The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (best classic literature TXT) 📖

you, Dorcas, that is all I have to ask you.” He rose and strolled to the window. “I have been admiring these flower beds. How many gardeners are employed here, by the way?”

“Only three now, sir. Five, we had, before the war, when it was kept as a gentleman’s place should be. I wish you could have seen it then, sir. A fair sight it was. But now there’s only old Manning, and young William, and a new-fashioned woman gardener in breeches and such-like. Ah, these are dreadful times!”

“The good times will come again, Dorcas. At least, we hope so. Now, will you send Annie to me here?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“How did you know that Mrs. Inglethorp took sleeping powders?” I asked, in lively curiosity, as Dorcas left the room. “And about the lost key and the duplicate?”

“One thing at a time. As to the sleeping powders, I knew by this.” He suddenly produced a small cardboard box, such as chemists use for powders.

“Where did you find it?”

“In the wash-stand drawer in Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom. It was Number Six of my catalogue.”

“But I suppose, as the last powder was taken two days ago, it is not of much importance?”

“Probably not, but do you notice anything that strikes you as peculiar about this box?”

I examined it closely.

“No, I can’t say that I do.”

“Look at the label.”

I read the label carefully: “‘One powder to be taken at bedtime, if required. Mrs. Inglethorp.’ No, I see nothing unusual.”

“Not the fact that there is no chemist’s name?”

“Ah!” I exclaimed. “To be sure, that is odd!”

“Have you ever known a chemist to send out a box like that, without his printed name?”

“No, I can’t say that I have.”

I was becoming quite excited, but Poirot damped my ardour by remarking:

“Yet the explanation is quite simple. So do not intrigue yourself, my friend.”

An audible creaking proclaimed the approach of Annie, so I had no time to reply.

Annie was a fine, strapping girl, and was evidently labouring under intense excitement, mingled with a certain ghoulish enjoyment of the tragedy.

Poirot came to the point at once, with a business-like briskness.

“I sent for you, Annie, because I thought you might be able to tell me something about the letters Mrs. Inglethorp wrote last night. How many were there? And can you tell me any of the names and addresses?”

Annie considered.

“There were four letters, sir. One was to Miss Howard, and one was to Mr. Wells, the lawyer, and the other two I don’t think I remember, sir—oh, yes, one was to Ross’s, the caterers in Tadminster. The other one, I don’t remember.”

“Think,” urged Poirot.

Annie racked her brains in vain.

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s clean gone. I don’t think I can have noticed it.”

“It does not matter,” said Poirot, not betraying any sign of disappointment. “Now I want to ask you about something else. There is a saucepan in Mrs. Inglethorp’s room with some cocoa in it. Did she have that every night?”

“Yes, sir, it was put in her room every evening, and she warmed it up in the night—whenever she fancied it.”

“What was it? Plain cocoa?”

“Yes, sir, made with milk, with a teaspoonful of sugar, and two teaspoonfuls of rum in it.”

“Who took it to her room?”

“I did, sir.”

“Always?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At what time?”

“When I went to draw the curtains, as a rule, sir.”

“Did you bring it straight up from the kitchen then?”

“No, sir, you see there’s not much room on the gas stove, so cook used to make it early, before putting the vegetables on for supper. Then I used to bring it up, and put it on the table by the swing door, and take it into her room later.”

“The swing door is in the left wing, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the table, is it on this side of the door, or on the farther—servants’ side?”

“It’s this side, sir.”

“What time did you bring it up last night?”

“About quarter-past seven, I should say, sir.”

“And when did you take it into Mrs. Inglethorp’s room?”

“When I went to shut up, sir. About eight o’clock. Mrs. Inglethorp came up to bed before I’d finished.”

“Then, between seven-fifteen and eight o’clock, the cocoa was standing on the table in the left wing?”

“Yes, sir.” Annie had been growing redder and redder in the face, and now she blurted out unexpectedly:

“And if there was salt in it, sir, it wasn’t me. I never took the salt near it.”

“What makes you think there was salt in it?” asked Poirot.

“Seeing it on the tray, sir.”

“You saw some salt on the tray?”

“Yes. Coarse kitchen salt, it looked. I never noticed it when I took the tray up, but when I came to take it into the mistress’s room I saw it at once, and I suppose I ought to have taken it down again, and asked cook to make some fresh. But I was in a hurry, because Dorcas was out, and I thought maybe the cocoa itself was all right, and the salt had only gone on the tray. So I dusted it off with my apron, and took it in.”

I had the utmost difficulty in controlling my excitement. Unknown to herself, Annie had provided us with an important piece of evidence. How she would have gaped if she had realized that her “coarse kitchen salt” was strychnine, one of the most deadly poisons known to mankind. I marvelled at Poirot’s calm. His self-control was astonishing. I awaited his next question with impatience, but it disappointed me.

“When you went into Mrs. Inglethorp’s room, was the door leading into Miss Cynthia’s room bolted?”

“Oh! Yes, sir; it always was. It had never been opened.”

“And the door into Mr. Inglethorp’s room? Did you notice if that was bolted too?”

Annie hesitated.

“I couldn’t rightly say, sir; it was shut but I couldn’t say whether it was bolted or not.”

“When you finally left the room, did Mrs. Inglethorp bolt the door after you?”

“No, sir, not then, but I expect she did later. She usually did lock it at night. The door into the passage, that is.”

“Did you notice any candle grease on the floor when you did the room yesterday?”

“Candle grease? Oh, no, sir. Mrs. Inglethorp didn’t have a candle, only a reading-lamp.”

“Then, if there had been a large patch of candle grease on the floor, you think you would have been sure to have seen it?”

“Yes, sir, and I would have taken it out with a piece of blotting-paper and a hot iron.”

Then Poirot repeated the question he had put to Dorcas:

“Did your mistress ever have a green dress?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor a mantle, nor a cape, nor a—how do you call it?—a sports coat?”

“Not green, sir.”

“Nor anyone else in the house?”

Annie reflected.

“No, sir.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Bien! That is all I want to know. Thank you very much.”

With a nervous giggle, Annie took herself creakingly out of the room. My pent-up excitement burst forth.

“Poirot,” I cried, “I congratulate you! This is a great discovery.”

“What is a great discovery?”

“Why, that it was the cocoa and not the coffee that was poisoned. That explains everything! Of course it did not take effect until the early morning, since the cocoa was only drunk in the middle of the night.”

“So you think that the cocoa—mark well what I say, Hastings, the cocoa—contained strychnine?”

“Of course! That salt on the tray, what else could it have been?”

“It might have been salt,” replied Poirot placidly.

I shrugged my shoulders. If he was going to take the matter that way, it was no good arguing with him. The idea crossed my mind, not for the first time, that poor old Poirot was growing old. Privately I thought it lucky that he had associated with him someone of a more receptive type of mind.

Poirot was surveying me with quietly twinkling eyes.

“You are not pleased with me, mon ami?”

“My dear Poirot,” I said coldly, “it is not for me to dictate to you. You have a right to your own opinion, just as I have to mine.”

“A most admirable sentiment,” remarked Poirot, rising briskly to his feet. “Now I have finished with this room. By the way, whose is the smaller desk in the corner?”

“Mr. Inglethorp’s.”

“Ah!” He tried the roll top tentatively. “Locked. But perhaps one of Mrs. Inglethorp’s keys would open it.” He tried several, twisting and turning them with a practiced hand, and finally uttering an ejaculation of satisfaction. “Voilà! It is not the key, but it will open it at a pinch.” He slid back the roll top, and ran a rapid eye over the neatly filed papers. To my surprise, he did not examine them, merely remarking approvingly as he relocked the desk: “Decidedly, he is a man of method, this Mr. Inglethorp!”

A “man of method” was, in Poirot’s estimation, the highest praise that could be bestowed on any individual.

I felt that my friend was not what he had been as he rambled on disconnectedly:

“There were no stamps in his desk, but there might have been, eh, mon ami? There might have been? Yes”—his eyes wandered round the room—“this boudoir has nothing more to tell us. It did not yield much. Only this.”

He pulled a crumpled envelope out of his pocket, and tossed it over to me. It was rather a curious document. A plain, dirty looking old envelope with a few words scrawled across it, apparently at random. The following is a facsimile of it.