Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [21]
Lowering his voice, the butler replied, ‘There have been strange things happening this evening, sir.’
‘Oh?’ exclaimed Poirot, as he exchanged glances with Hastings. ‘Tell me about these strange things.’
‘Well, I hardly know where to begin, sir,’ Tredwell replied. ‘I – I think I first felt that something was wrong when the Italian gentleman came to tea.’
‘The Italian gentleman?’
‘Dr Carelli, sir.’
‘He came to tea unexpectedly?’ asked Poirot.
‘Yes, sir, and Miss Amory asked him to stay, seeing as how he was a friend of Mrs Richard’s. But if you ask me, sir –’
He stopped, and Poirot gently prompted him. ‘Yes?’
‘I hope you will understand, sir,’ said Tredwell, ‘that it is not my custom to gossip about the family. But seeing that the master is dead . . .’
He paused again, and Poirot murmured sympathetically, ‘Yes, yes, I understand. I am sure you were very attached to your master.’ Tredwell nodded, and Poirot continued, ‘Sir Claud sent for me in order to tell me something. You must tell me all you can.’
‘Well, then,’ Tredwell responded, ‘in my opinion, sir, Mrs Richard Amory did not want the Italian gentleman asked to dinner. I observed her face when Miss Amory gave the invitation.’
‘What is your own impression of Dr Carelli?’ asked Poirot.
‘Dr Carelli, sir,’ replied the butler rather haughtily, ‘is not one of us.’
Not quite understanding Tredwell’s remark, Poirot looked enquiringly at Hastings who turned away to hide a smile. Throwing his colleague a glance of mild reproof, Poirot turned again to Tredwell. The butler’s countenance remained perfectly serious.
‘Did you feel,’ Poirot queried, ‘that there was something odd about Dr Carelli’s coming to the house in the way that he did?’
‘Precisely, sir. It wasn’t natural, somehow. And it was after he arrived that the trouble began, with the master telling me earlier this evening to send for you, and giving orders about the doors being locked. Mrs Richard, too, hasn’t been herself all the evening. She had to leave the dinner-table. Mr Richard, he was very upset about it.’
‘Ah,’ said Poirot, ‘she had to leave the table? Did she come into this room?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Tredwell replied.
Poirot looked around the room. His eye alighted on the handbag which Lucia had left on the table. ‘One of the ladies has left her bag, I see,’ he observed, as he picked it up.
Moving closer to him to look at the handbag, Tredwell told Poirot, ‘That is Mrs Richard’s, sir.’
‘Yes,’ Hastings confirmed. ‘I noticed her laying it down there just before she left the room.’
‘Just before she left the room, eh?’ said Poirot. ‘How curious.’ He put the bag down on the settee, frowned perplexedly, and stood apparently lost in thought.
‘About locking the doors, sir,’ Tredwell continued after a brief pause. ‘The master told me –’
Suddenly starting out of his reverie, Poirot interrupted the butler. ‘Yes, yes, I must hear all about that. Let us go through here,’ he suggested, indicating the door to the front of the house.
Tredwell went to the door, followed by Poirot. Hastings, however, declared rather importantly, ‘I think I’ll stay here.’
Poirot turned, and regarded Hastings quizzically. ‘No, no, please come with us,’ he requested his colleague.
‘But don’t you think it better –’ Hastings began, when Poirot interrupted him, now speaking solemnly and meaningfully. ‘I need your co-operation, my friend,’ he said.
‘Oh, well, of course, in that case –’
The three men left the room together, closing the door behind them. No more than a few seconds later, the door leading to the hallway was opened cautiously and Lucia entered surreptitiously. After a hurried glance around the room as though to assure herself that there was no one there, she approached the round table in the centre of the room, and picked up Sir Claud’s coffee cup. A shrewd, hard look came into her eyes which belied their customary innocent appearance, and she suddenly looked a good deal older.
Lucia was still standing with the cup in her hand, as though undecided what to do, when the other door leading to the front