Hercule Poirots casebook. Agatha Christie
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you mean the murderer, or Count Foscatini?”
“The latter was undoubtedly an orderly gentleman. After imploring help and announcing his approaching demise, he carefully hung up the telephone receiver.”
I stared at Poirot. His words now and his recent inquiries gave me the glimmering of an idea.
“You suspect poison?” I breathed. ‘The blow on the head was a blind.”
Poirot merely smiled.
We reentered the flat to find the local inspector of police had arrived with two constables. He was inclined to resent our appearance, but Poirot calmed him with the mention of our Scotland Yard friend, Inspector Japp, and we were accorded a grudging permission to remain. It was a lucky thing we were, for we had not been back fI have minutes before an agitated middle-aged man came rushing into the room with every appearance of grief and agitation.
This was Graves, valet-butler to the late Count Foscatini. The story he had to tell was a sensational one.
On the previous morning, two gentlemen had called to see his master. They were Italians, and the elder of the two, a man of about forty, gave his name as Signor Ascanio. The younger was a well-dressed lad of about twenty-four. port upon the table and brought in the coffee his master told him that he might have the evening off.
“Was that a usual proceeding of his when he had guests?” asked the inspector.
“No, sir, it wasn’t. That’s what made me think it must be some business of a very unusual kind that he was going to discuss with these gentlemen.”
That finished Graves's story. He had gone out about 8:30, and, meeting a friend, had accompanied him to the Metropolitan Music Hall in Edge ware Road.
Nobody had seen the two men leave, but the time of the murder was fixed clearly enough at 8:47. A small clock on the writing table had been swept off by Foscatini’s arm, and had stopped at that hour, which agreed with Miss Rider’s telephone summons.
The police surgeon had made his examination of the body, and it was now lying on the couch. I saw the face for the first time—the olI have complexion, the long nose, the luxuriant black mustache, and the full red lips drawn back from the dazzlingly white teeth. Not altogether a pleasant face.
"Well” said the inspector, refastening his notebook. "The case seems clear enough. The only difficulty will be to lay our hands on this Signor Ascanio. I suppose his address is not in the dead man’s pocket book by any chance?”
As Poirot had said, the late Foscatini was an orderly man. Neatly
written in small, precise handwriting was the inscription, “Signor Paolo Ascanio, Grosvenor Hotel.”
The inspector busied himself with the telephone, then turned to us with a grin.
“Just in time. Our fine gentleman was off to catch the boat train to the Continent. Well, gentlemen, that’s’ about all we can do here. It's a bad business, but straightforward enough. One of these Italian vendetta things, as likely as not”
Thus airily dismissed, we found our way downstairs. Dr. Hawker was full of excitement.
“Like the beginning of a novel, eh? Real exciting stuflf. Wouldn't believe it if you read about it.”
Poirot did not speak. He was very thoughtful. All the evening he had hardly opened his lips.
“What says the master detective, eh?” asked Hawker, clapping him on the back. “Nothing to work your gray cells over this time.”
“You think not?”
“What could there be?”
“Well, for example, there is the window.”
“The window? But it was fastened. Nobody could have got out or in that way. I noticed it specially”
“And why were you able to notice it?”
The doctor looked puzzled. Poirot hastened to explain.
“t is to the curtains I refer. They were not drawn. A little odd, that. And then there was the coffee. It was very black coffee.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Very black,” repeated Poirot. “In conjunction with that let vis remember that very little of the rice was eaten, and we get — what?”
“Moonshine,” laughed the doctor. “You’re pulling my leg.”
"Never do I pull the leg. Hastings here knows that I am perfectly serious.”
“I don’t know what you are getting at all the same,” I confessed. “You don’t suspect the manservant, do you? He might have been in with the gang, and put some dope in the coffee. I suppose they’ll test his alibi?”
“Without doubt, my friend; but it is the alibi of Signor Ascanio that interests me.”
“You think he has an alibi?”
“That is just what worries me. I have no doubt that we shall soon be enlightened on that point”
The Daily Newsmonger enabled us to become conversant with succeeding events.
Signor Ascanio was arrested and charged with the murder of Count Foscatini. When arrested, he denied knowing the count, and declared he had never been near Regent's Court either on the evening of the crime or on the previous morning. The younger man had disappeared entirely. Signor Ascanio had arrived alone at the Grosvenor Hotel from the Continent two days before the murder. All efforts to trace the second man failed.
Ascanio, however, was not sent for trial. No less a personage than the Italian ambassador himself came forward and testified at the police court proceedings that Ascanio had been with him at the embassy from eight till nine that evening. The prisoner was discharged. Naturally, a lot of people thought that the crime was a political one, and was being deliberately hushed up.
Poirot had taken a keen interest in all these points. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised when he suddenly informed me one morning that he was expecting a visitor at eleven o’clock, and that that visitor was none other than Ascanio himself.
“He wishes to consult you?”
“I wish to consult him.”
“What about?”
“The Regent’s Court murder.”
“You are going to prove that he did it?”
“A man cannot be tried twice for murder, Hastings. Endeavor to have the common sense. Ah, that is our friend’s ring.”
A few minutes later Signor Ascanio was ushered in—a small, thin man with a secret have and furtive glance in his eyes. He remained standing, darting suspicious glances from one to the other of us. “Monsieur Poirot?”
My little friend tapped himself gently on the chest.
“Be seated, signor. You received my note. I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. In some small measure you can aid me. Let us commence. You一in company with a friend一visited the late Count Foscatini on the morning of Tuesday the 9th—”
The Italian made an angry gesture.
“I did nothing of the sort. I have sworn in court—、’
“Precisement一and I have a little idea that you have sworn falsely." “You threaten me? Bah! I have nothing to fear from you. I have been acquited.”
Exactly, and as I am not an imbecile, it is not with the gallows I threaten you—but with publicity. Publicity! I see that you do not like the word. I had an idea that you would not. My little ideas, you know, they are very valuable to me. Come, signor, your only chance is to be frank with me. I do not ask to know whose indiscretions brought you to England. I know this much, you came for the especial purpose of seeing Count Foscatini.”
“Hewasnotacount”