Peril at End House. Agatha Christie
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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.’
The girl was no fool. The significance of his tone was not lost on her.
‘Is—anything the matter?’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle. This…’
He held out his hand to her with the bullet on the palm of it. She picked it up with a puzzled frown.
‘You know what that is?’
‘Yes, of course I know. It’s a bullet.’
‘Exactly. Mademoiselle—it was not a wasp that flew past your face this morning—it was this bullet.’
‘Do you mean—was some criminal idiot shooting bullets in a hotel garden?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘Well, I’m damned,’ said Nick frankly. ‘I do seem to bear a charmed life. That’s number four.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘That is number four. I want, Mademoiselle, to hear about the other three—accidents.’
She stared at him.
‘I want to be very sure, Mademoiselle, that they were—accidents.’
‘Why, of course! What else could they be?’
‘Mademoiselle, prepare yourself, I beg, for a great shock. What if someone is attempting your life?’
All Nick’s response to this was a burst of laughter. The idea seemed to amuse her hugely.
‘What a marvellous idea! My dear man, who on earth do you think would attempt my life? I’m not the beautiful young heiress whose death releases millions. I wish somebody was trying to kill me—that would be a thrill, if you like—but I’m afraid there’s not a hope!’
‘Will you tell me, Mademoiselle, about those accidents?’
‘Of course—but there’s nothing in it. They were just stupid things. There’s a heavy picture hangs over my bed. It fell in the night. Just by pure chance I had happened to hear a door banging somewhere in the house and went down to find it and shut it—and so I escaped. It would probably have bashed my head in. That’s No. 1.’
Poirot did not smile.
‘Continue, Mademoiselle. Let us pass to No. 2.’
‘Oh, that’s weaker still. There’s a scrambly cliff path down to the sea. I go down that way to bathe. There’s a rock you can dive off. A boulder got dislodged somehow and came roaring down just missing me. The third thing was quite different. Something went wrong with the brakes of the car—I don’t know quite what—the garage man explained, but I didn’t follow it. Anyway if I’d gone through the gate and down the hill, they wouldn’t have held and I suppose I’d have gone slap into the Town Hall and there would have been the devil of a smash. Slight defacement of the Town Hall, complete obliteration of me. But owing to my always leaving something behind, I turned back and merely ran into the laurel hedge.’
‘And you cannot tell me what the trouble was?’
‘You can go and ask them at Mott’s Garage. They’ll know. It was something quite simple and mechanical that had been unscrewed, I think. I wondered if Ellen’s boy (my stand-by who opened the door to you, has got a small boy) had tinkered with it. Boys do like messing about with cars. Of course Ellen swore he’d never been near the car. I think something must just have worked loose in spite of what Mott said.’
‘Where is your garage, Mademoiselle?’
‘Round the other side of the house.’
‘Is it kept locked?’
Nick’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Oh! no. Of course not.’
‘Anyone could tamper with the car unobserved?’
‘Well—yes—I suppose so. But it’s so silly.’
‘No, Mademoiselle. It is not silly. You do not understand. You are in danger—grave danger. I tell it to you. I! And you do not know who I am?’
‘No?’ said