Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories. Агата Кристи

hope you’ll excuse me troubling the inspector, gentlemen, but I’d be glad of his advice.’

      ‘I’m on holiday,’ said Japp hastily. ‘No work for me. What is the case?’

      ‘Gentleman up at Leigh House – shot himself – through the head.’

      ‘Well, they will do it,’ said Japp prosaically. ‘Debt, or a woman, I suppose. Sorry I can’t help you, Pollard.’

      ‘The point is,’ said the constable, ‘that he can’t have shot himself. Leastways, that’s what Dr Giles says.’

      Japp put down his cup.

      ‘Can’t have shot himself? What do you mean?’

      ‘That’s what Dr Giles says,’ repeated Pollard. ‘He says it’s plumb impossible. He’s puzzled to death, the door being locked on the inside and the windows bolted; but he sticks to it that the man couldn’t have committed suicide.’

      That settled it. The further supply of bacon and eggs was waved aside, and a few minutes later we were all walking as fast as we could in the direction of Leigh House, Japp eagerly questioning the constable.

      The name of the deceased was Walter Protheroe; he was a man of middle age and something of a recluse. He had come to Market Basing eight years ago and rented Leigh House, a rambling, dilapidated old mansion fast falling into ruin. He lived in a corner of it, his wants attended to by a housekeeper whom he had brought with him. Miss Clegg was her name, and she was a very superior woman and highly thought of in the village. Just lately Mr Protheroe had had visitors staying with him, a Mr and Mrs Parker from London. This morning, unable to get a reply when she went to call her master, and finding the door locked, Miss Clegg became alarmed, and telephoned for the police and the doctor. Constable Pollard and Dr Giles had arrived at the same moment. Their united efforts had succeeded in breaking down the oak door of his bedroom.

      Mr Protheroe was lying on the floor, shot through the head, and the pistol was clasped in his right hand. It looked a clear case of suicide.

      After examining the body, however, Dr Giles became clearly perplexed, and finally he drew the constable aside, and communicated his perplexities to him; whereupon Pollard had at once thought of Japp. Leaving the doctor in charge, he had hurried down to the inn.

      By the time the constable’s recital was over, we had arrived at Leigh House, a big, desolate house surrounded by an unkempt, weed-ridden garden. The front door was open, and we passed at once into the hall and from there into a small morning-room whence proceeded the sound of voices. Four people were in the room: a somewhat flashily dressed man with a shifty, unpleasant face to whom I took an immediate dislike; a woman of much the same type, though handsome in a coarse fashion; another woman dressed in neat black who stood apart from the rest, and whom I took to be the housekeeper; and a tall man dressed in sporting tweeds, with a clever, capable face, and who was clearly in command of the situation.

      ‘Dr Giles,’ said the constable, ‘this is Detective-Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, and his two friends.’

      The doctor greeted us and made us known to Mr and Mrs Parker. Then we accompanied them upstairs. Pollard, in obedience to a sign from Japp, remained below, as it were on guard over the household. The doctor led us upstairs and along a passage. A door was open at the end; splinters hung from the hinges, and the door itself had crashed to the floor inside the room.

      We went in. The body was still lying on the floor. Mr Protheroe had been a man of middle age, bearded, with hair grey at the temples. Japp went and knelt by the body.

      ‘Why couldn’t you leave it as you found it?’ he grumbled.

      The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘We thought it a clear case of suicide.’

      ‘H’m!’ said Japp. ‘Bullet entered the head behind the left ear.’

      ‘Exactly,’ said the doctor. ‘Clearly impossible for him to have fired it himself. He’d have had to twist his hand right round his head. It couldn’t have been done.’

      ‘Yet you found the pistol clasped in his hand? Where is it, by the way?’

      The doctor nodded to the table.

      ‘But it wasn’t clasped in his hand,’ he said. ‘It was inside the hand, but the fingers weren’t closed over it.’

      ‘Put there afterwards,’ said Japp; ‘that’s clear enough.’ He was examining the weapon. ‘One cartridge fired. We’ll test it for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll find any but yours, Dr Giles. How long has he been dead?’

      ‘Some time last night. I can’t give the time to an hour or so, as those wonderful doctors in detective stories do. Roughly, he’s been dead about twelve hours.’

      So far, Poirot had not made a move of any kind. He had remained by my side, watching Japp at work and listening to his questions. Only, from time to time, he had sniffed the air very delicately, and as if puzzled. I too had sniffed, but could detect nothing to arouse interest. The air seemed perfectly fresh and devoid of odour. And yet, from time to time, Poirot continued to sniff it dubiously, as though his keener nose detected something I had missed.

      Now, as Japp moved away from the body, Poirot knelt down by it. He took no interest in the wound. I thought at first that he was examining the fingers of the hand that had held the pistol, but in a minute I saw that it was a handkerchief carried in the coat-sleeve that interested him. Mr Protheroe was dressed in a dark grey lounge-suit. Finally Poirot got up from his knees, but his eyes still strayed back to the handkerchief as though puzzled.

      Japp called to him to come and help to lift the door. Seizing my opportunity, I too knelt down, and taking the handkerchief from the sleeve, scrutinized it minutely. It was a perfectly plain handkerchief of white cambric; there was no mark or stain on it of any kind. I replaced it, shaking my head and confessing myself baffled.

      The others had raised the door. I realized that they were hunting for the key. They looked in vain.

      ‘That settles it,’ said Japp. ‘The window’s shut and bolted. The murderer left by the door, locking it and taking the key with him. He thought it would be accepted that Protheroe had locked himself in and shot himself, and that the absence of the key would not be noticed. You agree, M. Poirot?’

      ‘I agree, yes; but it would have been simpler and better to slip the key back inside the room under the door. Then it would look as though it had fallen from the lock.’

      ‘Ah, well, you can’t expect everybody to have the bright ideas that you have. You’d have been a holy terror if you’d taken to crime. Any remarks to make, M. Poirot?’

      Poirot, it seemed to me, was somewhat at a loss. He looked round the room and remarked mildly and almost apologetically: ‘He smoked a lot, this monsieur.’

      True enough, the grate was filled with cigarette-stubs, as was an ashtray that stood on a small table near the big armchair.

      ‘He must have got through about twenty cigarettes last night,’ remarked Japp. Stooping down, he examined the contents of the grate carefully, then transferred his attention to the ashtray. ‘They’re all the same kind,’ he announced, ‘and smoked by the same man. There’s nothing there, M. Poirot.’

      ‘I did not suggest that there was,’ murmured my friend.

      ‘Ha,’ cried Japp, ‘what’s this?’ He pounced on something bright and glittering that lay on the floor near the dead man. ‘A broken cuff-link. I wonder who this belongs to. Dr Giles, I’d be obliged if you’d go down and send up the housekeeper.’

      ‘What about the Parkers? He’s very anxious to leave the house – says he’s got urgent business in London.’

      ‘I dare say. It’ll have to get on without him. By the way things are going, it’s likely that there’ll be some urgent business down here for him to attend to! Send up the housekeeper, and don’t let either of