The Vintage Mysteries for the Holidays. Эдгар Аллан По

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СКАЧАТЬ and magazines. Bookshelves lined two of the walls, and at the end of the room opposite the window there was a handsome oak sideboard with a tantalus on top. The curtains and portière were of a soft dull green, and the carpet matched them in tone.

      Poirot stood a moment talking in the room, then he stepped forward, passed his hand lightly over the backs of the leather chairs, picked up a magazine from the table, and drew a finger gingerly over the surface of the oak sideboard. His face expressed complete approval.

      “No dust?” I asked, with a smile.

      He beamed on me, appreciative of my knowledge of his peculiarities.

      “Not a particle, mon ami! And for once, perhaps, it is a pity.”

      His sharp, birdlike eyes darted here and there.

      “Ah!” he remarked suddenly, with an intonation of relief. “The hearth-rug is crooked,” and he bent down to straighten it.

      Suddenly he uttered an exclamation and rose. In his hand he held a small fragment of paper.

      “In France, as in England,” he remarked, “the domestics omit to sweep under the mats!”

      Bex took the fragment from him, and I came closer to examine it.

      “You recognize it—eh, Hastings?”

      I shook my head, puzzled—and yet that particular shade of pink paper was very familiar.

      The commissary’s mental processes were quicker than mine.

      “A fragment of a cheque,” he exclaimed.

      The piece of paper was roughly about two inches square. On it was written in ink the word “Duveen.”

      “Bien,” said Bex. “This cheque was payable to, or drawn by, one named Duveen.”

      “The former, I fancy,” said Poirot, “for, if I am not mistaken, the handwriting is that of M. Renauld.”

      That was soon established, by comparing it with a memorandum from the desk.

      “Dear me,” murmured the commissary, with a crestfallen air, “I really cannot imagine how I came to overlook this.”

      Poirot laughed.

      “The moral of that is, always look under the mats! My friend Hastings here will tell you that anything in the least crooked is a torment to me. As soon as I saw that the hearth-rug was out of the straight, I said to myself: ‘Tiens! The leg of the chair caught it in being pushed back. Possibly there may be something beneath it which the good Françoise overlooked.’ ”

      “Françoise?”

      “Or Denise, or Léonie. Whoever did this room. Since there is no dust, the room must have been done this morning. I reconstruct the incident like this. Yesterday, possibly last night, M. Renauld drew a cheque to the order of some one named Duveen. Afterwards it was torn up, and scattered on the floor. This morning—” But M. Bex was already pulling impatiently at the bell.

      Françoise answered it. Yes, there had been a lot of pieces of paper on the floor. What had she done with them? Put them in the kitchen stove of course! What else?

      With a gesture of despair, Bex dismissed her. Then, his face lightening, he ran to the desk. In a minute he was hunting through the dead man’s cheque book. Then he repeated his former gesture. The last counterfoil was blank.

      “Courage!” cried Poirot, clapping him on the back. “Without doubt, Madame Renauld will be able to tell us all about this mysterious person named Duveen.”

      The commissary’s face cleared. “That is true. Let us proceed.”

      As we turned to leave the room, Poirot remarked casually: “It was here that M. Renauld received his guest last night, eh?”

      “It was—but how did you know?”

      “By this. I found it on the back of the leather chair.”

      And he held up between his finger and thumb a long black hair—a woman’s hair!

      M. Bex took us out by the back of the house to where there was a small shed leaning against the house. He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked it.

      “The body is here. We moved it from the scene of the crime just before you arrived, as the photographers had done with it.”

      He opened the door and we passed in. The murdered man lay on the ground, with a sheet over him. M. Bex dexterously whipped off the covering. Renauld was a man of medium height, slender and lithe in figure. He looked about fifty years of age, and his dark hair was plentifully streaked with grey. He was clean shaven with a long thin nose, and eyes set rather close together, and his skin was deeply bronzed, as that of a man who had spent most of his life beneath tropical skies. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and an expression of absolute amazement and terror was stamped on the livid features.

      “One can see by his face that he was stabbed in the back,” remarked Poirot.

      Very gently, he turned the dead man over. There, between the shoulder-blades, staining the light fawn overcoat, was a round dark patch. In the middle of it there was a slit in the cloth. Poirot examined it narrowly.

      “Have you any idea with what weapon the crime was committed?”

      “It was left in the wound.” The commissary reached down a large glass jar. In it was a small object that looked to me more like a paper-knife than anything else. It had a black handle, and a narrow shining blade. The whole thing was not more than ten inches long. Poirot tested the discoloured point gingerly with his finger tip.

      “Ma foi! but it is sharp! A nice easy little tool for murder!”

      “Unfortunately, we could find no trace of fingerprints on it,” remarked Bex regretfully. “The murderer must have worn gloves.”

      “Of course he did,” said Poirot contemptuously. “Even in Santiago they know enough for that. The veriest amateur of an English Mees knows it—thanks to the publicity the Bertillon system has been given in the Press. All the same, it interests me very much that there were no finger-prints. It is so amazingly simple to leave the finger-prints of some one else! And then the police are happy.” He shook his head. “I very much fear our criminal is not a man of method—either that or he was pressed for time. But we shall see.”

      He let the body fall back into its original position.

      “He wore only underclothes under his overcoat, I see,” he remarked.

      “Yes, the examining magistrate thinks that is rather a curious point.”

      At this minute there was a tap on the door which Bex had closed after him. He strode forward and opened it. Françoise was there. She endeavoured to peep in with ghoulish curiosity.

      “Well, what is it?” demanded Bex impatiently.

      “Madame. She sends a message that she is much recovered, and is quite ready to receive the examining magistrate.”

      “Good,” СКАЧАТЬ