Peril at End House

I felt myself blushing.

‘Just a momentary sprain,’ I explained.

‘Oh! well—I’m glad to hear Nick didn’t invent the whole thing. She’s the most heaven-sent little liar that ever existed, you know. Amazing—it’s quite a gift.’

I hardly knew what to say. My discomfiture seemed to amuse her.

‘She’s one of my oldest friends,’ she said, ‘and I always think loyalty’s such a tiresome virtue, don’t you? Principally practised by the Scots—like thrift and keeping the Sabbath. But Nick is a liar, isn’t she, Jim? That marvellous story about the brakes of the car—and Jim says there was nothing in it at all.’

The fair man said in a soft, rich voice:

‘I know something about cars.’

He half turned his head. Outside amongst other cars was a long, red car. It seemed longer and redder than any car could be. It had a long gleaming bonnet of polished metal. A super car!

‘Is that your car?’ I asked on a sudden impulse.

He nodded.

‘Yes.’

I had an insane desire to say, ‘It would be!’

Poirot rejoined us at that moment. I rose, he took me by the arm, gave a quick bow to the party, and drew me rapidly away.

‘It is arranged, my friend. We are to call on Mademoiselle at End House at half-past six. She will be returned from the motoring by then. Yes, yes, surely she will have returned—in safety.’

His face was anxious and his tone was worried.

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I asked her to accord me an interview—as soon as possible. She was a little unwilling—naturally. She thinks—I can see the thoughts passing through her mind: “Who is he—this little man? Is he the bounder, the upstart, the Moving Picture director?” If she could have refused she would—but it is difficult—asked like that on the spur of the moment it is easier to consent. She admits that she will be back by six-thirty. Ça y est!’

I remarked that that seemed to be all right then, but my remark met with little favour. Indeed Poirot was as jumpy as the proverbial cat. He walked about our sitting-room all the afternoon, murmuring to himself and ceaselessly rearranging and straightening the ornaments. When I spoke to him, he waved his hands and shook his head.

In the end we started out from the hotel at barely six o’clock.

‘It seems incredible,’ I remarked, as we descended the steps of the terrace. ‘To attempt to shoot anyone in a hotel garden. Only a madman would do such a thing.’

‘I disagree with you. Given one condition, it would be quite a reasonably safe affair. To begin with the garden is deserted. The people who come to hotels are like a flock of sheep. It is customary to sit on the terrace overlooking the bay—eh bien, so everyone sits on the terrace. Only, I who am an original, sit overlooking the garden. And even then, I saw nothing. There is plenty of cover, you observe—trees, groups of palms, flowering shrubs. Anyone could hide himself comfortably and be unobserved whilst he waited for Mademoiselle to pass this way. And she would come this way. To come round by the road from End House would be much longer. Mademoiselle Nick Buckley, she would be of those who are always late and taking the short cut!’

‘All the same, the risk was enormous. He might have been seen—and you can’t make shooting look like an accident.’

‘Not like an accident—no.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing—a little idea. I may or may not be justified. Leaving it aside for a moment, there is what I mentioned just now—an essential condition.’

‘Which is?’

‘Surely you can tell me, Hastings.’

‘I wouldn’t like to deprive you of the pleasure of being clever at my expense!’

‘Oh! the sarcasm! The irony! Well, what leaps to the eye is this: the motive cannot be obvious. If it were—why, then, truly the risk would indeed be too great to be taken! People would say: “I wonder if it were So-and-So. Where was So-and-So when the shot was fired?” No, the murderer—the would-be murderer, I should say—cannot be obvious. And that, Hastings is why I am afraid! Yes, at this minute I am afraid. I reassure myself. I say: “There are four of them.” I say: “Nothing can happen when they are all together.” I say: “It would be madness!” And all the time I am afraid. These “accidents”—I want to hear about them!’

He turned back abruptly.

‘It is still early. We will go the other way by the road. The garden has nothing to tell us. Let us inspect the orthodox approach to End House.’

Our way led out of the front gate of the hotel and up a sharp hill to the right. At the top of it was a small lane with a notice on the wall: ‘TO END HOUSE ONLY.’

We followed it and after a few hundred yards the lane gave an abrupt turn and ended in a pair of dilapidated entrance gates, which would have been the better for a coat of paint.

Inside the gates, to the right, was a small lodge. This lodge presented a piquant contrast to the gates and to the condition of the grass-grown drive. The small garden round it was spick and span, the window frames and sashes had been lately painted and there were clean bright curtains at the windows.

Bending over a flower-bed was a man in a faded Norfolk jacket. He straightened up as the gate creaked and turned to look at us. He was a man of about sixty, six foot at least, with a powerful frame and a weather-beaten face. His head was almost completely bald. His eyes were a vivid blue and twinkled. He seemed a genial soul.

‘Good-afternoon,’ he observed as we passed.

I responded in kind and as we went on up the drive I was conscious of those blue eyes raking our backs inquisitively.

‘I wonder,’ said Poirot, thoughtfully.

He left it at that without vouchsafing any explanation of what it was that he wondered.

The house itself was large and rather dreary-looking. It was shut in by trees, the branches of which actually touched the roof. It was clearly in bad repair. Poirot swept it with an appraising glance before ringing the bell—an old-fashioned bell that needed a Herculean pull to produce any effect and which once started, echoed mournfully on and on.

The door was opened by a middle-aged woman—‘a decent woman in black’—so I felt she should be described. Very respectable, rather mournful, completely uninterested.

Miss Buckley, she said, had not yet returned. Poirot explained that we had an appointment. He had some little difficulty in gaining his point, she was the type that is apt to be suspicious of foreigners. Indeed I flatter myself that it was my appearance which turned the scale. We were admitted and ushered into the drawing-room to await Miss Buckley’s return.

There was no mournful note here. The room gave on the sea and was full of sunshine. It was shabby and betrayed conflicting styles—ultra modern of a cheap variety superimposed on solid Victorian. The curtains were of faded brocade, but the covers were new and gay and the cushions were positively hectic. On the walls were hung family portraits. Some of them, I thought, looked remarkably good. There was a gramophone and there were some records lying idly about. There was a portable wireless, practically no books, and one newspaper flung open on the end of the sofa. Poirot picked it up—then laid it down with a grimace. It was the St Loo Weekly Herald and Directory. Something impelled him to pick it up a second time, and he was glancing at a column when the door opened and Nick Buckley came into the room.

‘Bring the ice, Ellen,’ she called over her shoulder, then addressed herself to us.

‘Well, here I am—and I’ve shaken off the others. I’m devoured with curiosity. Am I the long-lost heroine that is badly wanted for the Talkies? You were so very solemn’—she addressed herself to Poirot—‘that I feel it can’t be anything else. Do make me a handsome offer.’

‘Alas! Mademoiselle—’ began Poirot.

‘Don’t say it’s the opposite,’ she begged him. ‘Don’t say you paint miniatures and want me to buy one. But no—with that moustache and staying at the Majestic, which has the nastiest food and the highest prices in England—no, it simply can’t be.’

The woman who had opened the door to us came into the room with ice and a tray of bottles. Nick mixed cocktails expertly, continuing to talk. I think at last Poirot’s silence (so unlike him) impressed itself upon her. She stopped in the very act of filling the glasses and said sharply:

‘Well?’

‘That is what I wish it to be—well, Mademoiselle.’ He took the cocktail from her hand. ‘To your good health, Mademoiselle—to your continued good health.’