Big Four - Agatha Christie [40]
Dr Savaronoff smiled a little.
‘Ah! I comprehend you now. Wilson opened Ruy Lopez—one of the soundest openings there is, and one frequently adopted in tournaments and matches.’
‘And how long had you been playing when the tragedy happened?’
‘It must have been about the third or fourth move when Wilson suddenly fell forward over the table, stone dead.’
Poirot rose to depart. He flung out his last question as though it was of absolutely no importance, but I knew better.
‘Had he anything to eat or drink?’
‘A whisky and soda, I think.’
‘Thank you, Dr Savaronoff. I will disturb you no longer.’
Ivan was in the hall to show us out. Poirot lingered on the threshold.
‘The flat below this, do you know who lives there?’
‘Sir Charles Kingwell, a member of Parliament, sir. It has been let furnished lately, though.’
‘Thank you.’
We went out into the bright winter sunlight.
‘Well, really, Poirot,’ I burst out. ‘I don’t think you’ve distinguished yourself this time. Surely your questions were very inadequate.’
‘You think so, Hastings?’ Poirot looked at me appealingly. ‘I was bouleversé, yes. What would you have asked?’
I considered the question carefully, and then outlined my scheme to Poirot. He listened with what seemed to be close interest. My monologue lasted until we had nearly reached home.
‘Very excellent, very searching, Hastings,’ said Poirot, as he inserted his key in the door and preceded me up the stairs. ‘But quite unnecessary.’
‘Unnecessary!’ I cried, amazed. ‘If the man was poisoned—’
‘Aha,’ cried Poirot, pouncing upon a note which lay on the table. ‘From Japp. Just as I thought.’ He flung it over to me. It was brief and to the point. No traces of poison had been found, and there was nothing to show how the man came by his death.
‘You see,’ said Poirot, ‘our questions would have been quite unnecessary.’
‘You guessed this beforehand?’
‘“Forecast the probable result of the deal,”’ quoted Poirot from a recent Bridge problem on which I had spent much time. ‘Mon ami, when you do that successfully, you do not call it guessing.’
‘Don’t let’s split hairs,’ I said impatiently. ‘You foresaw this?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
Poirot put his hand into his pocket and pulled out—a white bishop.
‘Why,’ I cried, ‘you forgot to give it back to Dr Savaronoff.’
‘You are in error, my friend. That bishop still reposes in my left-hand pocket. I took its fellow from the box of chessmen Mademoiselle Daviloff kindly permitted me to examine. The plural of one bishop is two bishops.’
He sounded the final ‘s’ with a great hiss. I was completely mystified.
‘But why did you take it?’
‘Parbleu, I wanted to see if they were exactly alike.’
Poirot looked at them with his head on one side.
‘They seem so, I admit. But one should take no fact for granted until it is proved. Bring me, I pray you, my little scales.’
With infinite care he weighed the two chessmen, then turned to me with a face alight with triumph.
‘I was right. See you, I was right. Impossible to deceive Hercule Poirot!’
He rushed to the telephone—waited impatiently.
‘Is that Japp? Ah! Japp, it is you. Hercule Poirot speaks. Watch the manservant. Ivan. On no account let him slip through your fingers. Yes, yes, it is as I say.’
He dashed down the receiver and turned to me.
‘You see it not, Hastings? I will explain. Wilson was not poisoned, he was electrocuted. A thin metal rod passes up the middle of one of those chessmen. The table was prepared beforehand and set upon a certain spot on the floor. When the bishop was placed upon one of the silver squares, the current passed through Wilson’s body, killing him instantly. The only mark was the electric burn upon his hand—his left hand, because he was left-handed. The “special table” was an extremely cunning piece of mechanism. The table I examined was a duplicate, perfectly innocent. It was substituted for the other immediately after the murder. The thing was worked from the flat below, which, if you remember, was let furnished.