Poirot Investigates, Agatha Christie [websites to read books for free TXT] 📗

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It was a week later. Beneath our feet was the golden sand of the desert. The hot sun poured down overhead. Poirot, the picture of misery, wilted by my side. The little man was not a good traveller. Our four days’ voyage from Marseilles had been one long agony to him. He had landed at Alexandria the wraith of his former self, even his usual neatness had deserted him. We had arrived in Cairo and had driven out at once to the Mena House Hotel, right in the shadow of the Pyramids.

The charm of Egypt had laid hold of me. Not so Poirot. Dressed precisely the same as in London, he carried a small clothes-brush in his pocket and waged an unceasing war on the dust which accumulated on his dark apparel.

“And my boots,” he wailed. “Regard them, Hastings. My boots, of the neat patent leather, usually so smart and shining. See, the sand is inside them, which is painful, and outside them, which outrages the eyesight. Also the heat, it causes my moustaches to become limp—but limp!”

“Look at the Sphinx,” I urged. “Even I can feel the mystery and the charm it exhales.”

Poirot looked at it discontentedly.

“It has not the air happy,” he declared. “How could it, half-buried in sand in that untidy fashion. Ah, this cursed sand!”

“Come, now, there’s a lot of sand in Belgium,” I reminded him, mindful of a holiday spent at Knocke-sur-mer in the midst of “les dunes impeccables” as the guide-book had phrased it.

“Not in Brussels,” declared Poirot. He gazed at the Pyramids thoughtfully. “It is true that they, at least, are of a shape solid and geometrical, but their surface is of an unevenness most unpleasing. And the palm-trees I like them not. Not even do they plant them in rows!”

I cut short his lamentations, by suggesting that we should start for the camp. We were to ride there on camels, and the beasts were patiently kneeling, waiting for us to mount, in charge of several picturesque boys headed by a voluble dragoman.

I pass over the spectacle of Poirot on a camel. He started by groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar. In the end, he descended ignominiously and finished the journey on a diminutive donkey. I must admit that a trotting camel is no joke for the amateur. I was stiff for several days.

At last we neared the scene of the excavations. A sunburnt man with a grey beard, in white clothes and wearing a helmet, came to meet us.

“Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings? We received your cable. I’m sorry that there was no one to meet you in Cairo. An unforeseen event occurred which completely disorganized our plans.”

Poirot paled. His hand, which had stolen to his clothes-brush, stayed its course.

“Not another death?” he breathed.

“Yes.”

“Sir Guy Willard?” I cried.

“No, Captain Hastings. My American colleague, Mr. Schneider.”

“And the cause?” demanded Poirot.

“Tetanus.”

I blanched. All around me I seemed to feel an atmosphere of evil, subtle and menacing. A horrible thought flashed across me. Supposing I were the next?

“Mon Dieu,” said Poirot, in a very low voice, “I do not understand this. It is horrible. Tell me, monsieur, there is no doubt that it was tetanus?”

“I believe not. But Dr. Ames will tell you more than I can do.”

“Ah, of course, you are not the doctor.”

“My name is Tosswill.”

This, then, was the British expert described by Lady Willard as being a minor official at the British Museum. There was something at once grave and steadfast about him that took my fancy.

“If you will come with me,” continued Dr. Tosswill, “I will take you to Sir Guy Willard. He was most anxious to be informed as soon as you should arrive.”

We were taken across the camp to a large tent. Dr. Tosswill lifted up the flap and we entered. Three men were sitting inside.

“Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings have arrived, Sir Guy,” said Tosswill.

The youngest of the three men jumped up and came forward to greet us. There was a certain impulsiveness in his manner which reminded me of his mother. He was not nearly so sunburnt as the others, and that fact, coupled with a certain haggardness round the eyes, made him look older than his twenty-two years. He was clearly endeavouring to bear up under a severe mental strain.

He introduced his two companions, Dr. Ames, a capable looking man of thirty odd, with a touch of greying hair at the temples, and Mr. Harper, the secretary, a pleasant lean young man wearing the national insignia of horn-rimmed spectacles.

After a few minutes’ desultory conversation the latter went out, and Dr. Tosswill followed him. We were left alone with Sir Guy and Dr. Ames.

“Please ask any questions you want to ask, Monsieur Poirot,” said Willard. “We are utterly dumbfounded at this strange series of disasters, but it isn’t—it can’t be, anything but coincidence.”

There was a nervousness about his manner which rather belied the words. I saw that Poirot was studying him keenly.

“Your heart is really in this work, Sir Guy?”

“Rather. No matter what happens, or what comes of it, the work is going on. Make up your mind to that.”

Poirot wheeled round on the other.

“What have you to say to that, monsieur le docteur?”

“Well,” drawled the doctor, “I’m not for quitting myself.”

Poirot made one of those expressive grimaces of his.

“Then, évidemment, we must find out just how we stand. When did Mr. Schneider’s death take place?”

“Three days ago.”

“You are sure it was tetanus?”

“Dead sure.”

“It couldn’t have been a case of strychnine poisoning, for instance?”

“No, Monsieur Poirot. I see what you’re getting at. But it was a clear case of tetanus.”

“Did you not inject anti-serum?”

“Certainly we did,” said the doctor dryly. “Every conceivable thing that could be done was tried.”

“Had you the anti-serum with you?”

“No. We procured it from Cairo.”

“Have there been any other cases of tetanus in the camp?”

“No, not one.”

“Are you certain that the death of Mr. Bleibner was not due to tetanus?”

“Absolutely plumb certain. He had a scratch upon his thumb which became poisoned, and septicæmia set in. It sounds pretty much the same to a layman, I dare say, but the two things are entirely different.”

“Then we have four deaths—all totally dissimilar, one heart failure, one blood poisoning, one suicide and one tetanus.”

“Exactly, Monsieur Poirot.”

“Are you certain that there is nothing which might link the four together?”

“I don’t quite understand you?”

“I will put it plainly. Was any act committed by those four men which might seem to denote disrespect to the spirit of Men-her-Ra?”

The doctor gazed at Poirot in astonishment.

“You’re talking through your hat, Monsieur Poirot. Surely you’ve not been guyed into believing all that fool talk?”

“Absolute nonsense,” muttered Willard angrily.

Poirot remained placidly immovable, blinking a little out of his green cat’s eyes.

“So you do not believe it, monsieur le docteur?”

“No, sir, I do not,” declared the doctor emphatically. “I am a scientific man, and I believe only what science teaches.”

“Was there no science then in Ancient Egypt?” asked Poirot softly. He did not wait for a reply, and indeed Dr. Ames seemed rather at a loss for the moment. “No, no, do not answer me, but tell me this. What do the native workmen think?”

“I guess,” said Dr. Ames, “that, where white folk lose their heads, natives aren’t going to be far behind. I’ll admit that they’re getting what you might call scared—but they’ve no cause to be.”

“I wonder,” said Poirot non-committally.

Sir Guy leant forward.

“Surely,” he cried incredulously, “you cannot believe in—oh, but the thing’s absurd! You can know nothing of Ancient Egypt if you think that.”

For answer Poirot produced a little book from his pocket—an ancient tattered volume. As he held it out I saw its title, The Magic of the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Then, wheeling round, he strode out of the tent. The doctor stared at me.

“What is his little idea?”

The phrase, so familiar on Poirot’s lips, made me smile as it came from another.

“I don’t know exactly,” I confessed. “He’s got some plan of exorcizing the evil spirits, I believe.”

I went in search of Poirot, and found him talking to the lean-faced young man who had been the late Mr. Bleibner’s secretary.

“No,” Mr. Harper was saying, “I’ve only been six months with the expedition. Yes, I knew Mr. Bleibner’s affairs pretty well.”

“Can you recount to me anything concerning his nephew?”

“He turned up here one day, not a bad-looking fellow. I’d never met him before, but some of the others had—Ames, I think, and Schneider. The old man wasn’t at all pleased to see him. They were at it in no time, hammer and tongs. ‘Not a cent,’ the old man shouted. ‘Not one cent now or when I’m dead. I intend to leave my money to the furtherance of my life’s work. I’ve been talking it over with Mr. Schneider to-day.’ And a bit more of the same. Young Bleibner lit out for Cairo right away.”

“Was he in perfectly good health at the time?”

“The old man?”

“No, the young one.”

“I believe he did mention there was something wrong with him. But it couldn’t have been anything serious, or I should have remembered.”

“One thing more, has Mr. Bleibner left a will?”

“So far as we know, he has not.”

“Are you remaining with the expedition, Mr. Harper?”

“No, sir, I am not. I’m for New York as soon as I can square up things here. You may laugh if you like, but I’m not going to be this blasted old Men-her-Ra’s next victim. He’ll get me if I stop here.”

The young man wiped the perspiration from his brow.

Poirot turned away. Over his shoulder he said with a peculiar smile:

“Remember, he got one of his victims in New York.”

“Oh, hell!” said Mr. Harper forcibly.

“That young man is nervous,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “He is on the edge, but absolutely on the edge.”

I glanced at Poirot curiously, but his enigmatical smile told me nothing. In company with Sir Guy Willard and Dr. Tosswill we were taken round the excavations. The principal finds had been removed to Cairo, but some of the tomb furniture was extremely interesting. The enthusiasm of the young baronet was obvious, but I fancied that I detected a