The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie [62]
She came closer to him.
“Admiral Chandler thinks Hugh is mad. George Frobisher thinks he is mad. Hugh himself thinks he is mad—”
Poirot was watching her.
“And you, Mademoiselle?”
“I? I say he isn’t mad! That’s why—”
She stopped.
“That is why you came to me?”
“Yes. I couldn’t have had any other reason for coming to you, could I?”
“That,” said Hercule Poirot, “is exactly what I have been asking myself, Mademoiselle!”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Who is Stephen Graham?”
She stared.
“Stephen Graham? Oh, he’s—he’s just someone.”
She caught him by the arm.
“What’s in your mind? What are you thinking about? You just stand there—behind that great moustache of yours—blinking your eyes in the sunlight, and you don’t tell me anything. You’re making me afraid—horribly afraid. Why are you making me afraid?”
“Perhaps,” said Poirot, “because I am afraid myself.”
The deep grey eyes opened wide, stared up at him. She said in a whisper:
“What are you afraid of?”
Hercule Poirot sighed—a deep sigh. He said:
“It is much easier to catch a murderer than it is to prevent a murder.”
She cried out: “Murder? Don’t use that word.”
“Nevertheless,” said Hercule Poirot, “I do use it.”
He altered his tone, speaking quickly and authoritatively.
“Mademoiselle, it is necessary that both you and I should pass the night at Lyde Manor. I look to you to arrange the matter. You can do that?”
“I—yes—I suppose so. But why—?”
“Because there is no time to lose. You have told me that you have courage. Prove that courage now. Do what I ask and make no questions about it.”
She nodded without a word and turned away.
Poirot followed her into the house after the lapse of a moment or two. He heard her voice in the library and the voices of three men. He passed up the broad staircase. There was no one on the upper floor.
He found Hugh Chandler’s room easily enough. In the corner of the room was a fitted washbasin with hot and cold water. Over it, on a glass shelf, were various tubes and pots and bottles.
Hercule Poirot went quickly and dexterously to work. . . .
What he had to do did not take him long. He was downstairs again in the hall when Diana came out of the library, looking flushed and rebellious.
“It’s all right,” she said.
Admiral Chandler drew Poirot into the library and closed the door. He said: “Look here, M. Poirot. I don’t like this.”
“What don’t you like, Admiral Chandler?”
“Diana has been insisting that you and she should both spend the night here. I don’t want to be inhospitable—”
“It is not a question of hospitality.”
“As I say, I don’t like being inhospitable—but frankly, I don’t like it, M. Poirot. I—I don’t want it. And I don’t understand the reason for it. What good can it possibly do?”
“Shall we say that it is an experiment I am trying?”
“What kind of an experiment?”
“That, you will pardon me, is my business. . . .”
“Now look here, M. Poirot, I didn’t ask you to come here in the first place—”
Poirot interrupted.
“Believe me, Admiral Chandler, I quite understand and appreciate your point of view. I am here simply and solely because of the obstinacy of a girl in love. You have told me certain things. Colonel Frobisher has told me certain things. Hugh himself has told me certain things. Now—I want to see for myself.”
“Yes, but see what? I tell you, there’s nothing to see! I lock Hugh into his room every night and that’s that.”
“And yet—sometimes—he tells me that the door is not locked in the morning?”
“What’s that?”
“Have you not found the door unlocked yourself?”
Chandler was frowning.
“I always imagined George had unlocked—what do you mean?”
“Where do you leave the key—in the lock?”
“No, I lay it on the chest outside. I, or George, or Withers, the valet, take it from there in the morning. We’ve told Withers it’s because Hugh walks in his sleep . . . I daresay he knows more—but he’s a faithful fellow, been with me for years.”
“Is there another key?”
“Not that I know of.”
“One could have been made.”
“But who—”
“Your son thinks that he himself has one hidden