Poirot’s Early Cases by Agatha Christie

She said: ‘John—? Oh! Good morning, M. Poirot—have you seen John?’

‘He’s on the starboard deck, madame. Shall I—?’

She arrested him with a gesture. ‘I’ll sit here a minute.’ She sat down in a regal fashion in the chair opposite him. From the distance she had looked a possible twenty-eight. Now, in spite of her exquisitely made-up face, her delicately plucked eyebrows, she looked not her actual forty-nine years, but a possible fifty-five. Her eyes were a hard pale blue with tiny pupils.

‘I was sorry not to have seen you at dinner last night,’ she said. ‘It was just a shade choppy, of course—’

‘Précisément,’ said Poirot with feeling.

‘Luckily, I am an excellent sailor,’ said Mrs Clapperton. ‘I say luckily, because, with my weak heart, seasickness would probably be the death of me.’

‘You have the weak heart, madame?’

‘Yes, I have to be most careful. I must not overtire myself! All the specialists say so!’ Mrs Clapperton had embarked on the—to her—ever-fascinating topic of her health. ‘John, poor darling, wears himself out trying to prevent me from doing too much. I live so intensely, if you know what I mean, M. Poirot?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘He always says to me: “Try to be more of a vegetable, Adeline.” But I can’t. Life was meant to be lived, I feel. As a matter of fact I wore myself out as a girl in the war. My hospital—you’ve heard of my hospital? Of course I had nurses and matrons and all that—but I actually ran it.’ She sighed.

‘Your vitality is marvellous, dear lady,’ said Poirot, with the slightly mechanical air of one responding to his cue.

Mrs Clapperton gave a girlish laugh.

‘Everyone tells me how young I am! It’s absurd. I never try to pretend I’m a day less than forty-three,’ she continued with slightly mendacious candour, ‘but a lot of people find it hard to believe. “You’re so alive, Adeline,” they say to me. But really, M. Poirot, what would one be if one wasn’t alive?’

‘Dead,’ said Poirot.

Mrs Clapperton frowned. The reply was not to her liking. The man, she decided, was trying to be funny. She got up and said coldly: ‘I must find John.’

As she stepped through the door she dropped her handbag. It opened and the contents flew far and wide. Poirot rushed gallantly to the rescue. It was some few minutes before the lipsticks, vanity boxes, cigarette case and lighter and other odds and ends were collected. Mrs Clapperton thanked him politely, then she swept down the deck and said, ‘John—’

Colonel Clapperton was still deep in conversation with Miss Henderson. He swung round and came quickly to meet his wife. He bent over her protectively. Her deck chair—was it in the right place? Wouldn’t it be better—? His manner was courteous—full of gentle consideration. Clearly an adored wife spoilt by an adoring husband.

Miss Ellie Henderson looked out at the horizon as though something about it rather disgusted her.

Standing in the smoking-room door, Poirot looked on.

A hoarse quavering voice behind him said: ‘I’d take a hatchet to that woman if I were her husband.’ The old gentleman known disrespectfully among the younger set on board as the Grandfather of All the Tea Planters, had just shuffled in. ‘Boy!’ he called. ‘Get me a whisky peg.’

Poirot stooped to retrieve a torn scrap of notepaper, an overlooked item from the contents of Mrs Clapperton’s bag. Part of a prescription, he noted, containing digitalin. He put it in his pocket, meaning to restore it to Mrs Clapperton later.

‘Yes,’ went on the aged passenger. ‘Poisonous woman. I remember a woman like that in Poona. In ’87 that was.’

‘Did anyone take a hatchet to her?’ inquired Poirot.

The old gentleman shook his head sadly.

‘Worried her husband into his grave within the year. Clapperton ought to assert himself. Gives his wife her head too much.’

‘She holds the purse strings,’ said Poirot gravely.

‘Ha, ha!’ chuckled the old gentleman. ‘You’ve put the matter in a nutshell. Holds the purse strings. Ha, ha!’

Two girls burst into the smoking-room. One had a round face with freckles and dark hair streaming out in a windswept confusion, the other had freckles and curly chestnut hair.