The Vintage Mysteries for the Holidays. Эдгар Аллан По

was soon established, by comparing it with a memorandum from the desk.

      “Dear me,” murmured the commissary, with a crestfallen air, “I really cannot imagine how I came to overlook this.”

      Poirot laughed.

      “The moral of that is, always look under the mats! My friend Hastings here will tell you that anything in the least crooked is a torment to me. As soon as I saw that the hearth-rug was out of the straight, I said to myself: ‘Tiens! The leg of the chair caught it in being pushed back. Possibly there may be something beneath it which the good Françoise overlooked.’ ”

      “Françoise?”

      “Or Denise, or Léonie. Whoever did this room. Since there is no dust, the room must have been done this morning. I reconstruct the incident like this. Yesterday, possibly last night, M. Renauld drew a cheque to the order of some one named Duveen. Afterwards it was torn up, and scattered on the floor. This morning—” But M. Bex was already pulling impatiently at the bell.

      Françoise answered it. Yes, there had been a lot of pieces of paper on the floor. What had she done with them? Put them in the kitchen stove of course! What else?

      With a gesture of despair, Bex dismissed her. Then, his face lightening, he ran to the desk. In a minute he was hunting through the dead man’s cheque book. Then he repeated his former gesture. The last counterfoil was blank.

      “Courage!” cried Poirot, clapping him on the back. “Without doubt, Madame Renauld will be able to tell us all about this mysterious person named Duveen.”

      The commissary’s face cleared. “That is true. Let us proceed.”

      As we turned to leave the room, Poirot remarked casually: “It was here that M. Renauld received his guest last night, eh?”

      “It was—but how did you know?”

      “By this. I found it on the back of the leather chair.”

      And he held up between his finger and thumb a long black hair—a woman’s hair!

      M. Bex took us out by the back of the house to where there was a small shed leaning against the house. He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked it.

      “The body is here. We moved it from the scene of the crime just before you arrived, as the photographers had done with it.”

      He opened the door and we passed in. The murdered man lay on the ground, with a sheet over him. M. Bex dexterously whipped off the covering. Renauld was a man of medium height, slender and lithe in figure. He looked about fifty years of age, and his dark hair was plentifully streaked with grey. He was clean shaven with a long thin nose, and eyes set rather close together, and his skin was deeply bronzed, as that of a man who had spent most of his life beneath tropical skies. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and an expression of absolute amazement and terror was stamped on the livid features.

      “One can see by his face that he was stabbed in the back,” remarked Poirot.

      Very gently, he turned the dead man over. There, between the shoulder-blades, staining the light fawn overcoat, was a round dark patch. In the middle of it there was a slit in the cloth. Poirot examined it narrowly.

      “Have you any idea with what weapon the crime was committed?”

      “It was left in the wound.” The commissary reached down a large glass jar. In it was a small object that looked to me more like a paper-knife than anything else. It had a black handle, and a narrow shining blade. The whole thing was not more than ten inches long. Poirot tested the discoloured point gingerly with his finger tip.

      “Ma foi! but it is sharp! A nice easy little tool for murder!”

      “Unfortunately, we could find no trace of fingerprints on it,” remarked Bex regretfully. “The murderer must have worn gloves.”

      “Of course he did,” said Poirot contemptuously. “Even in Santiago they know enough for that. The veriest amateur of an English Mees knows it—thanks to the publicity the Bertillon system has been given in the Press. All the same, it interests me very much that there were no finger-prints. It is so amazingly simple to leave the finger-prints of some one else! And then the police are happy.” He shook his head. “I very much fear our criminal is not a man of method—either that or he was pressed for time. But we shall see.”

      He let the body fall back into its original position.

      “He wore only underclothes under his overcoat, I see,” he remarked.

      “Yes, the examining magistrate thinks that is rather a curious point.”

      At this minute there was a tap on the door which Bex had closed after him. He strode forward and opened it. Françoise was there. She endeavoured to peep in with ghoulish curiosity.

      “Well, what is it?” demanded Bex impatiently.

      “Madame. She sends a message that she is much recovered, and is quite ready to receive the examining magistrate.”

      “Good,” said M. Bex briskly. “Tell M. Hautet and say that we will come at once.”

      Poirot lingered a moment, looking back towards the body. I thought for a moment that he was going to apostrophize it, to declare aloud his determination never to rest till he had discovered the murderer. But when he spoke, it was tamely and awkwardly, and his comment was ludicrously inappropriate to the solemnity of the moment.

      “He wore his overcoat very long,” he said constrainedly.

      5. Mrs. Renauld’s Story

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      We found M. Hautet awaiting us in the hall, and we all proceeded upstairs together, Françoise marching ahead to show us the way. Poirot went up in a zigzag fashion which puzzled me, until he whispered with a grimace:

      “No wonder the servants heard M. Renauld mounting the stairs; not a board of them but creaks fit to wake the dead!”

      At the head of the staircase, a small passage branched off.

      “The servants’ quarters,” explained Bex.

      We continued along a corridor, and Françoise tapped on the last door to the right of it.

      A faint voice bade us enter, and we passed into a large sunny apartment looking out towards the sea, which showed blue and sparkling about a quarter of a mile distant.

      On a couch, propped up with cushions, and attended by Dr. Durand, lay a tall, striking-looking woman. She was middle-aged, and her once dark hair was now almost entirely silvered, but the intense vitality and strength of her personality would have made itself felt anywhere. You knew at once that you were in the presence of what the French call “une maitresse femme.”

      She greeted us with a dignified inclination of the head.

      “Pray be seated, monsieurs.”

      We took chairs, and the magistrate’s clerk established himself at a round table.

      “I hope, madame,” began M. Hautet, “that it will not distress you unduly to relate to us what occurred last night?”

      “Not at all, monsieur. I know the value of time, if these scoundrelly assassins are to be caught and punished.”

      “Very well, madame. It will fatigue you less, I think, if I ask you questions and you confine yourself to answering them. At what time did you go to bed last night?”

      “At half-past nine, monsieur. I was tired.”

      “And your husband?”

      “About an hour later, I fancy.”

      “Did he seem disturbed—upset in any way?”

      “No,