The Mysterious Affair at Styles
John looked puzzled, not quite understanding the portent of this
cryptic saying. He handed the two keys which Dr. Bauerstein had given
him to me.
“Show Monsieur Poirot everything he wants to see.”
“The rooms are locked?” asked Poirot.
“Dr. Bauerstein considered it advisable.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
“Then he is very sure. Well, that simplifies matters for us.”
We went up together to the room of the tragedy. For convenience I
append a plan of the room and the principal articles of furniture in
it.
Poirot locked the door on the inside, and proceeded to a minute
inspection of the room. He darted from one object to the other with the
agility of a grasshopper. I remained by the door, fearing to obliterate
any clues. Poirot, however, did not seem grateful to me for my
forbearance.
“What have you, my friend,” he cried, “that you remain there like—how
do you say it?—ah, yes, the stuck pig?”
I explained that I was afraid of obliterating any foot-marks.
“Foot-marks? But what an idea! There has already been practically an
army in the room! What foot-marks are we likely to find? No, come here
and aid me in my search. I will put down my little case until I need
it.”
He did so, on the round table by the window, but it was an ill-advised
proceeding; for, the top of it being loose, it tilted up, and
precipitated the despatch-case on the floor.
“_Eh voilà une table!_” cried Poirot. “Ah, my friend, one may live in a
big house and yet have no comfort.”
After which piece of moralizing, he resumed his search.
A small purple despatch-case, with a key in the lock, on the
writing-table, engaged his attention for some time. He took out the key
from the lock, and passed it to me to inspect. I saw nothing peculiar,
however. It was an ordinary key of the Yale type, with a bit of twisted
wire through the handle.
Next, he examined the framework of the door we had broken in, assuring
himself that the bolt had really been shot. Then he went to the door
opposite leading into Cynthia’s room. That door was also bolted, as I
had stated. However, he went to the length of unbolting it, and opening
and shutting it several times; this he did with the utmost precaution
against making any noise. Suddenly something in the bolt itself seemed
to rivet his attention. He examined it carefully, and then, nimbly
whipping out a pair of small forceps from his case, he drew out some
minute particle which he carefully sealed up in a tiny envelope.
On the chest of drawers there was a tray with a spirit lamp and a small
saucepan on it. A small quantity of a dark fluid remained in the
saucepan, and an empty cup and saucer that had been drunk out of stood
near it.
I wondered how I could have been so unobservant as to overlook this.
Here was a clue worth having. Poirot delicately dipped his finger into
liquid, and tasted it gingerly. He made a grimace.
“Cocoa—with—I think—rum in it.”
He passed on to the debris on the floor, where the table by the bed had
been overturned. A reading-lamp, some books, matches, a bunch of keys,
and the crushed fragments of a coffee-cup lay scattered about.
“Ah, this is curious,” said Poirot.
“I must confess that I see nothing particularly curious about it.”
“You do not? Observe the lamp—the chimney is broken in two places; they
lie there as they fell. But see, the coffee-cup is absolutely smashed
to powder.”
“Well,” I said wearily, “I suppose someone must have stepped on it.”
“Exactly,” said Poirot, in an odd voice. “Someone stepped on it.”
He rose from his knees, and walked slowly across to the mantelpiece,
where he stood abstractedly fingering the ornaments, and straightening
them—a trick of his when he was agitated.
“_Mon ami_,” he said, turning to me, “somebody stepped on that cup,
grinding it to powder, and the reason they did so was either because it
contained strychnine or—which is far more serious—because it did not
contain strychnine!”
I made no reply. I was bewildered, but I knew that it was no good
asking him to explain. In a moment or two he roused himself, and went
on with his investigations. He picked up the bunch of keys from the
floor, and twirling them round in his fingers finally selected one,
very bright and shining, which he tried in the lock of the purple
despatch-case. It fitted, and he opened the box, but after a moment’s
hesitation, closed and relocked it, and slipped the bunch of keys, as
well as the key that had originally stood in the lock, into his own
pocket.
“I have no authority to go through these papers. But it should be
done—at once!”
He then made a very careful examination of the drawers of the
wash-stand. Crossing the room to the left-hand window, a round stain,
hardly visible on the dark brown carpet, seemed to interest him
particularly. He went down on his knees, examining it minutely—even
going so far as to smell it.
Finally, he poured a few drops of the cocoa into a test tube, sealing
it up carefully. His next proceeding was to take out a little notebook.
“We have found in this room,” he said, writing busily, “six points of
interest. Shall I enumerate them, or will you?”
“Oh, you,” I replied hastily.
“Very well, then. One, a coffee-cup that has been ground into powder;
two, a despatch-case with a key in the lock; three, a stain on the
floor.”
“That may have been done some time ago,” I interrupted.
“No, for it is still perceptibly damp and smells of coffee. Four, a
fragment of some dark green fabric—only a thread or two, but
recognizable.”
“Ah!” I cried. “That was what you sealed up in the envelope.”
“Yes. It may turn out to be a piece of one of Mrs. Inglethorp’s own
dresses, and quite unimportant. We shall see. Five, _this_!” With a
dramatic gesture, he pointed to a large splash of candle grease on the
floor by the writing-table. “It must have been done since yesterday,
otherwise a good housemaid would have at once removed it with
blotting-paper and a hot iron. One of my best hats once—but that is not
to the point.”
“It was very likely done last night. We were very agitated. Or perhaps
Mrs. Inglethorp herself dropped her candle.”
“You brought only one candle into the room?”
“Yes. Lawrence Cavendish was carrying it. But he was very upset. He
seemed to see something over here”—I indicated the mantelpiece—“that
absolutely paralysed him.”
“That is interesting,” said Poirot quickly. “Yes, it is suggestive”—his
eye sweeping the whole length of the wall—“but it was not his candle
that made this great patch, for you perceive that this is white grease;
whereas Monsieur Lawrence’s candle, which is still on the
dressing-table, is pink. On the other hand, Mrs. Inglethorp had no
candlestick in the room, only a reading-lamp.”
“Then,” I said, “what do you deduce?”
To which my friend only made a rather irritating reply, urging me to
use my own natural faculties.
“And the sixth point?” I asked. “I suppose it is the sample of cocoa.”
“No,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “I might have included that in the six,
but I did not. No, the sixth point I will keep to myself for the
present.”
He looked quickly round the room. “There is nothing more to be done
here, I think, unless”—he stared earnestly and long at the dead ashes
in the grate. “The fire burns—and it destroys. But by chance—there
might be—let us see!”
Deftly, on hands and knees, he began to sort the ashes from the grate
into the fender, handling them with the greatest caution. Suddenly, he
gave a faint exclamation.
“The forceps, Hastings!”
I quickly handed them to him, and with skill he extracted a small piece
of half charred paper.
“There, _mon ami!_” he cried. “What do you think of that?”
I scrutinized the fragment. This is an exact reproduction of it:—
I was puzzled. It was unusually thick, quite unlike ordinary notepaper.
Suddenly an idea struck me.
“Poirot!” I cried. “This is a fragment of a will!”
“Exactly.”
I looked up at him sharply.
“You are not surprised?”
“No,” he said gravely, “I expected it.”
I relinquished the piece of paper, and watched him put it away in his
case, with the same methodical care that he bestowed on everything. My
brain was in a whirl. What was this complication of a will? Who had
destroyed it? The person who had left the candle grease on the floor?
Obviously. But how had anyone gained admission? All the doors had been
bolted on the inside.
“Now, my friend,” said Poirot briskly, “we will go. I should like to
ask a few questions of the parlourmaid—Dorcas, her name is, is it not?”
We passed through Alfred Inglethorp’s room, and Poirot delayed long
enough to make a brief but fairly comprehensive examination of it. We
went out through that door, locking both it and that of Mrs.
Inglethorp’s room as before.
I took him down to the boudoir which he had expressed a wish to see,
and went myself in search of Dorcas.
When I returned with her, however, the boudoir was empty.
“Poirot,” I cried, “where are you?”
“I am here, my friend.”
He had stepped outside the French window, and was standing, apparently
lost in admiration, before the various shaped flower beds.
“Admirable!” he murmured. “Admirable! What symmetry! Observe that
crescent; and those diamonds—their neatness rejoices the eye. The
spacing of the plants, also, is perfect. It has been recently done; is
it not so?”
“Yes, I believe they were at it yesterday afternoon. But come in—Dorcas
is here.”
“_Eh bien, eh bien!_ Do not grudge me a moment’s satisfaction of the
eye.”
“Yes, but this affair is more important.”
“And how do you know that these fine begonias are not of equal
importance?”
I shrugged my shoulders. There was really no arguing with him if he
chose to take that line.
“You do not agree? But such things have been. Well, we will come in and
interview the brave Dorcas.”
Dorcas was standing in the boudoir, her hands folded in front of her,
and her grey hair rose in stiff waves under her white cap. She was the
very model and picture of a good old-fashioned servant.
In her attitude towards Poirot, she was inclined to be suspicious, but
he soon broke down her defences. He drew forward a chair.
“Pray be seated, mademoiselle.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You have been with your mistress many years, is it not so?”
“Ten years, sir.”
“That is a long time, and very faithful service. You were much attached
to her, were you not?”
“She was a very good mistress to me, sir.”
“Then you will not object to answering a few questions. I put them to
you with Mr. Cavendish’s full approval.”
“Oh, certainly, sir.”
“Then I will begin by asking you about the events of yesterday
afternoon. Your mistress had a quarrel?”
“Yes, sir. But I don’t know that I ought——” Dorcas hesitated.
Poirot looked at her keenly.
“My good Dorcas, it is necessary that I should know every detail of
that quarrel as fully as possible. Do not think that you are betraying
your mistress’s secrets. Your mistress lies dead, and it is necessary
that we should know all—if we are to avenge her. Nothing can bring her
back to life, but we do hope, if there has been foul play, to bring the
murderer to justice.”
“Amen to that,” said Dorcas fiercely. “And, naming no names, there’s
_one_ in this house that none of us could ever abide! And an ill day it
was when first _he_ darkened the threshold.”
Poirot waited for her indignation to subside, and then, resuming his
business-like tone, he asked:
“Now, as to this quarrel? What is the first you heard of it?”
“Well, sir, I happened to be going along the hall outside yesterday——”
“What time was that?”
“I couldn’t say exactly, sir, but it wasn’t tea-time by a long way.
Perhaps four o’clock—or it may have been a bit later. Well, sir, as I