The ABC Murders Read Free

tonic.”
    â€œPrécisément.”
    â€œAnd, anyway, what business is it of Japp’s? He always was an offensive kind of devil. And no sense of humour. The kind of man who laughs when a chair is pulled away just as a man is about to sit down.”
    â€œA great many people would laugh at that.”
    â€œIt’s utterly senseless.”
    â€œFrom the point of view of the man about to sit, certainly it is.”
    â€œWell,” I said, slightly recovering my temper. (I admit that I am touchy about the thinness of my hair.) “I’m sorry that anonymous letter business came to nothing.”
    â€œI have indeed been in the wrong over that. About that letter, there was, I thought, the odour of the fish. Instead a mere stupidity. Alas, I grow old and suspicious like the blind watchdog who growls when there is nothing there.”
    â€œIf I’m going to cooperate with you, we must look about for some other ‘creamy’ crime,” I said with a laugh.
    â€œYou remember your remark of the other day? If you could order a crime as one orders a dinner, what would you choose?”
    I fell in with his humour.
    â€œLet me see now. Let’s review the menu. Robbery? Forgery? No, I think not. Rather too vegetarian. It must be murder—red-blooded murder—with trimmings, of course.”
    â€œNaturally. The hors d’oeuvres .”
    â€œWho shall the victim be—man or woman? Man, I think. Some bigwig. American millionaire. Prime Minister. Newspaperproprietor. Scene of the crime—well, what’s wrong with the good old library? Nothing like it for atmosphere. As for the weapon—well, it might be a curiously twisted dagger—or some blunt instrument—a carved stone idol—”
    Poirot sighed.
    â€œOr, of course,” I said, “there’s poison—but that’s always so technical. Or a revolver shot echoing in the night. Then there must be a beautiful girl or two—”
    â€œWith auburn hair,” murmured my friend.
    â€œYour same old joke. One of the beautiful girls, of course, must be unjustly suspected—and there’s some misunderstanding between her and the young man. And then, of course, there must be some other suspects—an older woman—dark, dangerous type—and some friend or rival of the dead man’s—and a quiet secretary—dark horse—and a hearty man with a bluff manner—and a couple of discharged servants or gamekeepers or somethings—and a damn fool of a detective rather like Japp—and well—that’s about all.”
    â€œThat is your idea of the cream, eh?”
    â€œI gather you don’t agree.”
    Poirot looked at me sadly.
    â€œYou have made there a very pretty résumé of nearly all the detective stories that have ever been written.”
    â€œWell,” I said. “What would you order?”
    Poirot closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. His voice came purringly from between his lips.
    â€œA very simple crime. A crime with no complications. A crime of quiet domestic life…very unimpassioned—very intime. ”
    â€œHow can a crime be intime? ”
    â€œSupposing,” murmured Poirot, “that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd man out, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is dummy, has gone over and killed him, and intent on the play of the hand, the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it? ”
    â€œWell,” I said. “I can’t see any excitement in that!”
    Poirot threw me a glance of reproof.
    â€œNo, because there are no curiously twisted daggers, no blackmail, no emerald that is the stolen eye of a god, no untraceable Eastern poisons. You have the melodramatic soul, Hastings. You would like, not one murder, but a series of