Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [3]
Sir Claud talked on. Hercule Poirot, glancing across at the reflection in the mirror of his bald, egg-shaped head and his elaborately waxed moustache, told himself that he had never before, in a long career, been considered unobtrusive, nor did he so consider himself. But a weekend in the country and a chance to meet the distinguished scientist could be agreeable, as, no doubt, could the suitably expressed thanks of a grateful government – and merely for carrying in his pocket from Surrey to Whitehall an obscure, if deadly, scientific formula.
‘I shall be delighted to oblige you, my dear Sir Claud,’ he interrupted. ‘I shall arrange to arrive on Saturday afternoon, if that is convenient to you, and return to London with whatever you wish me to take with me, on Monday morning. I look forward greatly to making your acquaintance.’
Curious, he thought, as he replaced the receiver. Foreign agents might well be interested in Sir Claud’s formula, but could it really be the case that someone in the scientist’s own household –? Ah well, doubtless more would be revealed during the course of the weekend.
‘George,’ he called, ‘please take my heavy tweed suit and my dinner jacket and trousers to the cleaners. I must have them back by Friday, as I am going to the Country for the Weekend.’ He made it sound like the Steppes of Central Asia and for a lifetime.
Then, turning to the phone, he dialled a number and waited for a few moments before speaking. ‘My dear Hastings,’ he began, ‘would you not like to have a few days away from your business concerns in London? Surrey is very pleasant at this time of the year . . .’
Chapter 2
I
Sir Claud Amory’s house, Abbot’s Cleve, stood just on the outskirts of the small town – or rather overgrown village – of Market Cleve, about twenty-five miles south-east of London. The house itself, a large but architecturally nondescript Victorian mansion, was set amid an attractive few acres of gently undulating countryside, here and there heavily wooded. The gravel drive, from the gatehouse up to the front door of Abbot’s Cleve, twisted its way through trees and dense shrubbery. A terrace ran along the back of the house, with a lawn sloping down to a somewhat neglected formal garden.
On the Friday evening two days after his telephone conversation with Hercule Poirot, Sir Claud sat in his study, a small but comfortably furnished room on the ground floor of the house, on the east side. Outside, the light was beginning to fade. Sir Claud’s butler, Tredwell, a tall, lugubrious-looking individual with an impeccably correct manner, had sounded the gong for dinner two or three minutes earlier, and no doubt the family was now assembling in the dining-room on the other side of the hall.
Sir Claud drummed on the desk with his fingers, his habit when forcing himself to a quick decision. A man in his fifties, of medium height and build, with greying hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, and eyes of a piercingly cold blue, he now wore an expression in which anxiety was mixed with puzzlement.
There was a discreet knock on the study door, and Tredwell appeared in the doorway. ‘Excuse me, Sir Claud. I wondered if perhaps you had not heard the gong –’
‘Yes, yes, Tredwell, that’s all right. Would you tell them I shall be in very shortly? Say I’m caught on the phone. In fact, I am about to make a quick phone call. You may as well begin serving.’
Tredwell withdrew silently, and Sir Claud, taking a deep breath, pulled the telephone towards himself. Extracting a small address-book from a drawer of his desk, he consulted it briefly