‘I think you do,’ Mortimer took up a second teacup and filled a second test-tube. He fixed a red label to one and a blue label to the other.
‘The red-labelled one,’ he said, ‘contains tea from your daughter Charlotte’s cup, the other from your daughter Magdalen’s. I am prepared to swear that in the first I shall find four or five times the amount of arsenic than in the latter.’
‘You are mad,’ said Dinsmead.
‘Oh! dear me, no. I am nothing of the kind. You told me today, Mr Dinsmead, that Magdalen is your daughter. Charlotte was the child you adopted, the child who was so like her mother that when I held a miniature of that mother in my hand today I mistook it for one of Charlotte herself. Your own daughter was to inherit the fortune, and since it might be impossible to keep your supposed daughter Charlotte out of sight, and someone who knew the mother might have realized the truth of the resemblance, you decided on, well—a pinch of white arsenic at the bottom of a teacup.’
Mrs Dinsmead gave a sudden high cackle, rocking herself to and fro in violent hysterics.
‘Tea,’ she squeaked, ‘that’s what he said, tea, not lemonade.’
‘Hold your tongue, can’t you?’ roared her husband wrathfully.
Mortimer saw Charlotte looking at him, wide-eyed, wondering, across the table. Then he felt a hand on his arm, and Magdalen dragged him out of earshot.
‘Those,’ she pointed at the phials—‘Daddy. You won’t—’
Mortimer laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘you don’t believe in the past. I do. I believe in the atmosphere of this house. If he had not come to it, perhaps—I say perhaps—your father might not have conceived the plan he did. I keep these two test-tubes to safeguard Charlotte now and in the future. Apart from that, I shall do nothing, in gratitude, if you will, to that hand that wrote S.O.S.’
THE ADVENTURE OF THE EGYPTIAN TOMB (#u72d0c14f-6048-54d2-bc79-9d8c3b113e8a)
I have always considered that one of the most thrilling and dramatic of the many adventures I have shared with Poirot was that of our investigation into the strange series of deaths which followed upon the discovery and opening of the Tomb of King Men-her-Ra.
Hard upon the discovery of the Tomb of Tutankh-Amen by Lord Carnarvon, Sir John Willard and Mr Bleibner of New York, pursuing their excavations not far from Cairo, in the vicinity of the Pyramids of Gizeh, came unexpectedly on a series of funeral chambers. The greatest interest was aroused by their discovery. The Tomb appeared to be that of King Men-her-Ra, one of those shadowy kings of the Eighth Dynasty, when the Old Kingdom was falling to decay. Little was known about this period, and the discoveries were fully reported in the newspapers.
An event soon occurred which took a profound hold on the public mind. Sir John Willard died quite suddenly of heart failure.
The more sensational newspapers immediately took the opportunity of reviving all the old superstitious stories connected with the ill luck of certain Egyptian treasures. The unlucky Mummy at the British Museum, that hoary old chestnut, was dragged out with fresh zest, was quietly denied by the Museum, but nevertheless enjoyed all its usual vogue.
A fortnight later Mr Bleibner died of acute blood poisoning, and a few days afterwards a nephew of his shot himself in New York. The ‘Curse of Men-her-Ra’ was the talk of the day, and the magic power of dead-and-gone Egypt was exalted to a fetish point.
It was then that Poirot received a brief note from Lady Willard, widow of the dead archaeologist, asking him to go and see her at her house in Kensington Square. I accompanied him.
Lady Willard was a tall, thin woman, dressed in deep mourning. Her haggard face bore eloquent testimony to her recent grief.
‘It is kind of you to have come so promptly, Monsieur Poirot.’
‘I am at your service, Lady Willard. You wished to consult me?’
‘You are, I am aware, a detective, but it is not only as a detective that I wish to consult you. You are a man of original views, I know, you have imagination, experience of the world, tell me, Monsieur Poirot, what are your views on the supernatural?’
Poirot hesitated for a moment before he replied. He seemed to be considering. Finally he said:
‘Let us not misunderstand each other, Lady Willard. It is not a general question that you are asking me there. It has a personal application, has it not? You are referring obliquely to the death of your late husband?’
‘That is so,’ she admitted.
‘You want me to investigate the circumstances of his death?’
‘I want you to ascertain for me exactly how much is newspaper chatter, and how much may be said to be founded on fact? Three deaths, Monsieur Poirot—each one explicable taken by itself, but taken together surely an almost unbelievable coincidence, and all within a month of the opening of the tomb! It may be mere superstition, it may be some potent curse from the past that operates in ways undreamed of by modern science. The fact remains—three deaths! And I am afraid, Monsieur Poirot, horribly afraid. It may not yet be the end.’
‘For whom do you fear?’
‘For my son. When the news of my husband’s death came I was ill. My son, who has just come down from Oxford, went out there. He brought the—the body home, but now he has gone out again, in spite of my prayers and entreaties. He is so fascinated by the work that he intends to take his father’s place and carry on the system of excavations. You may think me a foolish, credulous woman, but, Monsieur Poirot, I am afraid. Supposing that the spirit of the dead King is not yet appeased? Perhaps to you I seem to be talking nonsense—’
‘No, indeed, Lady Willard,’ said Poirot quickly. ‘I, too, believe in the force of superstition, one of the greatest forces the world has ever known.’
I looked at him in surprise. I should never have credited Poirot with being superstitious. But the little man was obviously in earnest.
‘What you really demand is that I shall protect your son? I will do my utmost to keep him from harm.’
‘Yes, in the ordinary way, but against an occult influence?’
‘In volumes of the Middle Ages, Lady Willard, you will find many ways of counteracting black magic. Perhaps they knew more than we moderns with all our boasted science. Now let us come to facts, that I may have guidance. Your husband had always been a devoted Egyptologist, hadn’t he?’
‘Yes, from his youth upwards. He was one of the greatest living authorities upon the subject.’
‘But Mr Bleibner, I understand, was more or less of an amateur?’
‘Oh, quite. He was a very wealthy man who dabbled freely in any subject that happened to take his fancy. My husband managed to interest him in Egyptology, and it was his money that was so useful in financing the expedition.’
‘And the nephew? What do you know of his tastes? Was he with the party at all?’
‘I do not think so. In fact I never knew of his existence till I read of his death in the paper. I do not think he and Mr Bleibner can have been at all intimate. He never spoke of having any relations.’
‘Who are the other members of the party?’
‘Well, there’s Dr Tosswill, a minor official connected with the British Museum; Mr Schneider of the Metropolitan Museum in New York; a young American secretary; Dr Ames, who accompanies the expedition in his professional capacity; and Hassan, my husband’s devoted native servant.’
‘Do you remember the name of the American secretary?’
‘Harper, I think, but I cannot be sure. He had not been with Mr Bleibner very long, I know. He was a very pleasant young fellow.’
‘Thank you, Lady Willard.’
‘If there is anything else—’
‘For the moment, nothing. Leave it now in my hands, and be assured that I will do all that is humanly possible to protect your son.’
They were not exactly reassuring words, and I observed Lady Willard wince as he uttered them. Yet, at the same time, the fact that he had not pooh-poohed her fears seemed in itself to be a relief to her.
For my part I had never before suspected that Poirot had so deep a vein of superstition in his nature. I tackled him on the subject as we went homewards. His manner was grave and earnest.
‘But yes, Hastings. I believe in these things. You must not underrate the force of superstition.’
‘What are we going to do about it?’
‘Toujours pratique, the good Hastings! Eh bien, to begin with we are going to cable to New York for fuller details of young Mr Bleibner’s death.’
