-her-Ra?”
The doctor gazed at Poirot in astonishment.