“And then?”
“Her ladyship picked up the receiver and said: ‘Hello—who’s speaking?’ Then she said: ‘Yes—that’s all right. Lady Edgware speaking.’ I was just about to leave her ladyship when she called to me and said they had been cut off. She said someone had laughed and evidently hung up the receiver. She asked me if the person ringing up had given any name. They had not done so. That was all that occurred, sir.”
Poirot frowned to himself.
“Do you really think the telephone call has something to do with the murder, M. Poirot?” asked Mrs. Widburn.
“Impossible to say, Madame. It is just a curious circumstance.”
“People do ring up for a joke sometimes. It’s been done to me.”
“C’est toujours possible, Madame.”
He spoke to the butler again.
“Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s who rang up?”
“A lady’s, I think, sir.”
“What kind of a voice, high or low?”
“Low, sir. Careful and rather distinct.” He paused. “It may be my fancy, sir, but it sounded like a foreign voice. The R’s were very noticeable.”
“As far as that goes it might have been a Scotch voice, Donald,” said Mrs. Widburn, smiling at Ross.
Ross laughed.
“Not guilty,” he said. “I was at the dinner table.”
Poirot spoke once again to the butler.
“Do you think,” he asked, “that you could recognize that voice if you were to hear it any time?”
The butler hesitated.
“I couldn’t quite say, sir. I might do so. I think it is possible that I should do so.”
“I thank you, my friend.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The butler inclined his head and withdrew, pontificial to the last.
Sir Montagu Corner continued to be very friendly and to play his role of old-world charm. He persuaded us to remain and play bridge. I excused myself—the stakes were bigger than I cared about. Young Ross seemed relieved also at the prospect of someone taking his hand. He and I sat looking on while the other four played. The evening ended in a heavy financial gain to Poirot and Sir Montagu.
Then we thanked our host and took our departure. Ross came with us.
“A strange little man,” said Poirot as we stepped out into the night.
The night was fine and we had decided to walk until we picked up a taxi instead of having one telephoned for.
“Yes, a strange little man,” said Poirot again.
“A very rich little man,” said Ross with feeling.
“I suppose so.”
“He seems to have taken a fancy to me,” said Ross. “Hope it will last. A man like that behind you means a lot.”
“You are an actor, Mr. Ross?”
Ross said that he was. He seemed sad that his name had not brought instant recognition. Apparently he had recently won marvellous notices in some gloomy play translated from the Russian.
When Poirot and I between us had soothed him down again, Poirot asked casually:
“You knew Carlotta Adams, did you not?”
“No. I saw her death announced in the paper tonight. Overdose of some drug or other. Idiotic the way all these girls dope.”
“It is sad, yes. She was clever, too.”
“I suppose so.”
He displayed a characteristic lack of interest in anyone else’s performance but his own.
“Did you see her show at all?” I asked.
“No. That sort of thing’s not much in my line. Kind of craze for it at present, but I don’t think it will last.”
“Ah!” said Poirot. “Here is a taxi.”
He waved a stick.
“Think I’ll walk,” said Ross. “I get a tube straight home from Hammersmith.”
Suddenly he gave a nervous laugh.
“Odd thing,” he said. “That dinner last night.”
“Yes?”
“We were thirteen. Some fellow failed at the last minute. We never noticed till just the end of dinner.”
“And who got up first?” I asked.
He gave a queer little nervous cackle of laughter.
“I did,” he said.
Sixteen
MAINLY DISCUSSION
When we got home we found Japp waiting for us.
“Thought I’d just call round and have a chat with you before turning in, M. Poirot,” he said cheerfully.
“Eh bien, my good friend, how goes it?”
“Well, it doesn’t go any too well. And that’s a fact.”
He looked distressed.
“Got any help for me, M. Poirot?”
“I have one or two little ideas that I should like to present to you,” said Poirot.
“You and your ideas! In some ways, you know, you’re a caution. Not that I don’t want to hear them. I do. There’s some good stuff in that funny-shaped head of yours.”
Poirot acknowledged the compliment somewhat coldly.
“Have you any ideas about the double lady problem—that’s what I want to know? Eh, M. Poirot? What about it? Who was she?”
“That is exactly what I wish to talk to you about.”
He asked Japp if he had ever heard of Carlotta Adams.
“I’ve heard the name. For the moment I can’t just place it.”
Poirot explained.
“Her! Does imitations does she? Now what made you fix on her? What have you got to go on?”
Poirot related the steps we had taken and the conclusion we had drawn.
“By the Lord, it looks as though you were right. Clothes, hat, gloves, etc., and the fair wig. Yes, it must be. I will say—you’re the goods, M. Poirot. Smart work, that! Not that I think there’s anything to show she was put out of the way. That seems a bit farfetched. I don’t quite see eye to eye with you there. Your theory is a bit fantastical for me. I’ve more experience than you have. I don’t believe in this villain-behind-the-scenes motif. Carlotta Adams was the woman all right, but I should put it one of two ways. She went there for purposes of her own—blackmail, maybe, since she hinted she was going to get money. They had a bit of a dispute. He turned nasty, she turned nasty, and she finished him off. And I should say that when she got home she went all to pieces. She hadn’t meant murder. It’s my belief she took an overdose on purpose as the easiest way out.”
“You think that covers all the facts?”
“Well, naturally there are a lot of things we don’t know yet. It’s a good working hypothesis to go on with. The other explanation is that the hoax and the murder had nothing to do with each other. It’s just a damned queer coincidence.”
Poirot did not agree, I knew. But he merely said noncommittally:
“Mais oui, c’est possible.”
“Or, look here, how’s this? The hoax is innocent enough. Someone gets to hear of it and thinks it will suit their purpose jolly well. That’s not a bad idea?” He paused and went on: “But personally I prefer idea No. 1. What the link was between his lordship and the girl we’ll find out somehow or other.”
Poirot told him of the letter to America posted by the maid, and Japp agreed that that might possibly be of great assistance.
“I’ll get on to that at once,” he said, making a note of it in his little book.
“I’m the more in favour of the lady being the killer because I can’t find anyone else,” he said, as he put the book away. “Captain Marsh, now, his lordship as now is. He’s got a motive sticking out a yard. A bad record too. Hard up and none too scrupulous over money. What’s more he had a row with his uncle yesterday morning. He told me that himself as a matter of fact—which rather takes the taste out of it. Yes, he’d be a likely customer. But he’s got an alibi for yesterday evening. He was at the opera with the Dortheimers. Rich Jews. Grosvenor Square. I’ve looked into that and it’s all right. He dined with them, went to the opera and they went on to supper at Sobranis. So that’s that.”
“And Mademoiselle?”
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“The daughter, you mean? She was out of the house too. Dined with some people called Carthew West. They took her to the opera and saw her home afterwards. Quarter to twelve she got in. That disposes of her. The secretary woman seems all right—very efficient decent woman. Then there’s the butler. I can’t say I take to him much. It isn’t natural for a man to have good looks like that. There’s something fishy about him—and something odd about the way he came to enter Lord Edgware’s service. Yes, I’m checking up on him all right. I can’t see any motive for murder, though.”