His eyes twinkling, the newcomer advanced toward Mrs Lytcham Roche.
‘My apologies, madame,’ he said. ‘I am, I fear, a few minutes late.’
‘Oh, not at all!’ murmured Mrs Lytcham Roche vaguely. ‘Not at all, Mr—’ She paused.
‘Poirot, madame. Hercule Poirot.’
He heard behind him a very soft ‘Oh’—a gasp rather than an articulate word—a woman’s ejaculation. Perhaps he was flattered.
‘You knew I was coming?’ he murmured gently. ‘N’est ce pas, madame? Your husband told you.’
‘Oh—oh, yes,’ said Mrs Lytcham Roche, her manner unconvincing in the extreme. ‘I mean, I suppose so. I am so terribly unpractical, M. Poirot. I never remember anything. But fortunately Digby sees to everything.’
‘My train, I fear, was late,’ said M. Poirot. ‘An accident on the line in front of us.’
‘Oh,’ cried Joan, ‘so that’s why dinner was put off.’
His eye came quickly round to her—a most uncannily discerning eye.
‘That is something out of the usual—eh?’
‘I really can’t think—’ began Mrs Lytcham Roche, and then stopped. ‘I mean,’ she went on confusedly, ‘it’s so odd. Hubert never—’
Poirot’s eyes swept rapidly round the group.
‘M. Lytcham Roche is not down yet?’
‘No, and it’s so extraordinary—’ She looked appealingly at Geoffrey Keene.
‘Mr Lytcham Roche is the soul of punctuality,’ explained Keene. ‘He has not been late for dinner for—well, I don’t know that he was ever late before.’
To a stranger the situation must have been ludicrous—the perturbed faces and the general consternation.
‘I know,’ said Mrs Lytcham Roche with the air of one solving a problem. ‘I shall ring for Digby.’
She suited the action to the word.
The butler came promptly.
‘Digby,’ said Mrs Lytcham Roche, ‘your master. Is he—’
As was customary with her, she did not finish her sentence. It was clear that the butler did not expect her to do so. He replied promptly and with understanding.
‘Mr Lytcham Roche came down at five minutes to eight and went into the study, madam.’
‘Oh!’ She paused. ‘You don’t think—I mean—he heard the gong?’
‘I think he must have—the gong is immediately outside the study door.’
‘Yes, of course, of course,’ said Mrs Lytcham Roche more vaguely than ever.
‘Shall I inform him, madam, that dinner is ready?’
‘Oh, thank you, Digby. Yes, I think—yes, yes, I should.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Lytcham Roche to her guests as the butler withdrew, ‘what I would do without Digby!’
A pause followed.
Then Digby re-entered the room. His breath was coming a little faster than is considered good form in a butler.
‘Excuse me, madam—the study door is locked.’
It was then that M. Hercule Poirot took command of the situation.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we had better go to the study.’
He led the way and everyone followed. His assumption of authority seemed perfectly natural. he was no longer a rather comic-looking guest. He was a personality and master of the situation.
He led the way out into the hall, past the staircase, past the great clock, past the recess in which stood the gong. Exactly opposite that recess was a closed door.
He tapped on it, first gently, then with increasing violence. But there was no reply. Very nimbly he dropped to his knees and applied his eye to the keyhole. He rose and looked round.
‘Messieurs,’ he said, ‘we must break open this door. Immediately!’
As before no one questioned his authority. Geoffrey Keene and Gregory Barling were the two biggest men. They attacked the door under Poirot’s directions. It was no easy matter. The doors of Lytcham Close were solid affairs—no modern jerry-building here. It resisted the attack valiantly, but at last it gave before the united attack of the men and crashed inward.
The house party hesitated in the doorway. They saw what they had subconsciously feared to see. Facing them was the window. On the left, between the door and the window, was a big writing table. Sitting, not at the table, but sideways to it, was a man—a big man—slouched forward in the chair. His back was to them and his face to the window, but his position told the tale. His right hand hung limply down and below it, on the carpet, was a small shining pistol.
Poirot spoke sharply to Gregory Barling.
‘Take Mrs Lytcham Roche away—and the other two ladies.’
The other nodded comprehendingly. He laid a hand on his hostess’s arm. She shivered.
‘He has shot himself,’ she murmured. ‘Horrible!’ With another shiver she permitted him to lead her away. The two girls followed.
Poirot came forward into the room, the two young men behind him.
He knelt down by the body, motioning them to keep back a little.
He found the bullet hole on the right side of the head. It had passed out the other side and had evidently struck a mirror hanging on the left-hand wall, since this was shivered. On the writing table was a sheet of paper, blank save for the word Sorry scrawled across it in hesitating, shaky writing.
Poirot’s eyes darted back to the door.
‘The key is not in the lock,’ he said. ‘I wonder—’
His hand slid into the dead man’s pocket.
‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘At least I think so. Have the goodness to try it, monsieur?’
Geoffrey Keene took it from him and tried it in the lock.
‘That’s it, all right.’
‘And the window?’
Harry Dalehouse strode across to it.
‘Shut.’
‘You permit?’ Very swiftly, Poirot scrambled to his feet and joined the other at the window. It was a long French window. Poirot opened it, stood a minute scrutinizing the grass just in front of it, then closed it again.
‘My friends,’ he said, ‘we must telephone for the police. Until they have come and satisfied themselves that it is truly suicide nothing must be touched. Death can only have occurred about a quarter of an hour ago.’
‘I know,’ said Harry hoarsely. ‘We heard the shot.’
‘Comment? What is that you say?’
Harry explained with the help of Geoffrey Keene. As he finished speaking, Barling reappeared.
Poirot repeated what he had said before, and while Keene went off to telephone, Poirot requested Barling to give him a few minutes’ interview.
They went into a small morning room, leaving Digby on guard outside the study door, while Harry went off to find the ladies.
‘You were, I understand, an intimate friend of M. Lytcham Roche,’ began Poirot. ‘It is for that reason that