Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [53]
‘No,’ Hastings admitted with an engaging candour. ‘You know very well I never see these things. I know that we’re in the library of Sir Claud’s house, and that’s all.’
‘Yes, my friend, you are right,’ Poirot told him. ‘We are in the library of Sir Claud Amory’s house. It is not morning but evening. The lights have just gone out. The thief ’s plans have gone awry.’
Poirot sat very upright, and wagged his forefinger emphatically to emphasize his points. ‘Sir Claud, who, in the normal course of things, would not have gone to that safe until the following day, has discovered his loss by a mere chance. And, as the old gentleman himself said, the thief is caught like a rat in a trap. Yes, but the thief, who is also the murderer, knows something, too, that Sir Claud does not. The thief knows that in a very few minutes Sir Claud will be silenced for ever. He – or she – has one problem that has to be solved, and one only – to hide the paper safely during those few moments of darkness. Shut your eyes, Hastings, as I shut mine. The lights have gone out, and we can see nothing. But we can hear. Repeat to me, Hastings, as accurately as you can, the words of Miss Amory when she described this scene for us.’
Hastings shut his eyes. Then he began to speak, slowly, with an effort of memory and several pauses. ‘Gasps,’ he uttered.
Poirot nodded. ‘A lot of little gasps,’ Hastings went on, and Poirot nodded again.
Hastings concentrated for a time, and then continued, ‘The noise of a chair falling – a metallic clink – that must have been the key, I imagine.’
‘Quite right,’ said Poirot. ‘The key. Continue.’
‘A scream. That was Lucia screaming. She called out to Sir Claud – Then the knocking came at the door – Oh! Wait a moment – right at the beginning, the noise of tearing silk.’ Hastings opened his eyes.
‘Yes, tearing silk,’ Poirot exclaimed. He rose, moved to the desk, and then crossed to the fireplace. ‘It is all there, Hastings, in those few moments of darkness. All there. And yet our ears tell us – nothing.’ He stopped at the mantelpiece and mechanically straightened the vase of spills.
‘Oh, do stop straightening those damned things, Poirot,’ Hastings complained. ‘You’re always at it.’
His attention arrested, Poirot removed his hand from the vase. ‘What is that you say?’ he asked. ‘Yes, it is true.’ He stared at the vase of spills. ‘I remember straightening them but a little hour ago. And now – it is necessary that I straighten them again.’ He spoke excitedly. ‘Why, Hastings – why is that?’
‘Because they’re crooked, I suppose,’ Hastings replied in a bored tone. ‘It’s just your little mania for neatness.’
‘Tearing silk!’ exclaimed Poirot. ‘No, Hastings! The sound is the same.’ He stared at the paper spills, and snatched up the vase that contained them. ‘Tearing paper –’ he continued as he moved away from the mantelpiece.
His excitement communicated itself to his friend. ‘What is it?’ Hastings asked, springing up and moving to him.
Poirot stood, tumbling out the spills onto the settee, and examining them. Every now and then he handed one to Hastings, muttering, ‘Here is one. Ah, another, and yet another.’
Hastings unfolded the spills and scrutinized them. ‘C19 N23 –’ he began to read aloud from one of them.
‘Yes, yes!’ exclaimed Poirot.
‘It is the formula!’ ‘I say, that’s wonderful!’
‘Quick! Fold them up again!’
Poirot ordered, and Hastings began to do so. ‘Oh, you are so slow!’ Poirot admonished him. ‘Quick! Quick!’ Snatching the spills from Hastings, he put them back into the vase and hastened to return it to the mantelpiece.
Looking dumbfounded, Hastings joined him there.
Poirot beamed. ‘It intrigues you what I do there, yes? Tell me, Hastings, what is it that I have here in this vase?’
‘Why, spills, of course,’ Hastings replied in a tone of tremendous irony.
‘No, mon ami, it is cheese.’
‘Cheese?’
‘Precisely, my friend, cheese.’
‘I say, Poirot,’ Hastings enquired sarcastically, ‘you’re all right, aren