Hercule Poirot's Casebook

dutiful laughter all round.

Then the women appeared at the doorwfiy of the lounge.

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They all four eemed in the best of spirits and were talldog

laughing.

'Tony, daring, it was too divine,' cried Valentine as

dropped into chair by his side. 'The most marvellous idcv

Mrs Gold's. you all ought to have come!'

Her husbard said:

'What about a drink?'

He looked iaquiringly at the others.

'Pink gin for me, darling,' said Valentine.

'Gin and gigerbeer,' said Pamela.

'Sidecar,' d Sarah.

ped

'Right.' Clammy stood up. He pushed his own untottC for

pink gin over to his wife. 'You have this. I'll order mother

myself. What's yours, Mrs Gold?'

Mr Gold was being helped out of her coat by her busbOd'

She turned smiling:

'Can I have an orangeade, please?'

'Right you are. Orangeade.'

per

He went to,ards the door. Mrs Gold smiled up io

husband's face.

'It was so lovely, Douglas. I wish you had come.'

'I wish I had too. We'll go another night, shall we?'

They smiled at each other.

Valentine Clantry picked up the pink gin and drained

'0o! I needed that,' she sighed.

Douglas Gold took Marjorie's coat and laid it on a serte'

As he strolled back to the others he said sharply:

'Hallo, what's the matter?'

Valentine Chantry was leaning back in her chair. Her lils

were blue and her hand had gone to her heart.

'I feel - rather queer...'

She gasped, fghting for breath.

Chantry came back into the room. He quickened his sgel

'Hallo, Val, what's the matter?'

'I - I don't know ... That drink - it tasted queer...'

'The pink gin?'

Chantry swung round his face worked. He caught Douglas Gold by the shoulder.

'That was my drink...Gold, what the hell did you put in it?'.

Douglas Gold was staring at the convulsed face of the

woman in the chair. He had gone dead white.

'I - I - never '.

Valentine Chantry slipped down in her chair.

General Barnes cried out:

'Get a doctor - quick...'

Five minutes later Valentine Chantry died...

CHAPTER 6

There was no bathing the next morning.

Pamela Lyall, white-faced, clad in a simple dark cless,

clutched at Hercule Poirot in the hall and drew him into the

little writing-room.

'It's horrible!' she said. 'Horrible! You said so! You foresaw

it! Murder?

He bent his head gravely.

'Oh!' she cried Out. She stamped her foot on the floor. 'You

should have stopped it! Somehow! It couldhave been stopped?

'How?' asked Hercule Poirot.

That brought her up short for the moment.

'Couldn't you go to someone - to the police ?'

'And say what? What is there to say - before the event? That

someone has murder in their heart? I tell you, mort enfant, if one

human being is determined to kill another human being '

'You could warn the victim,' insisted Pamela.

'Sometimes,' said Hercule Poirot, 'warnings are useless.'

Pamela said slowly, 'You could warn the murderer - show him that you knew what was intended...'

Poirot nodded appreciatively.

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'Yes - a better plan, that. But even then you have to reckon

with a criminal's chief vice.'

'What is that?'

'Conceit. A criminal never believes that his crime can fail.'

'But it's absurd - stupid,' cried Pamela.'Tlae whole crime

was childish! Why, the police arrested Douglas Gold at once

last night.'

'Yes.' He added thoughtfully, 'Douglas Gold is a verY stupid

young man.'

'Incredibly stupid! I hear that they found the rest of the

poison - whatever it was ?'

'A form of stropanthin. A heart poison.'

'That they actually fo,md the rest of it in his dinner jacket

pocket?'

'Quite true.'

'Incredibly stupid? said Pamela again. 'PerhPs he eant to

get rid of it - and the shock of the wrong person Ieing poisoned

paralysed him. What a scene it would make on the stage-The

lover putting the stropanthin in the husband's tlass mad then,

just when his attention is elsewhere, the wife drinks it instead

... Think of the ghastly moment when Douglas Gold turned

round and realized he had killed the woman he loved...'

She gave a little shiver.

'Your triangle. The Eternal Triangle/ WhO would have

thought it would end like this?'

'I was afraid of it,' murmured Poirot.

Pamela turned on him.

'You warned her - Mrs Gold. Then why dicln't you warn

him as well?'

'You mean, why didn't I warn Douglas Gold?'

'No. I mean Commander Chantry. You could have told him

that he was in danger - after all, he was the real obstacle! I've

no doubt Douglas Gold relied on being able to bully his wife

into giving him a divorce - she's a meek-spirited little woman

and terribly fond of him. But Chantry is a mulisla sort of devil.

He was determined not to give Valentine her freedom.'

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

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'It would have been no good my speaking to Chantry,' he

said.

'Perhaps not,' Pamela admitted. 'He'd probably have said he

could look after himself and told you to go to the devil. But I do

feel there ought to have been something one could have done.'

'I did think,' said Poirot slowly, 'of trying to persuade

Valentine Chantry to leave the island, but she would not have

believed what I had to tell her. She was far too stupid a woman

to take in a thing like that. Pauvre fernme, her stupidity killed

her.'