Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [22]
‘Permit me, madame,’ said Poirot, causing Lucia to start violently. He moved across to her, and took the cup from her hand with the air of one indulging in a gesture of simple politeness.
‘I – I – came back for my bag,’ Lucia gasped.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Poirot. ‘Now, let me see, where did I observe a lady’s handbag? Ah yes, over here.’ He went to the settee, picked up the bag, and handed it to Lucia. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, glancing around distractedly as she spoke.
‘Not at all, madame.’
After a brief nervous smile at Poirot, Lucia quickly left the room. When she had gone, Poirot stood quite still for a moment or two, and then picked up the coffee cup. After smelling it cautiously, he took from his pocket a test tube, poured some of the dregs from Sir Claud’s cup into it, and sealed the tube. Replacing it in his pocket, he then proceeded to look around the room, counting the cups aloud. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six. Yes, six coffee cups.’
A perplexed frown was beginning to gather between Poirot’s brows, when suddenly his eyes shone with that green light that always betokened inward excitement. Moving swiftly to the door through which he had recently entered, he opened it and slammed it noisily shut again, and then darted to the french windows, concealing himself behind the curtains. After a few moments the other door, the one to the hallway, opened, and Lucia entered again, this time even more cautiously than before, appearing to be very much on her guard. Looking about her in an attempt to keep both doors in her sight, she snatched up the coffee cup from which Sir Claud had drunk, and surveyed the entire room.
Her eye alighted on the small table near the door to the hall, on which there stood a large bowl containing a house plant. Moving to the table, Lucia thrust the coffee cup upside down into the bowl. Then, still watching the door, she took one of the other coffee cups and placed it near Sir Claud’s body. She then moved quickly to the door, but as she reached it, the door opened and her husband Richard entered with a very tall, sandy-haired man in his early thirties, whose countenance, though amiable, had an air of authority about it. The newcomer was carrying a Gladstone bag.
‘Lucia!’ Richard exclaimed, startled. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I – I – came to get my handbag,’ Lucia explained. ‘Hello, Dr Graham. Excuse me, please,’ she added, hurrying past them. As Richard watched her go, Poirot emerged from behind the curtains, approaching the two men as though he had just entered the room by the other door.
‘Ah, here is Monsieur Poirot. Let me introduce you. Poirot, this is Dr Graham. Kenneth Graham.’ Poirot and the doctor bowed to each other, and Dr Graham went immediately to the body of the dead scientist to examine it, watched by Richard. Hercule Poirot, to whom they paid no further attention, moved about the room, counting the coffee cups again with a smile. ‘One, two, three, four, five,’ he murmured. ‘Five, indeed.’ A light of pure enjoyment lit up Poirot’s face, and he smiled in his most inscrutable fashion. Taking the test tube out of his pocket, he looked at it, and slowly shook his head.
Meanwhile, Dr Graham had concluded a cursory examination of Sir Claud Amory’s body. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said to Richard, ‘that I shan’t be able to sign a death certificate. Sir Claud was in a perfectly healthy condition, and it seems extremely unlikely to me that he could have suffered a sudden heart attack. I fear we shall have to find out what he had eaten or drunk in his last hours.’
‘Good heavens, man, is that really necessary?’ asked Richard, with a note of alarm in his voice. ‘He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything that the rest of us didn’t. It’s absurd to suggest –’
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Dr Graham interrupted, speaking firmly and with authority. ‘I’m telling you that there will have to be an inquest, by law, and that the coroner will certainly want to know the cause of death. At present I simply do not know what caused Sir Claud’s death.