Cards on the Table

CHAPTER 6 Third Murderer?

‘Didn’t get any extra change out of her,’ commented Battle. ‘Put me in my place, too. She’s the old-fashioned kind, full of consideration for others, but arrogant as the devil! I can’t believe she did it, but you never know! She’s got plenty of resolution. What’s the idea of the bridge scores, M. Poirot?’

Poirot spread them on the table.

‘They are illuminating, do you not think? What do we want in this case? A clue to character. And a clue not to one character, but to four characters. And this is where we are most likely to find it—in these scribbled figures. Here is the first rubber, you see—a tame business, soon over. Small neat figures—careful addition and subtraction—that is Miss Meredith’s score. She was playing with Mrs Lorrimer. They had the cards, and they won.

‘In this next one it is not so easy to follow the play, since it is kept in the cancellation style. But it tells us perhaps something about Major Despard—a man who likes the whole time to know at a glance where he stands. The figures are small and full of character.

‘This next score is Mrs Lorrimer’s—she and Dr Roberts against the other two—a Homeric combat—figures mounting up above the line each side. Overcalling on the doctor’s part, and they go down; but, since they are both first-class players, they never go down very much. If the doctor’s overcalling induces rash bidding on the other side there is the chance seized of doubling. See—these figures here are doubled tricks gone down. A characteristic handwriting, graceful, very legible, firm.

‘Here is the last score—the unfinished rubber. I collected one score in each person’s handwriting, you see. Figures rather flamboyant. Not such high scores as the preceding rubber. That is probably because the doctor was playing with Miss Meredith, and she is a timid player. His calling would make her more so!

‘You think, perhaps, that they are foolish, these questions that I ask? But it is not so. I want to get at the characters of these four players, and when it is only about bridge I ask, everyone is ready and willing to speak.’

‘I never think your questions foolish, M. Poirot,’ said Battle. ‘I’ve seen too much of your work. Everyone’s got their own ways of working. I know that. I give my inspectors a free hand always. Everyone’s got to find out for themselves what method suits them best. But we’d better not discuss that now. We’ll have the girl in.’

Anne Meredith was upset. She stopped in the doorway. Her breath came unevenly.

Superintendent Battle was immediately fatherly. He rose, set a chair for her at a slightly different angle.

‘Sit down, Miss Meredith, sit down. Now, don’t be alarmed. I know all this seems rather dreadful, but it’s not so bad, really.’

‘I don’t think anything could be worse,’ said the girl in a low voice. ‘It’s so awful—so awful—to think that one of us—that one of us—’

‘You let me do the thinking,’ said Battle kindly. ‘Now, then, Miss Meredith, suppose we have your address first of all.’

‘Wendon Cottage, Wallingford.’

‘No address in town?’

‘No, I’m staying at my club for a day or two.’

‘And your club is?’

‘Ladies’ Naval and Military.’

‘Good. Now, then, Miss Meredith, how well did you know Mr Shaitana?’

‘I didn’t know him well at all. I always thought he was a most frightening man.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, well, he was! That awful smile! And a way he had of bending over you. As though he might bite you.’

‘Had you known him long?’

‘About nine months. I met him in Switzerland during the winter sports.’

‘I should never have thought he went in for winter sports,’ said Battle, surprised.

‘He only skated. He was a marvellous skater. Lots of figures and tricks.’

‘Yes, that sounds more like him. And did you see much of him after that?’

‘Well—a fair amount. He asked me to parties and things like that. They were rather fun.’

‘But you didn’t like him himself?’

‘No, I thought he was a shivery kind of man.’

Battle said gently:

‘But you’d no special reason for being afraid of him?’

Anne Meredith raised wide limpid eyes to his.

‘Special reason? Oh, no.’

‘That’s all right, then. Now about tonight. Did you leave your seat at all?’

‘I don’t think so. Oh, yes, I may have done once. I went round to look at the others’ hands.’

‘But you stayed by the bridge table all the time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Quite sure, Miss Meredith?’

The girl’s cheeks flamed suddenly.

‘No—no, I think I walked about.’

‘Right. You’ll excuse me, Miss Meredith, but try and speak the truth. I know you’re nervous, and when one’s nervous one’s apt to—well, to say the thing the way you want it to be. But that doesn’t really pay in the end. You walked about. Did you walk over in the direction of Mr Shaitana?’

The girl was silent for a minute, then she said:

‘Honestly—honestly—I don’t remember.’

‘Well, we’ll leave it that you may have done. Know anything about the other three?’

The girl shook her head.

‘I’ve never seen any of them before.’

‘What do you think of them? Any likely murderers amongst them?’

‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. It couldn’t be Major Despard. And I don’t believe it could be the doctor—after all, a doctor could kill anyone in much easier ways. A drug—or something like that.’

‘Then, if it’s anyone, you think it’s Mrs Lorrimer.’

‘Oh, I don’t. I’m sure she wouldn’t. She’s so charming—and so kind to play bridge with. She’s so good herself, and yet she doesn’t make one feel nervous, or point out one’s mistakes.’

‘Yet you left her name to the last,’ said Battle.

‘Only because stabbing seems somehow more like a woman.’

Battle did his conjuring trick. Anne Meredith shrank back.

‘Oh, horrible. Must I—take it?’

‘I’d rather you did.’

He watched her as she took the stiletto gingerly, her face contracted with repulsion.

‘With this tiny thing—with this—’

‘Go in like butter,’ said Battle with gusto. ‘A child could do it.’

‘You mean—you mean’—wide, terrified eyes fixed themselves on his face—‘that I might have done it? But I didn’t. Why should I?’

‘That’s just the question we’d like to know,’ said Battle. ‘What’s the motive? Why did anyone want to kill Shaitana? He was a picturesque person, but he wasn’t dangerous, as far as I can make out.’

Was there a slight indrawing of her breath—a sudden lifting of her breast?

‘Not a blackmailer, for instance, or anything of that sort?’ went on Battle. ‘And anyway, Miss Meredith, you don’t look the sort of girl who’s got a lot of guilty secrets.’

For the first time she smiled, reassured by his geniality.

‘No, indeed I haven’t. I haven’t got any secrets at all.’

‘Then don’t worry, Miss Meredith. We shall have to come round and ask you a few more questions, I expect, but it will be all a matter of routine.’

He got up.

‘Now off you go. My constable will get you a taxi; and don’t you lie awake worrying yourself. Take a couple of aspirins.’

He ushered her out. As he came back Colonel Race said in a low, amused voice:

‘Battle, what a really accomplished liar you are! Your fatherly air was unsurpassed.’

‘No good dallying about with her, Colonel Race. Either the poor kid is dead scared—in which case it’s cruelty, and I’m not a cruel man; I never have been—or she’s a highly accomplished little actress, and we shouldn’t get any further if we were to keep her here half the night.’

Mrs Oliver gave a sigh and ran her hands freely through her fringe until it stood upright and gave her a wholly drunken appearance.

‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I rather believe now that she did it! It’s lucky it’s not in a book. They don’t really like the young and beautiful girl to have done it. All the same, I rather think she did. What do you think, M. Poirot?’

‘Me, I have just made a discovery.’

‘In the bridge scores again?’

‘Yes, Miss Anne Meredith turns her score over, draws lines and uses the back.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘It means she has the habit of poverty or else is of a naturally economical turn of mind.’

‘She’s expensively dressed,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Send in Major Despard,’ said Superintendent Battle.