he said. ‘There must be many secret women poisoners—never found out.’
‘Of course there are,’ said Mrs Oliver happily, helping herself lavishly to a mousse of foie gras.
‘A doctor, too, has opportunities,’ went on Mr Shaitana thoughtfully.
‘I protest,’ cried Dr Roberts. ‘When we poison our patients it’s entirely by accident.’ He laughed heartily.
‘But if I were to commit a crime,’ went on Mr Shaitana.
He stopped, and something in that pause compelled attention.
All faces were turned to him.
‘I should make it very simple, I think. There’s always an accident—a shooting accident, for instance—or the domestic kind of accident.’
Then he shrugged his shoulders and picked up his wine-glass.
‘But who am I to pronounce—with so many experts present…’
He drank. The candlelight threw a red shade from the wine on to his face with its waxed moustache, its little imperial, its fantastic eyebrows…
There was a momentary silence.
Mrs Oliver said:
‘Is it twenty-to or twenty-past? An angel passing… My feet aren’t crossed—it must be a black angel!’
When the company returned to the drawing-room a bridge table had been set out. Coffee was handed round.
‘Who plays bridge?’ asked Mr Shaitana. ‘Mrs Lorrimer, I know. And Dr Roberts. Do you play, Miss Meredith?’
‘Yes. I’m not frightfully good, though.’
‘Excellent. And Major Despard? Good. Supposing you four play here.’
‘Thank goodness there’s to be bridge,’ said Mrs Lorrimer in an aside to Poirot. ‘I’m one of the worst bridge fiends that ever lived. It’s growing on me. I simply will not go out to dinner now if there’s no bridge afterwards! I just fall asleep. I’m ashamed of myself, but there it is.’
They cut for partners. Mrs Lorrimer was partnered with Anne Meredith against Major Despard and Dr Roberts.
‘Women against men,’ said Mrs Lorrimer as she took her seat and began shuffling the cards in an expert manner. ‘The blue cards, don’t you think, partner? I’m a forcing two.’
‘Mind you win,’ said Mrs Oliver, her feminist feelings rising. ‘Show the men they can’t have it all their own way.’
‘They haven’t got a hope, the poor dears,’ said Dr Roberts cheerfully as he started shuffling the other pack. ‘Your deal, I think, Mrs Lorrimer.’
Major Despard sat down rather slowly. He was looking at Anne Meredith as though he had just made the discovery that she was remarkably pretty.
‘Cut, please,’ said Mrs Lorrimer impatiently. And with a start of apology he cut the pack she was presenting to him.
Mrs Lorrimer began to deal with a practised hand.
‘There is another bridge table in the other room,’ said Mr Shaitana.
He crossed to a second door and the other four followed him into a small comfortably furnished smoking-room where a second bridge table was set ready.
‘We must cut out,’ said Colonel Race.
Mr Shaitana shook his head.
‘I do not play,’ he said. ‘Bridge is not one of the games that amuse me.’
The others protested that they would much rather not play, but he overruled them firmly and in the end they sat down. Poirot and Mrs Oliver against Battle and Race.
Mr Shaitana watched them for a little while, smiled in a Mephistophelian manner as he observed on what hand Mrs Oliver declared Two No Trumps, and then went noiselessly through into the other room.
There they were well down to it, their faces serious, the bids coming quickly. ‘One heart.’ ‘Pass.’ ‘Three clubs.’ ‘Three spades.’ ‘Four diamonds.’ ‘Double.’ ‘Four hearts.’
Mr Shaitana stood watching a moment, smiling to himself.
Then he crossed the room and sat down in a big chair by the fireplace. A tray of drinks had been brought in and placed on an adjacent table. The firelight gleamed on the crystal stoppers.
Always an artist in lighting, Mr Shaitana had simulated the appearance of a merely firelit room. A small shaded lamp at his elbow gave him light to read by if he so desired. Discreet floodlighting gave the room a subdued look. A slightly stronger light shone over the bridge table, from whence the monotonous ejaculations continued.
‘One no trump’—clear and decisive—Mrs Lorrimer.
‘Three hearts’—an aggressive note in the voice—Dr Roberts.
‘No bid’—a quiet voice—Anne Meredith’s.
A slight pause always before Despard’s voice came. Not so much a slow thinker as a man who liked to be sure before he spoke.
‘Four hearts.’
‘Double.’
His face lit up by the flickering firelight, Mr Shaitana smiled.
He smiled and he went on smiling. His eyelids flickered a little…
His party was amusing him.
‘Five diamonds. Game and rubber,’ said Colonel Race. ‘Good for you, partner,’ he said to Poirot. ‘I didn’t think you’d do it. Lucky they didn’t lead a spade.’
‘Wouldn’t have made much difference, I expect,’ said Superintendent Battle, a man of gentle magnanimity.
He had called spades. His partner, Mrs Oliver, had had a spade, but ‘something had told her’ to lead a club—with disastrous results.
Colonel Race looked at his watch.
‘Ten-past-twelve. Time for another?’
‘You’ll excuse me,’ said Superintendent Battle. ‘But I’m by way of being an “early-to-bed” man.’
‘I, too,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘We’d better add up,’ said Race.
The result of the evening’s
