Cards on the Table

CHAPTER 1 Mr Shaitana

‘My dear M. Poirot!’

It was a soft purring voice—a voice used deliberately as an instrument—nothing impulsive or premeditated about it.

Hercule Poirot swung round.

He bowed.

He shook hands ceremoniously.

There was something in his eye that was unusual. One would have said that this chance encounter awakened in him an emotion that he seldom had occasion to feel.

‘My dear Mr Shaitana,’ he said.

They both paused. They were like duellists en garde.

Around them a well-dressed languid London crowd eddied mildly. Voices drawled or murmured.

‘Darling—exquisite!’

‘Simply divine, aren’t they, my dear?’

It was the Exhibition of Snuff-Boxes at Wessex House. Admission one guinea, in aid of the London hospitals.

‘My dear man,’ said Mr Shaitana, ‘how nice to see you! Not hanging or guillotining much just at present? Slack season in the criminal world? Or is there to be a robbery here this afternoon—that would be too delicious.’

‘Alas, Monsieur,’ said Poirot. ‘I am here in a purely private capacity.’

Mr Shaitana was diverted for a moment by a Lovely Young Thing with tight poodle curls up one side of her head and three cornucopias in black straw on the other.

He said:

‘My dear—why didn’t you come to my party? It really was a marvellous party! Quite a lot of people actually spoke to me! One woman even said, “How do you do,” and “Goodbye” and “Thank you so much”—but of course she came from a Garden City, poor dear!’

While the Lovely Young Thing made a suitable reply, Poirot allowed himself a good study of the hirsute adornment on Mr Shaitana’s upper lip.

A fine moustache—a very fine moustache—the only moustache in London, perhaps, that could compete with that of M. Hercule Poirot.

‘But it is not so luxuriant,’ he murmured to himself. ‘No, decidedly it is inferior in every respect. Tout de même, it catches the eye.’

The whole of Mr Shaitana’s person caught the eye—it was designed to do so. He deliberately attempted a Mephistophelian effect. He was tall and thin, his face was long and melancholy, his eyebrows were heavily accented and jet black, he wore a moustache with stiff waxed ends and a tiny black imperial. His clothes were works of art—of exquisite cut—but with a suggestion of the bizarre.

Every healthy Englishman who saw him longed earnestly and fervently to kick him! They said, with a singular lack of originality, ‘There’s that damned Dago, Shaitana!’

Their wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, and even grandmothers said, varying the idiom according to their generation, words to this effect: ‘I know, my dear. Of course, he is too terrible. But so rich! And such marvellous parties! And he’s always got something amusing and spiteful to tell you about people.’

Whether Mr Shaitana was an Argentine, or a Portuguese, or a Greek, or some other nationality rightly despised by the insular Briton, nobody knew.

But three facts were quite certain:

He existed richly and beautifully in a super flat in Park Lane.

He gave wonderful parties—large parties, small parties, macabre parties, respectable parties and definitely ‘queer’ parties.

He was a man of whom nearly everybody was a little afraid.

Why this last was so can hardly be stated in definite words. There was a feeling, perhaps, that he knew a little too much about everybody. And there was a feeling, too, that his sense of humour was a curious one.

People nearly always felt that it would be better not to risk offending Mr Shaitana.

It was his humour this afternoon to bait that ridiculous-looking little man, Hercule Poirot.

‘So even a policeman needs recreation?’ he said. ‘You study the arts in your old age, M. Poirot?’

Poirot smiled good-humouredly.

‘I see,’ he said, ‘that you yourself have lent three snuff-boxes to the Exhibition.’

Mr Shaitana waved a deprecating hand.

‘One picks up trifles here and there. You must come to my flat one day. I have some interesting pieces. I do not confine myself to any particular period or class of object.’

‘Your tastes are catholic,’ said Poirot smiling.

‘As you say.’

Suddenly Mr Shaitana’s eyes danced, the corners of his lips curled up, his eyebrows assumed a fantastic tilt.

‘I could even show you objects in your own line, M. Poirot!’

‘You have then a private “Black Museum”.’

‘Bah!’ Mr Shaitana snapped disdainful fingers. ‘The cup used by the Brighton murderer, the jemmy of a celebrated burglar—absurd childishness! I should never burden myself with rubbish like that. I collect only the best objects of their kind.’

‘And what do you consider the best objects, artistically speaking, in crime?’ inquired Poirot.

Mr Shaitana leaned forward and laid two fingers on Poirot’s shoulder. He hissed his words dramatically.

‘The human beings who commit them, M. Poirot.’

Poirot’s eyebrows rose a trifle.

‘Aha, I have startled you,’ said Mr Shaitana. ‘My dear, dear man, you and I look on these things as from poles apart! For you crime is a matter of routine: a murder, an investigation, a clue, and ultimately (for you are undoubtedly an able fellow) a conviction. Such banalities would not interest me! I am not interested in poor specimens of any kind. And the caught murderer is necessarily one of the failures. He is second-rate. No, I look on the matter from the artistic point of view. I collect only the best!’

‘The best being—?’ asked Poirot.

‘My dear fellow—the ones who have got away with it! The successes! The criminals who lead an agreeable life which no breath of suspicion has ever touched. Admit that is an amusing hobby.’

‘It was another word I was thinking of—not amusing.’

‘An idea!’ cried Shaitana, paying no attention to Poirot. ‘A little dinner! A dinner to meet my exhibits! Really, that is a most amusing thought. I cannot think why it has never occurred to me before. Yes—yes, I see it all—I see it exactly… You must give me a little time—not next week—let us say the week after next. You are free? What day shall we say?’

‘Any day of the week after next would suit me,’ said Poirot with a bow.

‘Good—then let us say Friday. Friday the 18th, that will be. I will write it down at once in my little book. Really, the idea pleases me enormously.’

‘I am not quite sure if it pleases me,’ said Poirot slowly. ‘I do not mean that I am insensible to the kindness of your invitation—no—not that—’

Shaitana interrupted him.

‘But it shocks your bourgeois sensibilities? My dear fellow, you must free yourself from the limitations of the policeman mentality.’

Poirot said slowly:

‘It is true that I have a thoroughly bourgeois attitude to murder.’

‘But, my dear, why? A stupid, bungled, butchering business—yes, I agree with you. But murder can be an art! A murderer can be an artist.’

‘Oh, I admit it.’

‘Well then?’ Mr Shaitana asked.

‘But he is still a murderer!’

‘Surely, my dear M. Poirot, to do a thing supremely well is a justification! You want, very unimaginatively, to take every murderer, handcuff him, shut him up, and eventually break his neck for him in the early hours of the morning. In my opinion a really successful murderer should be granted a pension out of the public funds and asked out to dinner!’

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

‘I am not as insensitive to art in crime as you think. I can admire the perfect murder—I can also admire a tiger—that splendid tawny-striped beast. But I will admire him from outside his cage. I will not go inside. That is to say, not unless it is my duty to do so. For you see, Mr Shaitana, the tiger might spring…’

Mr Shaitana laughed.

‘I see. And the murderer?’

‘Might murder,’ said Poirot gravely.

‘My dear fellow—what an alarmist you are! Then you will not come to meet my collection of—tigers?’

‘On the contrary, I shall be enchanted.’

‘How brave!’

‘You do not quite understand me, Mr Shaitana. My words were in the nature of a warning. You asked me just now to admit that your idea of a collection of murderers was amusing. I said I could think of another word other than amusing. That word was dangerous. I fancy, Mr Shaitana, that your hobby might be a dangerous one!’

Mr Shaitana laughed, a very Mephistophelian laugh.

He said:

‘I may expect you, then, on the 18th?’

Poirot gave a little bow.

‘You may expect me on the 18th. Mille remerciments.’

‘I shall arrange a little party,’ mused Shaitana. ‘Do not forget. Eight o’clock.’

He moved away. Poirot stood a minute or two looking after him.

He shook his head slowly and thoughtfully.